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Free Weekly Episode - Juventus Hero Locatelli Stuns Milan, Thuram & Lautaro On Fire, Kvaradona Is BACK, Mourinho Goes Michael Corleone, Betting Circus, UCL Preview & Much More (Ep. 370)
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From Manuel Locatelli the hero when Juventus beat AC Milan in the most Max Allegri manner ever, Moise Kean good form continues, Rafael Leao only threat for Milan in attack as Malich Thiaw red card conditioned the game, Olivier Giroud goal drought, another day another goal for Marcus Thuram and Lautaro Martinez as Inter see off Torino, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is BACK when Napoli smash Hellas Verona, José Mourinho goes full on Michael Corleone as Roma beat Monza at the death, Sassuolo's defensive howlers as Luis Alberto puts on a show for Lazio, to Champions League previews where Rossoneri play PSG and the circus in Italian football due to media hyping up convicted criminal Fabrizio Corona, as well as Baggio and Premface of the week and much, much more when Nima and Carlo break down all the main talking points from a jam-packed weekend in Italian football.
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Transcript
Introduction and Serie A Weekend Preview
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Italian football podcast. Hello everybody and welcome to the Italian football podcast. I'm Kylo Garganese joined as always by Nima Tavalli and on today's show we will review all of the weekend Serie A action as it returns after the international break.
Juventus vs Milan Match Highlights
00:00:20
Speaker
The big game of the weekend sees Juventus stun 10-man Milan at San Siro
00:00:27
Speaker
Inter go top of Serie A again after beating Toreno 3-0 as Taram and Lautaro can't stop storing. Clicha Kolelak's scale is well and truly back after he destroyed Verona for Napoli. Luis Alberto puts on a show for Lazio. Roma win late against Monza with Jose Mourinho putting on a real show himself and going full Michael Corleone.
Bologna's European Prospects and Scandal Discussion
00:00:52
Speaker
Bologna threaten Europe and also the betting scandal rumbles on so we look at how Italian football has has turned into to a circus really. We'll also preview the Champions League match day three that is on this midweek.
Support and Sponsorship Details
00:01:10
Speaker
For all our first time listeners, this is our free weekly episode that we do every Monday, reviewing the weekend Seri action and all the biggest talking points in Italian football. If you want to support the Italian football podcast and receive all of our content that we do throughout the week, including a weekly Q&A episode every Tuesday where we answer all of the questions from our patrons, plus the weekly Thursday midweek review show, plus interviews, post match reaction and much, much more, then go to patreon.com slash TIP and become a subscriber for just $2.99 a month.
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00:02:02
Speaker
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00:03:05
Speaker
It's time to share your story.
00:03:08
Speaker
Okay,
Juventus Tactical Analysis
00:03:09
Speaker
right. So let's start off with the big game Milan against Juventus at San Siro, the Sunday evening match. Juventus win 1-0 against 10 men Milan. To start with, let's discuss this from the Juventus point of view. So I'll kick things off as the resident, Juventus. And the resident, Allegri, hate her. I'm really curious to see what you're going to say here today. Because
00:03:36
Speaker
You were and that was the most allegory win ever. So I'm really keen to hear what you think. I guess so. I guess so. I mean, first of all, I think if you take it based on the chances itself, I think you've enters definitely deserve to win the game. And that's shown out.
00:03:53
Speaker
by the XG. I think Milan had an XG of 0.3 and the Juventus was pushing on, I think, 1.4. So based on the chances they deserve to win, of course, the game was greatly conditioned by two massive events. First of all, the red card before half time. Up until that point,
00:04:13
Speaker
I mean, Juventus barely got out of their half until that point. And obviously, the winner was very, very fortunate. It was a huge, huge deflection. And without that, maybe the game would have ended goalless. So of course, the game was conditioned. But I think that there are, from a positive point of view from Juventus,
00:04:36
Speaker
You know, I thought that at the same time, Milan didn't create anything. Even 11 against 11, Milan had one chance, which was the Giroud charts,
Player Performance and Tactical Critique
00:04:46
Speaker
which was a fantastic save from Chesney. But apart from that, Milan did nothing. They did nothing with 11 men in terms of actual
00:04:53
Speaker
opportunities, that is, obviously, they dominated the territory in the possession until the red card, but they didn't create anything. So I thought Juventus were organised, they were compact. I thought that Allegri problem solved the Raphael issue, which was the Milan's only threat. He was given Gatti some problems in the opening kind of quarter of the game and Allegri problem solved. He pushed Weyer further back to help with
00:05:22
Speaker
helped Gatti to go 2-1-1 and also Mckenny was coming over there as well and almost tripling up on Liao. I think that from an organisational defensive point of view, Juventus did well. The defence was very solid and since that Sassuolo aberration, Juventus have got four clean sheets in a row now and they've got six clean sheets in nine games this season.
00:05:49
Speaker
You can clearly see that the defence is working at the moment. But yeah, we have to acknowledge that the game was conditioned on the red card.
00:06:00
Speaker
Look, if we're looking at this from a Yuva point of view, because I got quite a bit to say about Milan as well, I made quite a bit of notes because I was really studying this game. I loved this game. Of course you did. No, this was a tactical, this was such a beautiful tactical battle. I mean, if we discard the
00:06:19
Speaker
some of the poor technical mistakes. Yeah, I want to come to that at the end. I want to try and look at this more from a positive book. If we discard the technical quality deficiencies that were evident for everyone to see,
00:06:35
Speaker
But if we look at this from a from a strictly tactical point of view and two
Serie A Technical Quality Concerns
00:06:39
Speaker
managers, two very good managers, two managers who tactically were playing, it was a chess match. It really was. It was very tight. The way that Pioli in the beginning had Milan pressing and, you know, the classic purely under Milan under purely situation where they press high, they they want to impose themselves on the opponent.
00:07:03
Speaker
and a Juve who, Allegri, on the other hand, who had his formation to absorb the pressure, try to neutralize Milan, and then lull them into a false sense of security, and then of course hurt them. Classic allegrismo. It was very, very interesting to see that. But then, if we look at it from a Juve point of view, I think
00:07:30
Speaker
Like you said, I think your summary was spot on. I think it's in the sense that this was a game that was conditioned entirely by that sending off, and that's why Juventus won. Otherwise, this has gotten a goalless draw in all over it.
00:07:48
Speaker
What I find particularly interesting is how well he had Juve positioned and prepared for this game. This is where I think it will come down, why playing once a week will help Juve in the Seria.
00:08:07
Speaker
the fact that he's got an entire week to prepare for pretty much every game, you can turn up to these games to this level of preparation that I think you are going to need because I think in terms of quality of the squad, my brother in Christ, this is the worst Juventus on paper in my lifetime. Honestly, I've went through and compared
00:08:31
Speaker
some of these, the horrible event decides, Del Neri's over, you know, in the late 80s, you were, this is by far worse. I mean, if you compare and, and, and yes, I mean, sweet Jesus, what was up there? Yeah, it was, it was pretty bad. That team gets relegated. I mean, that's, that's a mid table championship lineup. Uh, that, that team gets relegated. That's that, that team finishes dead last in the Premier League. Let me put it for you that way.
00:09:00
Speaker
Well, Luton, behind Luton. Behind Luton, I mean, sweet mother of God. It was pretty bad. It was pretty bad. It was dreadful. Come on. He's awful. But in order to get the most, which I think is, again, this is why I respect Allegri as much as I do, because his teams are always... No, I'm never going to be critical of Allegri playing against a far superior team with an 11 like that and being
00:09:30
Speaker
cautious and pragmatic. And I'm never going to be critical in those circumstances. Juventus did have a lot of players out. And for that reason, I applaud Allegri for the red condition of the game. But again, as I repeat, up until that moment,
00:09:46
Speaker
the land had worked well. They didn't create one chance. Yes, they had all the temperature, but it was they never looked like creating either. Well, they had one and Chesney then pulled up one of the saves of the season. Yeah, that's it.
Juventus Squad Depth Issues
00:09:59
Speaker
That's all they had. It was a brilliant save. It was actually also a really great bit of play from Liao. And yeah, it was wonderful. So, you know, I said, I praise Allegri for that. No, no, I know.
00:10:10
Speaker
I just want to say, what I find amazing about that is exactly this. I mean, this is a classic big game in terms of tactics in the city between two big clubs who really don't, neither of them really wanted to lose.
00:10:26
Speaker
I have to particularly praise Mois Ken, who I thought in the first half was really good. And I think it's again, this season, it's a different Mois Ken. He looks fitter, sharper, more alert, more his link up play, which he was awful at. His holds up play, I think. Yeah, holds up a link up play. He just didn't have that before. Now he has that.
