Latest / Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football / UWCL: Matchday 4 preview (Nov. 20 matches)

Transcript

UWCL: Matchday 4 preview (Nov. 20 matches) · Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football

0:03
OK, welcome to Into the Channel, a podcast primarily about
0:08
women's football. Before we hit the pitch.
0:09
If you enjoy the show or loved ones football as much as your
0:12
boys do, come kick it with us already.
0:15
Subscribe follow YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcast, wherever
0:17
you like to watch or listen. Leave us a review over your
0:20
favorite podcast app. Links to all of our socials in
0:22
the show notes of this episode. I am your host Dino de Cespedes.
0:26
And as always, I am joined by my coast, Mr. Grant Angle.
0:30
What is up man? I'm feeling all right, buddy.
0:32
We spent the first like half hour or so talking a little
0:36
NWSL, talking a little US Women's national team.
0:39
Oh, you know what? We still love the Champions
0:42
League so much. I'm glad it's back.
0:44
I'm glad we had a match. There were some things for
0:47
anybody who's watching this program.
0:48
We didn't watch our last show on the NWSL and the US women's
0:52
national team. We had some some a lot of
0:55
factors interrupt play there for a while, some illnesses, some
0:59
work trips, all that stuff. But we're back.
1:01
We're here to talk about match day 4A, little bit about match
1:05
day three, talk about the importance of these pivot
1:07
matches. European football, those
1:09
European Knights, they're back. They are way back.
1:13
And yeah, just to add a little context to what my guy is
1:17
mentioning, this is actually Part 2, Part 1.
1:19
We covered the NWSL semifinals, did a little preview on the NWSL
1:23
final, little mini preview and talk to little US women's
1:26
national team as they announced their roster for their two
1:28
upcoming European friendlies. We also cracked the beers.
1:31
So pretend we cracked another one.
1:34
So got a little bit more stick around for part three.
1:37
It might be a 2 beer evening for your boys.
1:39
So that's that's TBD, but let's zoom into UA for Women's
1:43
Champions League Wednesday. Where do you want to get started
1:46
for big matches? Let's go.
1:48
You know, I love alphabetical order.
1:50
I love alphabetical order almost as much as I love chronological
1:53
order. It's a constant battle in the in
1:55
the UA for Women's Champions League of what I like more.
1:58
A culture war, really. Yeah, really.
2:01
So let's go with your turf group, A Galatasaray versus
2:07
Wolfsburg. We're going into Germany for
2:10
this reverse fixture on match day four.
2:12
What do you want to talk about? What did you see in these two
2:14
squats? I want to just kind of like do a
2:16
quick drop in and see you got a little temperature check, little
2:19
vibe check. So Wolfsburg cooking right now
2:22
sitting at the top of Fran Bundesliga coming off A5 nil
2:26
away win over Galatasaray. They are one and one in their
2:31
last 10 from Boudasiga matches, plus nineteen goal differential.
2:34
They've won 12 of 15 this season, including five straight.
2:37
Lynette Biernstein, ITC favorite.
2:40
She scored in three of her last four.
2:42
And I just wanted to give a quick shout out to former SK
2:45
Braun standout Eustine Jelen for an absolute majestic touch in
2:50
the 63rd minute had the announcer ooing and eyeing.
2:54
That led to Rebecca Bloomkist. First goal of the day.
2:58
And welcome to the party, Rebecca.
3:00
She notches three goals and an assist could have easily been a
3:03
five piece. Felt like in this one Wilsburg,
3:06
pretty much all bangers, just all bangers, no filler.
3:10
They were not messing around today and I think this was
3:13
something carried through the entire match day three where
3:16
some of the big dogs, some of the more pedigreed teams really
3:19
looked at this match day as an opportunity to kind of like
3:23
extend that goal differential situation.
3:25
Really savvy play from those squats that have that have been
3:28
there. Before, yeah, I mean, most of
3:30
the teams really pulled away. That's a great point.
3:33
We had talked about like, oh, the goal differentials in this
3:35
tournament may be inching closer.
3:38
A lot of teams did some work to maybe make that take not so
3:42
correct. We'll see how teams adjust and
3:44
play on match day 4, but I think you're spot on here.