00:10:50
Speaker
um yeah he was causing um tiau a lot of problems even before the red card just in terms of his body strength he was he was out muscling tiau and tiau was a big guy he's a big guy the keen is strong he is and he's quick and i and that's something i want to talk about malik chao as well that i'm i've noticed something with him but we'll get yeah we'll come on to him when we talk about him i've noticed something with him i'm with you on keen i've i thought he's i mean i i've precursors i've been saying this for a few weeks haven't i about that he's starting to be useful now i'm not going to get overboard because at the end of the day
00:11:20
Speaker
He's got to put that chance away before halftime. He's finishing is still awful. He's going to have to score goals. He can't just be there. But we're seeing he's actually proven useful. He's providing something for you until recently. Until I think this year, actually, he's showing improvements this calendar year. Even the second half of last season, he was proven useful. But before then, he was offering nothing.
00:11:47
Speaker
There are definite improvements there. We know his weaknesses, as I've repeated in the last couple of weeks.
00:11:53
Speaker
his awareness, technically, he's not the best, he's not clinical, you know, as we saw with that chance, but he was very good in the first half. And he was causing, especially as he was so isolated as well, you know, he
Media's Handling of Italian Football Scandals
00:12:08
Speaker
was feeding off scraps, and he was winning free kicks, he was buying some time, you know, he did really, really well. So I think he definitely deserves that praise. And
00:12:18
Speaker
I've actually was thinking about this because remember there was that interview last season with Michael Antonio about David Moyes and Schimacher about having to feed off scraps. Yeah, feed off scraps. Moyes is a bit of an Italian Michael Antonio, I think.
00:12:35
Speaker
I see some similarities there between the two of them. Obviously, I hope that Moisakine goes on to become a more complete and better player. This is the thing about Moisakine. He's a handful. He's always been very quick and he's always been kind of...
00:12:53
Speaker
you know, a bit unorthodox in the sense that, you know, he can do, you never really know what he's going to do and he's unpredictable. Like you don't know what you're going to get. It's good and bad. But now he's, his physique is better than it's ever been. He looks fitter, more alert. He was strong. I've never seen him this strong. And also he looks bigger, but it's not impacted his movement, which is well done. Whoever's, you know, training him.
00:13:24
Speaker
and giving the training regime he's undergoing is really suiting him. And he is a handful, like you said. He just, he causes his movement patterns, just cause all sorts of trouble. And he's damn strong too. So it's a good presser as well. He's a bit like Mosseman in that sense. He's on you all the time. He's just a pain in the butt.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. He's one to watch. Let's see how he develops. He's going to have to bet. He's going to have to, you know, he can't just be that, you know, otherwise, otherwise he's, you know, I don't know, he's like, Simone, his Zaza was like that at one point as well. Like he was a real pain in the butt as well. And it was a handful and was strong, but then saw how his career developed. So King's going to have to develop his
00:14:07
Speaker
He needs to improve. His finishing is atrocious, let's be honest. He misses sitters so many times, and that's something he just has to get out and snap out. Absolutely. And if you're going to play for more progressive teams or progressive
00:14:26
Speaker
styles of obviously this was a game that suited him probably but you know we know when you're dominating possession and you're dominating play you know that's a different type of game you have to play like Michael Antonio could never really play in that kind of team you know we're getting lots
Milan's Tactical Challenges
00:14:38
Speaker
of touches and he's having to link you know but so that's where you know that's where we'll see with keen but it's yeah it's
00:14:43
Speaker
We have to because he gets a lot of stick for Keene. He gets a lot of stick and has done, but it's only right that we praise him. He was decisive in this game because that red card, I don't think Juventus win this game without that red card, probably not. It was decisive in this match. Locatelli as well, which was a nice story, seven years to the day that he scored that breakout goal for
00:15:08
Speaker
for Milan against Juventus as a teenager. He scores as an 18-year-old, I think he was. Seven years to the day, he scored.
00:15:18
Speaker
ridiculously black girl, but you know, it's a nice story and it's a first goal for a long time for him. In the sense of, I mean, if we're talking like the most allegory wins in this, this is like, if there's like a church of allegory small, where you were to rank the most allegory wins for in his career, I think this is like second to the game where they beat Chelsea at home.
00:15:45
Speaker
with one shot on top one shot which was on target one goal and They he was it like 19% possession. I mean the year after Chelsea had won the ambulance has come in for the It's just it was the most a leg rismo ever and and the fact that he at the end there when he
00:16:11
Speaker
at the, you know, and from the 85th minute when he's like, you're a goal up and he just loses it and throws his tie, his jacket. That was hilarious. I love that laugh. I love when he's that angry. Like that's the thing is I know why he, I know exactly why he did that. The reason why he did that was because I can't remember who it was that somebody did a past century. I think it was.
00:16:32
Speaker
did a pass into the middle of the field, and with a Milan player coming from the back, he didn't want that. He wanted it just to be passed out wide. Well, of course he did. Because he didn't want any take any risks, you know? So that's why he did it. I know exactly why he did it. It's the 85th minute, and we all know why he did it, and that's why it's so funny. Because he was, I think it was when he lost it on Miretti, and he's just like, you don't do that in the 85th, 86th minute, you just lose as a shit when you do that.
00:16:57
Speaker
And this is only second to that Chelsea win, which I think is the most allegory thing ever.
Inter Milan's Strategic Growth
00:17:03
Speaker
But no, look, at the end of the day, you can understand why he's getting all excited because nine games in, after nine games, he's two points off league leaders in there with a team that is probably the worst Juventus team on paper I've seen in my lifetime.
00:17:19
Speaker
and they've not been playing very well. I think the team yesterday, yeah, I agree with you. Not the team, not when they've got Kiesa and Vlauv, it's just not only Zajiraj, but the team yesterday. I think it's the worst without a doubt. I mean, if you compare the quality overall of the squad to what Juva have had for the last 30-40 years, I think this is just unbelievably poor. But again,
00:17:42
Speaker
This is what it means to him and he understands that because his teams don't really come to their own until from December, January onwards. And the fact that he's only two points off the league leaders is incredible and the UVA aren't playing well, but they're getting the results. Look, again, a loss against Milan yesterday.
00:18:02
Speaker
would have meant that they were, what, seven points behind them? Yeah. And five points behind Inter. That's essentially the scoreto challenge over after match day nine. And he's and that's not the case now anymore. We have now the as I tweeted out the Serie A table from my child from mine and yours childhood. It's the three teams back in the top. I think I spoke about that a couple of weeks ago, that it feels like we're going back to the Serie A of the classic Serie A where Inter versus Milan versus Juve.
00:18:32
Speaker
Now, I don't think Juva are going to challenge for the Scoredo. I think they're going to drop off. But the fact that they're there is very encouraging for Juva. And it gives Juva something to build around, because there's not been very much to build around. No, it hasn't. I do want to give a shout out also. Cambiassa I thought was really good when he came on. Kostich was awful. Cambiassa was really good when he came on. And also Hoisin for his debut, I thought was very, very confident when he came on. He looked
00:19:02
Speaker
very calm, very relaxed. He looked like, you know, he was in his living room, as I say. You know, there was no nerves at all. So I thought that was very promising because he's a player that I know a lot of Juventus fans have a lot of hopes on that he can become a
00:19:22
Speaker
you know a first team top player and that's the hope and so that was that was very promising but we have to discuss from the Milan points of view because
00:19:33
Speaker
I for one was, I was very disappointed by Milan. I have to say, I expect, you know, you expect, we know what we expect from Juventus now, but from Milan, kind of like the sparks that we've seen from them this season, the excitement, they was none of that.
Juventus and Milan Tactical Review
00:19:50
Speaker
Liao was the only one that showed some spark. And then once Juventus kind of locked him down by putting three men on him after that, you know, and as I said before, 0.3 XG,
00:20:01
Speaker
In this game, they only created one chance before the red, so it wasn't just the red card. They didn't really create anything. They didn't show anything in this game as an attacking force, did they? Despite the possession, the territorial advantage, they didn't create anything.
00:20:22
Speaker
No, they didn't. And I think it's, again, because Juventus... Well, in the beginning, I thought Milan were imposing themselves, but then they couldn't do that final push. And they looked a bit toothless from then on, even before the sending off.
00:20:40
Speaker
And that's a bit of a problem for you. Sorry, for Milan. And that's something that, you know, this is still a young team. It's a team that, you know, they had underwent quite a bit of changes in the summer. It's still a work in progress. And I think you're going to see these kinds of games, especially against, well, managers of the quality of Allegri who can completely gridlock and read a game and gridlock it.
00:21:09
Speaker
And against big games, I think you're going to see that with Milan a little bit. Because again, like I said, it's still a work in progress. It's still a young team. They do have experience, but they still need some time to work some quirks out and find each other. But I think more than anything, I think that in everything there, everything I want to say about Milan is embodied in Malik Ciao. Because I think he's a very talented player. I think so. I think he's very, very talented. He's only 22 years old.
00:21:39
Speaker
But the problem I see with him, and I noticed it when I was in Milan in February to watch Mila Vienta, he struggled back then. I mean, I noticed it so much against Lukaku, against physical players. Now, Lukaku isn't very quick anymore. But as we saw in the Derby,
00:22:00
Speaker
against Turam, against big physical and fast players. He misreads the game, and when he wants to push up, he gets it wrong. His timing is off, which is exactly what happened with Mois Ken yesterday as well. Not just for the red card, but throughout. He struggled with him. Not as bad as with Turam, of course, because he got destroyed by Turam in the Derby.
00:22:24
Speaker
But in this game, he had problems with King because he was also, again, big, fast, strong player. And that's something that Malik Chiao, I think that's something to keep an eye on. But again, I don't want to crucify him too much. He's only 22 years old. I do see potential there.
00:22:44
Speaker
And I still think, and I want to reiterate, I think that Ciao, Kalulu, Tomori in a back three, Teo and Anders to the left in front of Mike Mignon, that is how Mila should
Milan's Defensive Struggles
00:22:57
Speaker
be playing. Keep the three-man midfield.
00:23:01
Speaker
but they should be playing with a back three. I think they will get more out of that defense if they play with a back three. But I do understand why they want to keep playing him as one of the two central defenders in a back four because they want him to learn and all that. But again, I mean, even before the sending off, you saw when Calabria had to kind of invert and they became a back three when he saved in the first half, he saved a child when he was causing him issues and he saved him.
00:23:29
Speaker
Again, I think you need to have that extra man when you have a young central defender like Malek Chiao, who is fast, who is good, but is still very young. And if you're going to play this kind of man-to-man marking high up the pitch with a player like that, well, if his timing is off, then things like what happened yesterday will happen, like what happened in the derby will happen.
00:23:56
Speaker
If you're willing to accept that, then continue allowing him to grow into it. Because again, I do think there is quality there. But I wonder now, if they're going against PSG at the Park de France, if
00:24:12
Speaker
that's how you want to play in those big games. Maybe you want to continue playing the back four against smaller to medium-sized teams, mid-teams, but in the big games, until you feel that he's ready to take on that in a back four against the biggest sides. I'm not sure he's quite there yet. I don't think... I don't know what the answer is. I definitely don't think you throw the baby out with the bar four and just rip up the setup and go to a back three. We saw it last season, didn't we, after they went through that bad run.
00:24:42
Speaker
And it was okay for a couple of games, just I think it was against Tottenham, wasn't it, in the Champions League? But Tottenham were going through a crisis. But then they just, you know, after that, it fell apart again. And, you know, I just think it doesn't, you know, it just becomes too defensive and counter-attacking. I just don't think Pioli, that's Pioli. It's not. And so I don't think you do that. I think Milan have had a good start this season. They've lost the two big games.
00:25:11
Speaker
which is a bit of a concern. They've lost to Uventus and if they lose to PSG, then that is a disaster. But I think with Tiao, like you said, he's young. He's not the finished article. He's still developing.
00:25:27
Speaker
I think more than anything, he needs to cut out the big errors. Before he joined Milan, I asked our friend of the show, Ronan Murphy, who's a German football expert, and I asked him, you know, what's Tiao like? And he said he's a big talent, but he throws in too many big errors, like disastrous errors, like just huge errors.
Technical Deficiencies in Italian Football
00:25:49
Speaker
And we didn't really see that at the start with Milan. But now we are starting to see it. And we've seen two this season. We've seen it in the inter-game when it was Neil-Neil for that first goal. And then we've seen it again in this game. And basically, both of those errors have cost Milan. So I think that's the issue with Tio is that he will have a good game. But then even if he's having a good game, he's always liable to throw in a huge massive error like that. So I think that's the issue more than anything.
00:26:19
Speaker
I'll tell you what I think with with Teo, like I said, I think he's he's been good this season. I just think that when it comes to a certain type of striker against a big guy, though. Yeah, I know. But the problem is that he lacks the routine and experience to know when to push up and drop back. And that it's a fraction of a second at this level is enough for you to get completely done like that. And that's what he did against Tura. That was incredibly naive when he's the last man.
00:26:45
Speaker
to chase him and commit himself like that. It was like Skalvini. It's the same criticism I made of Skalvini for the third England guy where he's the last man. All he had to do was just hold his ground and cover the space. You don't need to push up like that. No, this is what I mean. If you push up like that, you're basically creating a scenario where if you don't win the ball,
00:27:04
Speaker
the guys either clean through or you give away a red card. Where all you have to do is hold back and then the player isn't going to be one and one. And that's what I mean about like I'm just saying like I think he because I think he's been good this season except for those two games really and that's when he's up against strikers who are quick and physically very strong.
00:27:28
Speaker
That's where he could, you know. But as a friend of one of our patrons, a Mi Long fan, Dennis said when I was talking about him yesterday about this, he said, look, if...
00:27:39
Speaker
Ciao was the finished product. He wouldn't be playing at Milan. He'd be playing at City or one of the biggest clubs in Europe because they play 50, 60, 70 million for him and Milan wouldn't have him. So you're going to have to have patience with players like that. And I think that's a really good point where Milan are. And I'm just kind of looking at it in the sense that I've noticed some issue, an issue here, a recurring issue here with Ciao. And I think it's going to be interesting to see how he handles it.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah. But that's also, it's not just where Milan are. That is also where Italian football are. We don't have many finished articles anymore in Italian football because of that. There is. And that brings me on. And I didn't want to speak about this at the beginning because I don't want to just make this negative. You know, this is a big game.
00:28:21
Speaker
But I'm sorry, I have to be brutally honest here because we don't we don't want to sugarcoat shit here on the post. I think that's I think that if there's anything that's something that's something that our listeners appreciate that we can criticize Italian football and not just pretend that it's great like some others do.
00:28:39
Speaker
this was a terrible quality game. This was a bad advert for Italian football, I'm sorry. But in terms of quality, this was not a good advert for Italian football. And we can talk about the tactics and all that, which is something which is an acquired taste that some people, if we're talking about actual quality, technical quality, the tempo of the game, the excitement that this game would have brought to not Italian football fans, to neutrals, but to fans outside of the
00:29:08
Speaker
that are tuning in to watch two historic teams play, two teams that have produced so many amazing teams and amazing players in the past. I mean, talking about this being maybe the worst Juventus 11 that we've seen for maybe ever, you know, but this game, this is one of the worst quality
00:29:25
Speaker
Milan Juventus games I've ever seen, maybe the worst in terms of actual quality of the game. It was awful quality. I hate to have to say that because I would love to come here. It was terrible. For me it was Weston McKinney just embodied that. I think it was the second half where he
00:29:45
Speaker
He makes the simple past that football is at a level you can expect him to do. But as soon as you ask him to do something that is a little bit advanced, he just can't do it. And I saw this, it wasn't just him, I'm not singling him, it was throughout the game. Gatti, Mckenny, Wociaw, we saw, Krunich, I mean, it's just, there were so many individual howlers at a technical level
00:30:13
Speaker
that it just was was was a testament to how Italian football individually is not that there aren't very many finished products in Italian football. And the players that that are there are maybe not will never maybe never be the finished products. I mean, we'll see, you know, and that's just where there was just so many basic, basic technical errors. I mean, yeah, it was a McKinney.
00:30:41
Speaker
I don't want to single him out but I just thought that to me was just so obvious. No, he is the embodiment of that because we know technically he's not a good player. Did you see that when he wins the ball, he passes it, he creates a counter-attack, plays the right ball out and then he gets it back and he's running towards the ball to shoot it immediately and you need to technically be able to turn your body.
00:31:06
Speaker
I think he hit the panini ladies outside of the stadium. There was a lot of real average players. You just know that they're not going to produce, they haven't got anything about them to produce anything. I thought weir for example, I thought he did all right. I thought tactically he did his job pretty well actually. But you put him on the ball, there's just nothing there.
00:31:32
Speaker
when you're going through the events of team and you've got Ruganio again, I thought did pretty well defensively, but you know, this Ruganio, he's just such an average player, he was just average players, you know, everywhere. And Milan, I mean, Milik was terrible, terrible, just did nothing. And McKean for as good as he got, you know, you're not getting anything technically from him. But you know, even from the Milan point of view, I mean, very, very disappointed. Obviously, Teo Hernandez being out was a was a was a
00:32:00
Speaker
a big blow from that point of view and I think that brings us on to also what I said about Italy is that the Italy national team right now can't afford to have three or four players out because of the quality the depth of quality just isn't there and you just see it just plummets with just a few players out. I think the same goes on a on a club level certainly
00:32:19
Speaker
I think Inter have probably got a bit more depth, but even Inter, but certainly from Juventus in Milan, Juventus only had four first team players out. They had seven, you could arguably say Juventus had seven starters last night. So Vlovich, Kieza were both missing, Danilo, and then let's say one of the central midfielders.