3:47
The pedigree of Wolfsburg really showed through going into Turkey
3:51
to have that gigantic 5 nil win Wolfsburg in their last five
3:56
matches across all comps. So including this five nil win
4:00
over Galatasaray, 14 goals for, one goal against.
4:04
It just feels like every match I'm able to catch of theirs,
4:07
they just have players running completely free in the danger
4:11
area, which is always a good sign for you.
4:13
Never a good sign for your opponents.
4:16
And let me just say I want to throw it out there.
4:18
They arrived a little late. Let the revenge tour begin.
4:21
I like it. I think.
4:22
I think we're in full on revenge tour mode at this point.
4:25
Yeah. Galatasaraya team I was high on
4:28
coming into this tough stretch for them. 3 Champions League
4:30
matchups, one goal for 14 against ma'am.
4:33
No mathematician that that some that lands somewhere the -13
4:37
range. Yeah, but you look at Leon
4:39
Wolfsburg, AS Roma, no real relief there against those three
4:44
big dogs. I do still kind of feel that we
4:46
haven't heard the last of Andreas Tashkova.
4:48
Got that? Usman, you already know 19 year
4:50
old Hapsatu Diallo, She's looked exciting in spots too.
4:54
So a lot to be excited about for Galatasaray fans.
4:57
But yeah, I think they're drawing data a little bit in
4:59
this one. Even their goalkeeper, Gamzener
5:02
German versus Wolfsburg, I thought she played really well,
5:04
10 saves, but I mean, you face 15 on target from that Wolfsburg
5:09
attack. It's going to be a long day.
5:10
So we'll see what they've got when they lock up again on
5:13
Wednesday here. Yeah, totally agree.
5:14
I, you know, now you have to go into Germany, a very tall task.
5:18
I think it's going to put some pressure on another team.
5:21
We'll talk about later in this group.
5:23
But yeah, I'm glad you mentioned her.
5:25
Our pal Ustine Jeland, formerly of SK Braun.
5:29
She looked great in this match against Galatasaray.
5:31
We mentioned the touch. She was just a really good
5:34
connector, looked dangerous, probably could add a goal of her
5:36
own at one point in the match. So good to see Jelen play well.
5:41
My heart still hurts that she's not wearing that SK brown red,
5:45
but it's OK. We, we soldier on.
5:47
Yeah, well, it's almost like we got some Brown in the Champions
5:49
League, so I'm happy about that. That's fair.
5:51
Let's shift gears here. Same time slot Real Madrid, FC
5:54
Twente. What do we need to know about
5:56
what we saw last week and what's coming up this week?
5:59
So heading into match day three, I wasn't totally certain about
6:03
Real Madrid's form. Heading into match day three,
6:06
they had a match in League F against Levante Batalonia that
6:11
ended up being 31. Real Madrid.
6:13
I was able to watch it on the zone where you can watch Liga,
6:16
many Liga F matches. They were down one nil in the
6:21
76th minute. It took a late Elba Redondo
6:26
brace to really put them ahead and win the match somewhat
6:30
comfortably, but they went down one nil in the 20th minute and
6:34
they were a bad offside call from being down to nil.
6:38
Wow, so. I was going into this match
6:40
like, OK, well, Twente is going to play physical.
6:42
They're going to try to hit those long passes over the top.
6:44
Let's see how it works. It didn't work.
6:46
Real Madrid very clearly took out some frustration on 20.
6:51
They score super early. Senior Brune gets on the board,
6:54
I want to say like in the 1st 5 minutes.
6:57
And then they just they just kind of started to pile on and
7:00
20, you could just tell they looked a little a little
7:03
panicked. Amanda, Andre Dotere didn't
7:06
capitalize on a really bad giveaway by Misa Rodriguez.
7:10
They go in the halftime down to nil.
7:13
If you're 20 in that spot, you needed to pull that back and go
7:17
to into halftime 21. Other than that, it's like
7:20
you're in deep trouble. And then Real Madrid start.
7:23
I think they scored like, I want to say in like the 50th minute.
7:26
It was Naomi Feller, Caroline Weir.
7:30
And then just things start to get real, real ugly.