00:32:42
Speaker
and Pogba or Fagioli, whichever one you want to say. And then the level just drops to that. And then Milan were without Mignon, they were without Teo Hernandez, they were without, obviously, Benesez has been out for a while, crew niche. So let's say three or four Milan players were out, and then the level of the game drops to that. It's
00:33:07
Speaker
It's quite worrying. Again, I was speaking to our friend of the show, Adrian Del Monte, because he was at the game. He said that only three foreign broadcasters were covering the game. Pitchside yesterday, only two in the stands.
00:33:26
Speaker
And then that says it all. A Premier League game would have 30 to 40 broadcasters for a big game. A Manchester Derby or a big North London Derby or Arsenal Chelsea played at the weekend. You'd get 30 to 40 foreign broadcasters at one of those games. Milania Ventus, one of the most historic games of all time and only three foreign broadcasters are covering the game on the pitch.
00:33:52
Speaker
I mean, that says it all. And when you watch the game, when you watch the quality, the low quality of that game, you can see why. You can see why. And this is the problem.
00:34:06
Speaker
We have to be, we have to sit here and we have to say, we have to say it. We can't, you know, again, I've got lots of friends that are, I know they're trying to crack America, you know, we take the piss sometimes, you know, we've got both got friends, we've got both got friends there. So, you know, we're not, this is not singling out individuals, but we're singling out the way that the Italian football and they're trying to market this league as being great and everything. It's not, it's not, you know.
00:34:34
Speaker
you know, that the broadcasters in America and elsewhere, you know, can can can try and make out, oh, it's Milan Juventus, it's fantastic. Look at this, look at that, you know, and even when it includes doing a preview of the game of of of the Coliseum in the background of a Milan Juventus game, you know, they could try, they could try, you know, build it up as much as they can. But I'm sorry. The evidence is there in front of you.
00:35:03
Speaker
No, without a doubt. There's not much to add to that, to be honest. I think you laid it out really well. I don't know much to add. And I just think that having grown up watching when these games were, these big games in Italian football and the individual quality of it, even though these games were usually very tight and very closed, tactical games, the individual quality that some players would show.
00:35:29
Speaker
because the Ronaldos, the Zidans, the Nedvets, you know what I mean, the del Pierros, I mean the, you know, the, the.
00:35:35
Speaker
you know, whoever you want to use as an example, that they used to illuminate these games. And now, well, we don't really have that quality. It's just not there. It's just not there. No, it's not. But there was some quality and show for Inter, though, who returns to the top of Serie A with a 3-0 win at Serena. This was actually a game that for about an hour,
00:35:59
Speaker
was not great either to be honest with you but intercom really strong in the last half hour and created so many chances after that and again Taram and Lautaro the keys but I want to give a shout out to my boy Dumfries because he comes on and changes the game and gets the gets the assist for the first goal that takes him to a seven assists in 14 games this season for club and country which is absolutely insane so there's my shout out for my boy
00:36:28
Speaker
But yeah, you must be delighted to win. Torino is never an easy place to go. No, I was worried about this game because this is a difficult game for Inter, or anyone really. They are a tough side to crack. They are a tough nut to crack. Inter didn't create anything in the opening 45 minutes. Torino did. Whatever the chances were, it was all Torino.
00:36:51
Speaker
That's the thing, though. This is what I like. Nzagi and Inter are learning how to become a big team. What do I mean by that? It's almost as if, in some games, they just control the opening half, let the opposition
00:37:12
Speaker
think they're in it and then turn up the heat in the second half and pang pang pang pang three nil four nil done. Like against Saloni Tana. Like against here. I mean it's this kind of luring your opponents into a false sense of security and then just when they as soon as the time is right you just assassinate them with you know with three four gut punches and that's game over go home.
00:37:36
Speaker
before they understand what's happened to them. And I like that. That's a kind of cynicism, as they say, in Italian football that I kind of like, in Italy, an Italian football term that I really, really like. And that's what Inter are showing. And I love it. But as for Dumfries, I mean, look, he was good. He was good in this game. There's no doubt about that. And the movement, him and Turam really enjoy playing together up front. And they find each other and they're starting to have quite the partnership.
00:38:06
Speaker
Um, between them. And of course you have Lautaro Martinez who's now scored what? What is it? Is it, is it, is it 12 goals in the Serie A in nine games? I mean, it's just, it's, it's, he's, he's having the season of his lifetime. Um,
00:38:22
Speaker
And he needs to be this good. I mean, I said before the season, if he's going to win the Serie A, he needs to score 25 goals in the Serie A alone. Well, he's halfway there after nine games. It's crazy. I just need him to spread out his goals as well in terms of, you know, he needs to come good throughout the course of the season. But no, look, Taram, what a sign he's becoming.
00:38:50
Speaker
And I wonder if he's not the next big player to be sold. In the summer, as Marotta spoke over the weekend, saying, look, very honestly, finally, very honestly, that every year one big player will be sold, the fans need to understand this.
00:39:09
Speaker
This is where we are, essentially, financial stability-wise. And I'm glad that they finally said that. He's such an all-rounded player. He's such a well-rounded player, such a good team player. He works so well for the team. He fits into the team really, really well. I think that's his biggest strength, even more than his contributions to goals and assists, which has been great as well. I just think that he makes the team play better.
00:39:35
Speaker
No, he does. His Linka play, his movement, the fact that, again, he was brought in to be Jeko's replacement. And he's kind of doing both of those things. He's doing both. He does. He's become both Jeko and Lukaku's replacement, and that's kind of allowed Lautaro to become
00:39:57
Speaker
The poacher, which is crazy. I never thought he would be, but now he's actually delivering. But again, early days, nine games in. But it's a very, you know, it's a very, very tight inter. It's a very tight Seria, but it's a very attacking inter again. Or was XG was like over 2.3, wasn't it? It was 2.42 XG. Yeah.
00:40:20
Speaker
I mean, it's a really nice, yeah, this, I mean, this is a key thing. I mean, some people, I mean, depends on which ones you use, but, but I mean, overall, if you're above two, 2.3, 2.2 game, after game, after game, it's like mad. It's been so happy for like two years now. Yeah, but it's mad. It's mad, isn't it? Words have scored the most and they've proceeded the least in Serie A. So that's something I want to praise them too. Jan Sommer.
00:40:46
Speaker
I mean, it's just, Jan Sommer has completely, defensively, in terms of a goalkeeper, completely, you know,
00:40:55
Speaker
We don't even think about it. It's a distant memory now. Of course, still, in the build-up phase and the attacking phase, Onana is something else. But in terms of goalkeeping and in terms of the defense and the organization and the work between the defense and the goalkeeper, this is looking better and better and better. And still, they make mistakes. It's still not where it should be, and it should be hitting that.
00:41:22
Speaker
from within two, from two, three, four games onwards. But one thing I want to say though, I think Simonin Zaghi needs to bench Nicola Barella. Not because of him not playing at a high level. I don't think he's mentally there. I think this betting scandal has really gotten to him. He released a statement on Instagram where he was furious and livid
00:41:44
Speaker
saying he was going to take legal action, that he's not said anything until now, that he's absolutely fuming, calling the papers who published his clowns, and you could tell that he's not there. He's not mentally balanced.
00:42:01
Speaker
And I can imagine that. I mean, imagine having your name dragged through the mud like it's been, and you're innocent. No, I'm glad he's done that. I'm glad he's calling out. More people need to do that. They need to call out the papers, name and shame them. Do what you did. Name and shame the people. And there's the journalists that write it. Name and shame them. Name the papers. Name and shame them. Because they shouldn't get away with it either. The printing lies. Assuming this is a lie. I'm assuming it's a lie. But you know, so it's no, I'm all for it. I'm happy you did that.
00:42:29
Speaker
don't hold it in, don't repress it, let it out. He's been bad all season, even before this all came out. I think he's going for a difficult time on and off the pitch at the moment. I think he should be benched because the way that he lost his mind
00:42:51
Speaker
in the second half. I mean, he's lucky he didn't get sent off. And I think before he gets sent off, I think Nzagi needs to just have a talk with him and say, look, I think protect him. I want Inter to protect him. I want Inter to be there for him, and they are supportive of him, because I think what's going on is disgusting, and they know that he hasn't done anything.
00:43:16
Speaker
And I'm glad that he's taking legal action, but it's clear that this has rattled him and mentally he needs some space and time to recover. And I think he should afford him that time because in midfield to have this have the manpower and the personnel to allow him just a week or two for him to land.
00:43:34
Speaker
before he does something that he will regret and will cost Inter as well. Because you saw what happened with El Sharavi as well. He was broken in tears afterwards. I mean, this is the way that the Italian media have handled this. Yeah, I want to speak about that. Let's come on to that after I've got a second section on that. But I just want to say about Torino because Inter created a lot where they conceded nothing in this game. 0.37 XG. It's just the same old story with Torino again.
00:44:04
Speaker
and nothing can attack.
00:44:07
Speaker
six goals in nine games this season. They've gone four games without a goal right now. They're getting close to the relegation zone. If they lose Shures as well, that was a serious looking injury. I'm sure there'll be some word on that today or tomorrow as to how serious that is. That didn't look good. Could be an ACL, I fear. Looking at the way that the leg moved.
00:44:36
Speaker
I don't know. I don't think we're getting to a point now. We have to start questioning whether even Djuric is the right man for Torino, because I think he's gone as far as he can take this team. I mean, offensively, it's just abysmal. Torino are a abysmal team offensively.
00:45:00
Speaker
They can't attack. And I mean, when Duvan Zapata was injured, officially ruled out, then I knew that, well, it was going to take something as an individual moment of brilliance for Torino to score on Inter. But yeah, no, I agree with you. I'm having my doubts as to what's going on, too. And he's very open about how he feels that he's not delivering as he should.
00:45:26
Speaker
I'm not going to sit here and pretend that Torino are a much better team than where they've been finishing. They're not really. I mean, they're a mid-table team, Torino, let's be honest. They're kind of like eighth to tenth kind of standard team. And Djuric has, I mean, that's pretty much, I mean, I can't remember where they finished on the two Djuric last two seasons, but, you know, they haven't been underperformed that badly in terms of the actual table, but just offensively, it's
00:45:52
Speaker
I wouldn't want to be a Torino fan, to be honest right now. Napoli though, let's move on to Napoli, who were very close to losing their manager over the international break. Rudy Garcia held on and then lost Osseman to injury for probably over a month. He got injured playing for Nigeria in the international break. But they got a good win, 3-1 against Verona without Osseman.
00:46:22
Speaker
So Garcia buys some more time But the big story from this game was certainly without doubt in the in the week that he got married
00:46:31
Speaker
Gaviciusz Klawrzkiewicz, who for me put on an absolutely sensational performance. He was really right back to his best. Two great finishes. He was going past his man as he did for the second goal. But more than anything, he seemed to have his fire back. He seemed to have his desire back and his love for the game back. He was really up for it. Just look at the way that he celebrated. He's got this new kind of celebration and he was so, so up for it. And I think that
00:47:01
Speaker
I think the real creature is back now. He's got eight gold contributions in his last seven games for club and country. And he is going to be very, very important for Napoli that he carries on playing like this because without Osseman for the next month or so and with some huge Champions League games coming up as well. And also Napoli and now
00:47:21
Speaker
somehow, don't know how, are somehow only five points off the top of the table. After all these disasters start to season, they're only five points off the table. So Clarence Gator is going to be very, very important. He was a mate in this game.
00:47:36
Speaker
Well, yeah, I think I love the guy. You know how much I love this player and I'm thrilled to see him to see him perform again at the level where he can express his talent to the fullest. I think he's a wonderful little guy, little player. I think he's got this potential to be one of the biggest stars in world football, potentially even winning the Ballon d'Or.
00:48:04
Speaker
And he was, I loved to see Raspadori in him. I mean, I really think that, I want to see Raspadori more this season. I love to see, and I'm happy to see that without Osimund there, that Raspadori came in and was just brilliant. And the way that he, the three of them, Politano, Raspadori, Fritja, you know, the way that they kind of interchanged. Now, it was wonderful to see.
00:48:28
Speaker
No, I'm really, really happy to see him perform again. I think he's true to you. I mean, he's one of the stars of the Serie A when he's had his best. There's no doubt about that. He's an attraction, an attraction for the Serie A. I thought the attack did really well without Osman. I thought Politana was very good. He got a goal and two assists, a really lovely assist for the second Kvala goal.
00:48:50
Speaker
He was fresh probably after being dropped by Italy. I mean, I think he's better than Orcelini, personally. I would have him, if we're talking about ranking in the Italy national team set up. For me, he's above Orcelini, without doubt, especially his work with Spelletti as well. And I thought Raspidori did pretty well as well. The only negative for me for Napoli was the defence is still making mistakes. I mean, the defending for the Lazovich goal was awful.
00:49:18
Speaker
Rachmani missed the flight of the ball across and then Di Lorenzo just let it hit him. Di Lorenzo, as great as he is, he's been making a few silly errors this season that are causing goals for Napoli, so that in the Real Madrid game as well and then obviously
00:49:33
Speaker
gave away the penalty for Italy earlier last week against England. And the defence still didn't look, I know Rachmani was back, but they still, they kind of, they did risk considering a second goal afterwards as well, as good as they were kind of going forward Napoli. So the defence is still not quite right. I guess that's down to Rudy Garcia as well. But I mean, it's a good win for Napoli and it gets them back on track ahead of a Union Berlin game. Roma also
00:50:00
Speaker
and got a win, 90th minute winner by El Chirawi, who then broke down in tears after, as you mentioned. But there's only one thing to talk about here, and that is Jose Mourinho. And because I tweeted this out, no one does revenge like Jose Mourinho. Since maybe Michael Corleone in the final scene of Godfather One, where he gets revenge on all the five families. I mean, that is Jose Mourinho. I mean,
00:50:30
Speaker
Nima, you will have seen this being an Interfan, but no one does revenge. I'm just going to go through the revenge, two big moments of revenge that he did during this game, during and after this game against Monza. So the build up to this game against Monza was this whole kind of Mourinho versus Rafael Paladino war, Paladino being the coach of Monza. And Paladino had called Monza, Mourinho and his teams
00:50:55
Speaker
behavior scandalous after the last time they played in May, just their whole kind of behavior on the bench and their antics, which is something that we've seen multiple times by Mourinho's backroom staff. We saw it, obviously, in the Sevilla in the final, but we've seen it so many times. I mean, I've lost count how many times Mourinho and his staff have been sent off in the last two years, and Mourinho, again, was sent off in this game as well. But Mourinho didn't get drawn into words before the game.
00:51:22
Speaker
You know, he was asked about, you know, what Paladino called him. He scammed us, blah, blah, blah. He didn't get into it because, you know, Mourinho, when he gets his revenge, he waits for the right moment to get his revenge. And he did that. When El Shiraoui scored the goal, I mean, he was
00:51:38
Speaker
He was gesturing, did two gestures towards Palladino in the Monza bench. One, he did the, you know, like the yap, yap gesture with his hands as if to suggest, you know, you talk too much. And then he did the cry baby gesture like with his, you know, twisting his fist, his clenched fist and like rubbing it, pretend it's simulating, rubbing the eye as if, you know, you're crying.
00:52:05
Speaker
Which was which was hilarious that got him sent off and then after the game then after the game he went off the Papu Gomez now Papu Gomez was was banned received a two-year ban for failing a drug test and
00:52:21
Speaker
which is very, very sad, could be the end of his career. But Papu Gomez had given an interview last week in which he said, and I quote, Mourinho, I only have one memory of him, and that is winning the Europa League with Sevilla against him. And of course, Papu Gomez was at Sevilla last season, and he was in the Sevilla team or the squad didn't play the final that beat Roma on penalties in that really controversial final. So Mourinho, after the game, says,
00:52:51
Speaker
I have a cough, but I won't take any syrup or any pills, or else I might have trouble passing the anti-dapian tests. So he got his revenge on Papi Gomez. I mean, never. Marino, is there any fun better for revenge? You don't go up against him verbally. I mean, the way that he destroys, he knows exactly which buttons to press and how to do it. I mean, the way that he
00:53:18
Speaker
calling Vengar a voyeur. I mean, and a specialist in failure, specialist in failure. What's his name? De Boer, the worst manager in the history of the Korean East.
00:53:34
Speaker
What he did to Conte, I've never seen Conte that agitated when Conte said that he was demented, scene island demented. And he said, basically said, I've never been, unlike you, I've never been suspended for match fixing and Conte just lost his shit and wanted to kick his ass. The Ranieri thing. The Ranieri thing was hilarious.
00:53:59
Speaker
I mean, both at Roma and at Juva. There's so many things. Ranieri was great when Ranieri had a sniper at Mourinho because Mourinho said he was missing too many press conferences and media interviews. He was skipping them.
00:54:17
Speaker
And Maria goes, I studied Italian five hours a day for many months to ensure I could communicate with the players, the media and the fans. Ranieri had been in England for five years and still struggled to say good morning and good afternoon. Who is he to tell me what to do? And not just that, the part where he spoke about where Ranieri had criticized him for, you know, he doesn't
00:54:39
Speaker
develop football, he only cares about titles, and Mourinho were playing saying, that's true, I do care about winning titles and that's how I know things are going well. Maybe that's why Ranieri is 70 years old and has only won a small title in his career, but maybe he's too old to change his
00:55:00
Speaker
to change his mind. I love how he exaggerates. I think I ran here, he was like 60 at the time. But he made him 70. Or when he does with with Lomon, I mean, the linguistics. Pietro Lomonico is the best one ever. I love that. I love when one of Mourinho's tactics is he deliberately gets their name wrong. He used it because he's linguistically so talented. He is the best communicator, I think, in terms of in football management. He would be a great
00:55:28
Speaker
writer, comedy writer, he would be fantastic like writing Saturday Night Live or something like that. He is his ability to communicate, I mean that's you know tactically he's not the most revolutionary but what his absolute strength is is communication, winning people over, getting them to die and fight for him in war almost.