7:32
And then you end up winning by a touchdown when you're Real
7:34
Madrid or from 20s perspective, you end up losing by a touchdown
7:38
and it's just like that might end your tournament.
7:42
Certainly feels like it. I thought Misa Rodriguez really
7:45
good game and then a team like this to get back Carolyn Weir
7:50
and senior Burn and then just to see the performance in a match
7:53
like this, I thought was really, really impressive.
7:55
Tuente spirit kind of kind of broken, especially in early in
7:59
that second-half. Once they give up the third, not
8:02
going to quite call it a wrap, but I think this one, they're
8:05
staring way, way, way uphill this Tuente side.
8:08
But I mean still some football to be played as mentioned.
8:10
Yeah, you know, I mean, so let's say they get the win over
8:14
Madrid. It's important to remember that
8:16
in the UAFO Women's Champions League group stage, the 1st
8:20
tiebreaker are points in head to head matches among tied teams.
8:25
If Twente comes back and beats Madrid, it'll be 3 points and
8:29
three points. But the second tiebreaker goal
8:31
difference in head to head matches.
8:34
So unless Twente comes out and wins 8 to one or seven to nil,
8:38
they are, as you said, staring way, way uphill.
8:41
Yeah, I mean, well, having to make up seven goals isn't as bad
8:45
as having to make up 17 goals if it was just overall goal
8:48
differential because Real Madrid plus 1020 -, 7.
8:52
So they got that going for them. So we're definitely going to be
8:54
locked into this one, if for nothing else to see what Real
8:58
Madrid looks like. Because I think it's also
8:59
important to note that Real Madrid hosted Barcelona this
9:03
past weekend and, you know, got it, got big sistered by the
9:07
Champs for no loss at home. Couldn't quite get too much
9:12
going. You know, I think it was a good
9:13
maybe reality check for them. But again, these are two
9:17
different tournaments. A lot can happen.
9:19
I don't think it dulls Real Madrid's enthusiasm or chances
9:22
in this tournament to go deep with a loss like that, but it'll
9:26
be interesting to see how they bounce back in this one.
9:28
Well, I think that's actually part of the thing that I'm
9:30
considering narrative wise is like, so they didn't look that
9:33
great against Levante, that Alona, and then they come in and
9:36
smash 20. Now they get kind of beat down
9:38
by Barcelona in that League F match.
9:41
Also, I watched on the zone where Real Madrid is playing at
9:45
home versus Barcelona, they give it the first goal pretty early
9:49
in the proceedings. And you could just see the look
9:51
on Misa Rodriguez, his face like, Oh my God, not again.
9:55
And it's just like they fought back.
9:57
Now they had some chances. So they don't go down to nil.
10:00
And I realize this is, this is funny to say, but they didn't go
10:03
down to nil until the 22nd minute, which is kind of a long
10:06
time when you're playing Barcelona.
10:08
But Autry gets both goals. I think that I think it was the
10:11
first one was a header and then the second one was an absolute
10:15
bullet, if I'm remembering this correctly.
10:16
Please, uh, MLS architect, correct me in the in the chat if
10:20
I'm if I'm wrong on this, but I think pottery hits an absolute
10:23
bullet into the bottom left corner.
10:25
Yeah, I think it's, I think it knocked in off the post I think
10:27
too. So just perfect placement on
10:30
that second pottery goal. Of course, because that's what
10:32
that's pretty much what she does.
10:34
And then you could just tell those like, okay, airs out of
10:37
the balloon. By the time we roll around 1/2
10:39
time, it's three nil, Claudia penis scores and you're pretty
10:42
much just finished. They could have had another goal
10:45
at one point. They probably could have had a
10:46
couple more. Now you're Real Madrid back in
10:49
the same cycle. We have no chance against
10:51
Barcelona. Now they get to go to the
10:53
Netherlands and maybe take out that frustration on Twente
10:55
again. But you know, Twente, they're
10:57
going to be fighting against that.
10:58
Yep, I like it. Should be a fun one.
11:00
Let's shift gears here. I want to head to France where
11:04
Leon will be hosting one of my favorite teams.