00:55:49
Speaker
And I remember the Lomonaco thing. Can you read out the Lomonaco one? This kind of sums up how good he is with words and the wordplay. This was his first season, 2008. And when he was at Inter, Inter had just beaten Catania 2-1.
00:56:14
Speaker
And he had said something about how he could have played in goal and Inter would still have won that game. And then Lomonako, who was at Catania at the time, said he lacked respect. He just talked a lot. And then this is before the Champions League. And they go up to...
00:56:31
Speaker
I remember this so vividly, every frame of that. An Italian media journalist goes up to him and says, do you have any response to what La Monaco's declarations? And Mourinho spontaneously says, Monaco what? Because in Italian, Monaco means monk as well. So he says, which monarch? And he means Munich as well. Yeah, Munich as well. So he says, Monaco what? The Monaco from Tibet, the monk of Tibet.
00:56:57
Speaker
And the journalist says, no, Pietro Lo Monaco, from blah, blah, blah. And he says, look, I know Bayern Munich, or Bayern Monaco. I know Monaco, Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, Monaco. I don't know any other. If someone named Monaco wants to use my name to gain publicity, well, they have to pay me. Like, what is he? What example is he? I think he's Puma, or Nike, or Adidas, because they pay me lots of money to talk about that, to talk about them. But somehow I'm going to give free publicity to someone.
00:57:27
Speaker
No, he is the best. I mean, there is... I mean, I think Pep, when he said, in here, in the press room, he is the best, like when he... That was the only type... You know what? That was the best thing that Pep ever did, because he won that battle by saying that, because he took it totally away from Mourinho's strong point to the pitch, which is where, you know, Pep was stronger and he won that semi-final. But yeah, I mean, that was...
00:57:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's so many examples, but no one no one does revenge, like, like, like, starts beefs that he rarely seldom starts beefs. No, he doesn't. He doesn't. You know, with, you know, that's why I thought it was so funny when him and Ferguson, they never got went after each other like that, because there was so much respect between them. And Ferguson, he could tell he just loved him.
00:58:17
Speaker
That's one thing I respect about me. I'm like that as well. I'll be honest. I'm like that in the sense that in terms of with people, I'm very respectful with people. I respect everyone on a human individual level. I don't care where you're from, who you are, I'll respect you. But if you disrespect me,
00:58:34
Speaker
and go after me. As is often the case with Marino, people go after him. I don't want to say completely like he doesn't do anything to bring it on, but on an individual level, he doesn't go after individuals.
00:58:53
Speaker
If you go against me, I will go after you. Don't worry about it. I kind of respect that about Mourinho. I do. I have to be honest. Just talking about this game, I think it was an important win for Roma and continues their recovery. They've got the top four in their sights now.
00:59:16
Speaker
And I don't think they played very well. They were disappointed. They played against 10 men for over half the game and didn't create that much.
00:59:24
Speaker
But you know, they won. I do want to give one shout out though to Monza. So I picked this up yesterday. Miguel de Gregorio, the Monza coach, the Monza goalkeeper, sorry, made two fantastic saves. And he's actually statistically the best goalkeeper in Europe's top five leagues this season. He's got the best, best save percentage. And he was so close to making it full clean sheets in a row. So I just want to give a
00:59:50
Speaker
to give a shout out for him. I also do think that the D'Ambrosio red card was harsh in this game. It was naive and stupid of him. He was the second-year-old card. He should have known better, but I want to say Bellotti. Bellotti is one of the biggest divers in world football. He is so bad. He does it all the time. He's like Harry Kane. Harry Kane is very similar.
01:00:08
Speaker
any touch in the back straight to the ground. I think he bought that. D'Ambrosio was naive, but I do think it was harsh. But this Roma side, now that everything is landing and things are coming together, they're looking damn good. I wasn't impressed with them personally.
01:00:24
Speaker
Not knowing this game, but not in isolation, but the way that things are coming together now a little bit and they're finding balance. I think it all might be closer to that fourth spot than many think myself. They're three points off top four now. That's before the Fiorentina game, so Fiorentina can win and extend it again. But yeah, they're closing the gap. They're in seventh now, so they're recovering. They're definitely recovering.
01:00:53
Speaker
I'll just quickly on Papugomus. I don't understand this at all. For me, there's something missing here from this story. Papugomus was banned for two years for a failed dopamine test. He was found with traces of Terebutalin in his system, which is a medication used to treat shortness of breath caused by asthma, bronchitis, and it's in the list of banned substances. Now, this is bizarre, right?
01:01:23
Speaker
Gomez was found guilty in October 2022. He failed the dope doping test. This was before the World Cup, before Argentina's World Cup. Somehow it's only taken a whole year for the counter analysis test and for him to actually get his suspension. During that time he's played in the World Cup. He's played for Sevilla who've won the Europa League.
01:01:52
Speaker
He paid in the semi-final against Juventus, actually, as Mourinho also said cheekily. He was trying to cause mischief there as well about Sevilla winning the Europa League. He knows what he's doing, Mourinho. So for me, how does it take a year? It makes no sense. A whole year.
01:02:16
Speaker
I haven't been reading too much into that case, but it depends also if he's been contending it, if there's been a legal proceeding going on and so on and so forth. Some people like to get this out of the way quickly and plead bargain and sort it out that way. Other people say, no, I'm innocent. I fought it. And it depends.
01:02:32
Speaker
Well, he's announced that they're going to be fighting it now. The lawyers are going into it, looking into it. He said that he accidentally ingested a spoonful of cough syrup that he'd given to his son, which is what's caused it. It was involuntary, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, something does not make sense here. How it can take a whole year
01:02:53
Speaker
for it to go from the failed drug test to him then getting banned. I do not understand that at all. I've never seen anything like that before. So yeah, if anyone understands it, write to us. To me, I've not seen an explanation and people I've seen talking about don't seem to understand it either.
01:03:15
Speaker
Lazio also got a good win at Sassuolo, 2-0, total domination in this game, totally deserved win.
01:03:26
Speaker
created chance after chance, they had the next G of almost three. Luis Alberto was brilliant again in this game. He scored, he created loads, he had five shots, he had four key passes. Can I just say again for the third time, even more so now that Tonali's gonna miss the Euros, Italy I think, if they can, if he's eligible, I think they should call him up now, because Italy are now short at centre midfield.
01:03:51
Speaker
I think they should call him up. Also, I thought that the attack was good. Tati Castellanos was good again, got an assist. I think Imobile is in trouble now. Felipe Anderson was good. This was an important win ahead of final. So well done to Laxio. I also just want to say one other thing about Sassuola. Ruan Tresoldi, is he the worst offender in Serie A? He must be. He makes so many mistakes.
01:04:20
Speaker
Yeah, no. They were dreadful. They were absolutely horrible, Sasolo defensively. And this is, again, this is what's so weird about them. They go up against teams, the good teams, and they take the game to them. But when they have their defensive lapses, they are just open, wide open, and they make so many individual errors.
01:04:44
Speaker
the way that he did that was it to Luis Alberto of all people who he gifted the ball to it was just unwatchable that defensively but now it's Lazio we're good and again Lazio you know that's this is why I say this area it takes a few games for everyone to for everyone to kind of
01:05:06
Speaker
get into the swing of things. And now we're kind of seeing Lazio, Roma, all these teams kind of, you know, now the league really begins. And for Lazio's sake, again, I
01:05:24
Speaker
you know, they brought on Chiro immobile in the 80th minute. By then, the game was already won. I keep saying this, I think it is up to
01:05:40
Speaker
to, you know, for Saribol to work, I'm sorry to say, but I think cheering Mobula can't start. He just doesn't work. He's not able to do what Saribol wants him to do. And with Castellanos, they look more fluid, they look more balanced, they look more
01:05:55
Speaker
Everything just clicks. Because again, Sarri is a system coach, just like content. I keep saying this, he needs everything to work. For the defence to work, the attack has to work. Everything clicks. He's not like Allegri, who's risk minimising. It is a marching band. And when Lazio tick, they look unbelievable. And Chiro Immobula just can't do what he wants him to do.
01:06:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's this. I agree with that. But I think that's you. Yeah, they've got big game coming up against finals now. Huge, huge game is going to be very difficult game as well. But that's an important win for them ahead of that. Also, Atalanta.
01:06:39
Speaker
Very important win for them. They beat Genoa 1-0. So they're knocking on the door. No, 2-0, sorry. They scored deep into injury time. So they're knocking on the door. There was a very controversial call in that game for the Lukerman first goal, which I've watched so many times. I still can't tell whether he handled the board or not. It's one of those. But they're up to six now at Atlanta.
01:07:05
Speaker
And the other games, Bologna win 2-1, they're also knocking on the door of Europe against
01:07:12
Speaker
against Frosinone. Frosinone impressed me now. They almost grabbed a draw in that game. And then Selenetana 2, Kalyuri 2, Pippo Inzagi, in his first game, wasn't it, for Selenetana. Crazy end to that game. The goal was in the last 10 minutes and an injury time. Ahead of the Monday games, Udinese Elecce and Fiorentina, Empoli, I just want to touch on
01:07:40
Speaker
touch upon the betting scandal. There's not really any new updates since our last show, but I do want to touch upon what you just said about the way that the Italian media has handled this, but not just the Italian media, but the Italian
01:07:58
Speaker
football authorities and just Italian football in general because they've they've turned Italian football has been turned once again into a circus by just how badly this has been handled it in everything, you know, we've already discussed about you know, I personally think that and I've seen people saying this in England as well that you know, it's they're treating this way too harshly. The punishments are way too harsh. But in terms of the media, the way that the media is handling this
01:08:28
Speaker
is embarrassing as well. For Rizio Corona, who's running wild,
01:08:35
Speaker
with all these kinds of stories, many of them fakes, Alevsky, El Shiraoui, Kasale, Gatti, have all been accused when they're all seemingly completely innocent. The same with Nigolo Barello, who got dragged in. Barello, like you said, is really cracking up over there. So El Shiraoui burst into tears after the game. And the Italian media is giving Corona so much airtime and column inches. I mean, they're treating him like he's some great
01:09:00
Speaker
investigative journalist like he's Julian Assange or someone, you know, and they're giving air time to this criminal. I mean, it's just a it's just a shambles and then you look elsewhere, you have Papu, at the same time Papu Gomez is getting getting a ban, a drugs ban. You have the domestic TV, TV rights shambles where last week it was revealed that the Zone Sky media set all made ridiculously low offers. And, and
01:09:29
Speaker
and so there's still no closer to taking a deal. And it's now, just as we're speaking, if you check our,
01:09:37
Speaker
If you check our group, NIMA, we have a group called NIMA bingo group, which is, we don't, you all do. And I was brought into it after you created a bingo card for me. Yeah, we created a bingo card. And since then, I've been changing everything I say every week to keep you all on your toes. Yes. Yeah. Because there's certain phrases that NIMA always comes out with Swedish say and also things like, you know, you know,
01:10:07
Speaker
You'd all know there's certain things Nima always says. Anyway, so check that group down Nima. So basically, the latest that's just broken this morning is that Sky Duzona are offering a 900 million a season deal for the 2024 to 2029 TV rights. And Oaktree are offering 975 million. So they're offering 75 million a season more.
01:10:32
Speaker
Guess which one the league is choosing, Nimr? Well, of course they're going to take the one that is old school, because the one that Oaktree wants to do is exactly what I want them to do. And that is going directly to the consumer, creating a modern product. And so, of course, these dinosaurs are going to take the lower offer and they're going to take the offer that they understand.
01:10:55
Speaker
as opposed to something they don't understand because they still think that the internet is a fashion fad that's going to disappear. I mean, I just can't deal with it. I just don't...
01:11:10
Speaker
It just frustrates me, man. Now is the time to do this, because when the Premier League discovers, when people like Simon Jordan finally get to the Premier League and say, look, we can dominate football forever and ever until the end of time, if we stop, if we go directly to the consumer globally, like Netflix, charge 10 every month,
01:11:34
Speaker
10 or a month, 20 million people in the world are going to pay that per month, finished, done, done, finished, forever and ever Premier League is going to dominate. Now is the time to do it, but they're not going to.
01:11:51
Speaker
It's so dumb. It is so dumb. It brings me to the point where it's just like you can't save people from themselves, so let it all go to hell. Let it all go to hell. Maybe that's the only way some people will learn.
01:12:05
Speaker
when things go absolutely pear-shaped and to hell. Maybe then they're like, oh, maybe we made a mistake. Well, yeah, yeah, maybe next time. Listen, it's just frustrating, man. It's just so, so frustrating. Let's call it what it is. It's pure corruption. Of course it is. Let's not make out like they're making some kind of decision based on what they think is right. It's pure corruption. But Italian football has been a complete circus in the last week or so. Everybody watching, the only people
01:12:35
Speaker
people that I speak about you know at work and elsewhere that are not Italian football fans but they're just you know cursory looking at what's going on over there just like what the hell is going on in Italian football you've got this betting scandal you've got all this like it's just all like I say it's just negativity negativity negativity all the time there's nothing ever is is positive or anything in which they're building anything
01:12:57
Speaker
It's just embarrassing. Everything about it is embarrassing, but it's not just Italian football. I just wanted something that sums up the way how badly Italian football and Italian sport is run. I saw this story a few days ago. Italy is holding the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina D'Ampezzo.
01:13:20
Speaker
It's been announced that for the first time in over 100 years of the winter Olympics, parts of the Olympics will be held in another country because Italy is unable to put on and afford to host some of the events. So the bobsled
01:13:35
Speaker
the skeleton and luge events will not be held in Italy. The organizers have said that it's mainly because they can't afford it because they were planning to rebuild one of the tracks, but now apparently they can't afford it because it would go over the budget provided by the government and the funders. This is for the Winter Olympics of 2026. Italy won the bid in 2019, so they've had four years basically to get to where they are now, and now they finally just
01:14:05
Speaker
belatedly announced that they're unable to fulfill their hosting rights. So these events will now be held in Austria and Switzerland. And I repeat, this is the first time in 100 year history of the Winter Olympics that part of the Olympics won't be held in that country of the hosts. They're having to take some of the events and put them in another country. I mean, it's just embarrassing. And it just shows it's not just Italian football. It's Italian sport. It's Italian culture. It's just
01:14:34
Speaker
It's just everything. It's just a mess. It's just a shambles. Just the whole thing's falling apart. So yeah, I just wanted to give that example because I think it sums up, doesn't it? The situation in Italian football right now about this. This is just where we are right now. What can you do? For me, what really pisses me off is the way the Italian media have handled this. I'm sorry, but you can't, you know,
01:15:01
Speaker
It's not, you can't just publish, any idiot can publish anything up substantiated, but it's a journalist supposed to verify information. And they haven't, they've just been, they've been giving this disgusting, vile swine, Corona, all the TV time in the world, where he can make allegation after allegation without having to back it up, outing players saying, this guy is gay, this guy isn't, I mean, it's so irresponsible
01:15:31
Speaker
It's funny about it. The mainstream media and the corporate media always try and look down on the independent media because they say, oh, the independent media, they don't fact check that great word, which doesn't which fact check was just basically, you know what it really means. It basically means it basically means fact check by the by the by the government, basically, or by the corporate powers.
01:15:54
Speaker
And, you know, they try and look down on the independent media because they say that, you know, we do journalism the right way. You know, we fact check things. We make you better at things. Whenever someone says fact check in this day and age, that's a trigger warning. That's an alarm bell that should go off in your head that an extra special big lie is coming down the road. Yeah. And a special whopper of a lie is coming down the road.
01:16:18
Speaker
That's what it means because these fact checkers who have been supposedly supposed to be above it all are so full of crap that it's not even one time, it's just 90% of the time. They just distort at worst lie. So yeah, whenever I hear the word, whenever I hear the fact checker, then I know that, okay, here's a whopper of a lie coming down the
01:16:43
Speaker
No, absolutely. But I mean, I just I just find it amusing that, you know, and it's not just in football, this is and it's not just in Italy either. I mean, I think that we've really seen in the last we've seen in the last few weeks of what was going on in Palestine and Israel and Palestine. But you know, further along, you know, what happened in Covid and go, you know, we've seen in the last few years, the mainstream media and the corporate media has been shown to be, you know,
01:17:11
Speaker
is shown, everybody's seen its true colors and that you can't, you know, this whole picture that the mainstream and corporate media try to paint that, you know, the mainstream media is what you can, is proper journalism. It's proper journalism and it's the journalism that you can trust and the independent media is not something you can trust because it's done by amateurs and unprofited.
01:17:33
Speaker
you know, don't follow the rules, they don't do proper journalistic procedure. You know, well, I think that, you know, the last few years have shown that it's actually the other way around now, that, you know, obviously, there's good and bad in all media, and it's good and bad in independent media as well. But one thing that's for sure is that the mainstream media and the corporate media cannot be trusted at all. In fact, they're the ones that you should trust the least right now. And that's been shown
01:18:00
Speaker
not just in what's happened here with this betting scandal, but this betting scandal as an example is a microcosm of kind of where the mainstream media is now. It's the mainstream media and the corporate media have got to a position now where they're basing a whole betting scandal investigation.