11:06
AS Roma in the first match up, took this one on the road, 3 nil
11:10
over the Italian side. I was really impressed with
11:14
Leon's defense. I think we tend to key in on
11:16
their offense, but I mean just defensively they were
11:19
smothering. They held Roma to just five
11:22
shots in the match, just two on target.
11:24
No Roma player had more than a single shot in the match.
11:27
No Evelyn Vienna in this one. Tough day for that Roma attack.
11:32
Leon, though, was also the more aggressive team, so they
11:36
committed 17 fouls to Roma's 8. That's that.
11:39
When you've got the better team that's still also playing more
11:42
aggressive, more physical, they also earn 3 yellow cards to
11:45
Roma's 0. Melchi du Mornay, She's, you
11:49
know, a treasure. Like, she had an unbelievable
11:51
match. She continues to really stand
11:54
out. This is all while Tabitha
11:55
Choinga's still kind of like, working her way into the offense
11:58
trying to find specifically what what that role is going to look
12:01
like. But yeah, I was really impressed
12:02
with Leon in this one. And it starts from the defense.
12:05
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I you raise a great
12:07
point there is that Leon has a shapeshifter element to them
12:12
where they can play you on the counter.
12:13
They could dominate the ball, they could play great defense.
12:16
They could absolutely cook you in the midfield.
12:18
They can wear you out in the midfield, or they can just run
12:21
with Chewinga and then the the dazzling skill of Diani and then
12:25
the kind of the brute force of Melchi du Mornay and just the
12:27
genius link up play between those players and then Damaris
12:31
and Horan. It's just like, oh, I know we we
12:34
say it all the time, but like, however, do you want it from
12:36
this team? Like they can kind of figure out
12:38
about what levers to pull and and where to go.
12:41
I just want to say on that Melchi from near the near the
12:45
halfway line goal, hilarious assist for Lindsay Horan, who
12:50
basically steps in front, gets the steel is like, here you go,
12:53
Melchi. And then she's just like, yeah,
12:54
why not? I'll have a go.
12:55
And then she David Beckham's one into the back of the net.
12:59
Absolutely fantastic. Wild.
13:01
Yeah, total Backbreaker to rewind back real quick to that
13:04
Lyon defense. They haven't allowed a goal
13:06
since September 20th. OK, sure.
13:09
Yeah. Perfect record this season minus
13:12
a tough away draw to Perry FC that was a nil nil and then this
13:15
past weekend they beat St. Etienne 11th nil heart Lindsay
13:19
Aran four goals before being subbed off in the 68th and DNE
13:24
had a brace just in second-half stoppage time.
13:27
It's. Just amazing.
13:29
Come on. Looking at this Roma side
13:32
though, the components are there for a deep run.
13:35
They're they're still sitting in fourth in Syriafemineal they got
13:38
a nice bounce back. 2 to one win over 7th place Lazio at home,
13:42
goals from De Guliomo and Valentina Giacinti.
13:45
Still just two losses though in the season from 15 matches, the
13:48
loss to Lyon and a 2 to one loss at Juventus.
13:51
So I definitely expect a little bit of a bounce back from Roma.
13:54
This is going to be a tough one though heading to Lyon needing a
13:58
result. The last thing I wanted to
14:00
mention here, we put up a poll couple weeks back which
14:03
Champions League Group A team will not make the knockout
14:06
stage. Roma slightly edged out
14:08
Wolfsburg 52.4% to 42.9%. The crowd has spoken and I very
14:14
famously predicted a few weeks back Roma would walk away with
14:16
at least a point from these two matches.
14:19
What are you going to be looking out for when these two teams run
14:21
it back this week? I think you got to see how the
14:24
attack is able to to get through Leon's midfield and through that
14:28
defense. I mean, they have to be able to
14:30
put some goals on the board. I mean, we talked about
14:33
Wolfsburg kind of making their March back.
14:34
This is the team I was obviously alluding to when we were talking
14:37
about Wolfsburg is OK. So now Wolfsburg's sitting on
14:40
three, you're sitting on six. If you get cracked again by Leon
14:46
and Wolfsburg is playing at home against Galatasaray, now you're
14:50
going to be level on points. Roma obviously banked that one
14:54
nil win over Wolfsburg in Italia, but now you got to go to
14:59
Germany and play them in the last match of the group stage
15:03
and you're only sitting on that one nil goal difference from
15:06
your win in that first week. So I mean, we could be set up
15:10
for some real group of life stuff if the battle ends up
15:13
being between Roma and Wolfsburg.