Media Critique and Sensationalism
01:18:16
Speaker
and that their source is probably a Corona. I mean, it's unbelievable, isn't it? Unbelievable. It's genuinely disgraceful. And the only reason they're doing it is because the way that they cover is just tabloid. It's tabloidism. That's the level that we want to see. Well, that's what it's become, isn't it?
01:18:36
Speaker
And it's also because they're so desperate, because their media is dying. Their revenue streams and advertisement has all dried up. It's artificial breathing, really. It is what it is. But look, now I just find this entire thing, the way that the Italian media has covered this, to be absolutely disgraceful. Just outing people left, right and centre,
01:19:03
Speaker
who haven't done anything wrong and they're doing it with someone who's been convicted. I mean, he should be, he was convicted 13 years in prison for doing this kind of, you know, for doing these things. There's no evidence either. There's nothing there. It's just him sitting there saying things and he's on, he's on every channel, every newspaper talking things, saying one source told me this. And then it's like, that's not journalism. And they run with it. Yeah, they run with it. That's a rumor.
01:19:27
Speaker
That's not journalism. You're supposed to verify. Any idiot can say something. You need to have some form of corroborative evidence. It's so embarrassing. It's so embarrassing. It's disgusting, too. You saw what happened to El Sharabi. He was destroyed, but El Latoo was fuming. These guys are having their names dragged through the mud for seemingly no reason whatsoever.
01:19:55
Speaker
No, I agree.
European Competitions Preview
01:19:56
Speaker
We're running over, so I'm just, we're not going to discuss Europe. I'm just going to run through the fixtures. So we have Interversus Salzburg and Union Berlin versus Napoli, Champions League match day three. That's on Tuesday and in final with Lazio and PSG Milan on Wednesday.
01:20:17
Speaker
Milan is the key one here. They're the one that's under the most pressure. They need to get Elisa drawing that. The other teams have a little bit more... No, they have to win. Inter have to win against Salzburg Napoli, Union Berlin. I'm worried about that, for Napoli's sake. A draw will be fine, I think. Fair enough, but they have to win that. I'd rather... We'd rather they win, but it's not a disaster if they draw a line. And then Lazio Feyenoord as well. If they can win that, they will take a huge step towards...
01:20:40
Speaker
towards the qualifying. But yeah, Milan PSG is obviously the big one. And I wouldn't count Milan out here, to be honest. I wouldn't count them out. Yeah, not ideal preparation losing to Juventus, but maybe hopefully we'll see a reaction. But they need to get a draw at least in this game. Because if they lose, then I think they're going out. They're going out, I think. If they lose, they're going to have to win their last three games probably to qualify. And so they need to get a draw there.
01:21:09
Speaker
and then on and then in Europa League, Stemgorac, Satalanta, Roma, Slavia, Prague and Fiorentina versus Kukariki on Thursday. Right, finish off with
Miscellaneous Football Anecdotes
01:21:20
Speaker
Bad Joe and Prem face of the week.
01:21:22
Speaker
Okay, so Badjo of the Week. Who we got for Badjo of the Week, Nima? I have de Gregorio, a Monza goal, because those two saves were insane. And he was just brilliant throughout that game as well. And my stat that you proved about him being statistically the best goalkeeper in all of Europe's top five leagues. Well, I thought he was out. That was just wow.
01:21:46
Speaker
Like those safes were just unbelievable. Like I said, as we say in Sweden, we call those idiot safes. I love that. It was so many. The Hawar header that he saved was just wow. He was.
01:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to call it Scalia and I'm also going to say Mourinho because I love him. That was like watching Mourinho again from 15 years ago because you don't get that much, but every now and again, we see the real old Mourinho.
01:22:19
Speaker
The OG Mourinho, as I call him. We see that every now and again. We saw that on Sunday. Great, great to watch. Prem Face of the Week. Fox Sports America have been on a rampage of prem facery in the last week. It's been one thing after the other, after the other. Just hilarious. First of all, they said Gianni G Profombe was the goalkeeper for Italy at Euro 2020 in the England versus Italy game. And then they did, and this is a work of art.
01:22:48
Speaker
They did a Milan versus Juventus preview image for social media, in which they had all four Americans in the image that were playing, the Milan, the Juventus players, Musa, Purisic, Mckenny and Amuela. And for some bizarre reason, they had them imposed in the Colosseum.
01:23:10
Speaker
which I don't know. I don't know how that how that happens. Like how you sit down, put the Coliseum in a game that's being played in Milan between Milan Juventus. So they had some whoppers. And then I just want to I just want to I have to have to mention this because this is this is hilarious. And I don't want to down. I don't want to belittle and downplay what is obviously an incredibly serious, you know,
01:23:38
Speaker
tragic what's going on at the moment in Palestine, Israel. But there's always some light within the dark. And in India, there was a pro-Palestine protest. This is generally one of the funniest things I've seen this year. So there's a bunch of pro-Palestine supporters in India
01:24:06
Speaker
and they're holding, they're waving flags in support of Palestine only. All the flags are not Palestine flags, they're Italy flags.
01:24:16
Speaker
And it's not just one or two Indians that are doing this. It's a
Criticism of Fan Misbehavior Commentary
01:24:20
Speaker
massive crowd of hundreds of them, all holding Italy flags, waving Italy flag. There must be hundreds of them. And then they're also holding a banner up of Palestine. And they've spelled Palestine wrong. They've spelled it Palestine instead of N-E. It's E-N at the end. It's Palestine. No, it was. Yeah, it's very, very funny.
01:24:46
Speaker
During this horrible thing that's been going on, this war, the best memes and content has somehow come from India and Bangladesh and Pakistan, who aren't even
01:25:01
Speaker
a party to this conflict. It's just the stuff that I've seen online, the memes around this. It's just, I mean, I don't even know where to begin. It's just been, how do you, how, I don't, yeah. But it's been, it's been crazy. But yeah, no. I actually watched that video about 30 times. I can't, it's just, it's comedy, isn't it? It's just the absurdity. And I have one as well, Nick Harris.
01:25:31
Speaker
who called with the ironic handle on twitter sporting intelligence because there's no intelligence here and maybe the sporting involved the certainly isn't any intelligence here after sebobi chart and died manchester city fans, behave poorly and sang disgusting chance right,
01:25:52
Speaker
And this mental midget decides to quote tweet that from the Premier League and says, when a club has an ownership group and hierarchy that believes we can do what we want with impunity, that's inevitably going to filter down to some of the fan base, putrid, but hardly unpredictable. That's the dumbest shit I've heard this week. And that is impressive because first of all,
01:26:18
Speaker
owners or chairman of a club somehow instigating in another area, like to what the fans are singing about Bobby Charlton, are you mad? Are you literally insane? There is no correlation here. If we're using that logic too, and I use the term logic very loosely here, then
01:26:38
Speaker
Liverpool owners and Chairman Sir John Smith and David Moors were morally to blame somehow for what they did because Liverpool fans did hazel, which was one of the worst catastrophes in all of football history. People actually died there. There's no correlation. The only difference here, of course, is that city's owners are from the Middle East.
01:26:57
Speaker
and he has to turn everything as people are rinsing him of other clubs not just city fans because there aren't very many for city fans maybe what was I used to say about was it stockport three guys and stockport and a three-legged dog but
01:27:12
Speaker
In all honesty, fans of other clubs are going, not everything is geopolitics. Fans have always misbehaved with chance, especially in England, and it's got nothing to do with the owners. And for you
Discussion Wrap-up and Future Plans
01:27:24
Speaker
to try to turn this in this climate into some sort of, you know, damn those Arabs and Muslims, it's frankly, frankly quite disgusting and pathetic. But again, I'm sure the fact checkers will fact check for him and prove him right.
01:27:40
Speaker
God, yeah, maybe not in this case because I mean, yeah, Liverpool Liverpool fans do it all the time. No, but it's not just that everyone does it everywhere. Everyone does it. Yeah, every fan does it. It's got nothing to do with where the owners are from. It's got nothing to do with the owners at all. This is a ridiculous kind of someone trying to find Liverpool fans do it all the time against against like Munich and against you know, and then and then city fans do it against Munich and then many night fans do it against Hillsborough and
01:28:07
Speaker
and it's just something that fans always, those rivalries especially do all the time. Okay, right, let's leave it at that. We might not do a Q&A this week because we did it late last week. Yeah, we did it late last week and we had lots of questions. We'll let them build up and then we'll do one next week. We'll see.
01:28:32
Speaker
and then we'll be back on Thursday or yeah, review of the Champions League. Yeah, Champions League and yeah, preview of the weekend. Okay. Thank you everybody for listening. See you later in the week. Ciao ciao.