15:16
Group A group of life. We'll see maybe.
15:19
I think it's looking like the the the most likely.
15:20
Well, that's not something we'll definitely keep an eye on.
15:22
This one's going to be really, really interesting.
15:24
One more Wednesday match to hit, though.
15:27
This was probably the batch of last week, right?
15:29
Celtic 1, Chelsea 2. What did you see in this one?
15:32
I want to rewind to when I was a master of Google and looked up
15:36
all the cities in the US named Glasgow and said I don't care if
15:40
you're in Glasgow, PA or Glasgow, Nevada or you know,
15:44
wherever they were. I thought it was a funny bit to
15:46
do. Shut up past Grant.
15:48
What do you know in Glasgow, Scotland that team played their
15:52
ass off. Shout out to the green brigade,
15:55
the supporters, the ultras waving flags, chanting, creating
16:00
an amazing atmosphere that this match was played at Celtic Park
16:04
in Glasgow. Before the match starts, the
16:07
green lights are flashing in the blackened arena.
16:09
You'll never walk alone. It's blaring over the loud
16:12
speaker. I thought the zone did a really
16:14
nice job by showing the tunnel shot of the Celtic players.
16:18
Many of them was just like big smiles on their face, like
16:20
they're playing in the Champions League against Chelsea Football
16:23
Club in Celtic Park. ITC Hall of Famer and Scottish
16:27
international Aaron Cuthbert wearing the Chelsea blue.
16:30
She had a big old smile on her face, but I thought it was funny
16:33
watching that nice moment. You could see in the background
16:36
Zashira Musevich and Ashley Lawrence Stone face not there
16:41
for the sentimentality. They were going to win a
16:44
football game because they're Chelsea players.
16:46
There was a great juxtaposition there.
16:48
Yeah, a little bit of a size difference, too.
16:49
Look at it. Yeah, Lawrence kind of towering
16:52
over Cuthbert kind of fit in a little bit better at the front
16:56
of the line there. First ever Women's Champions
16:58
League game at Celtic Park. So that was a very cool moment
17:00
too. And yeah, Celtic played really
17:02
tough. They obviously get that great
17:04
moment early to kind of just turn this into a like a real
17:08
match. Absolutely added to the
17:09
entertainment value of this one. It's.
17:11
Great performances from multiple players across across Celtic.
17:15
Murphy Agnew gets the goal. Like you said, the opener, the
17:19
crowd goes insane. Murphy Agnew Educated where?
17:23
Harvard University in the United States of America.
17:27
It was a smart run. It was a brilliant pass from Amy
17:30
Gallagher, who had just waited it absolutely perfectly in the
17:33
Murphy Agnew's pass. Agnew, born in New Hope, PA.
17:38
By the way, if you're curious, what did she major in at
17:40
Harvard? Engineering Sciences.
17:42
Probably pretty clever. We go to the back of the pitch,
17:45
we go into goal. You mentioned Kelsey Doherty.
17:47
Where's Kelsey Doherty born, you might ask?
17:49
Kelsey Doherty sounds like a pretty Scottish name.
17:52
Born in Kennesaw, GA, Attended the University of Alabama at
17:56
Birmingham. It's Blazers for any of our
18:00
European pals. Google UAB College America and
18:03
you will see they have the sickest dragon logo you will
18:06
ever see. Is one of the best logos in
18:07
college sports here in America. But to your point, Kelsey
18:11
Doherty played great. It could have been 3-1.
18:13
This match could have been 41. She made some excellent saves.
18:16
The first one she LED in the Micah Homano goal.
18:20
Maybe she could have got more of a hand on that one.
18:23
But it was a tricky spot with the ball kind of ricocheting
18:25
around down there. You know there are no
18:26
participation trophies like Celtic comes in to win football
18:30
matches, but I think they held up as well as you could possibly
18:34
expect when you think of just a massive talent disparity on both
18:37
sides. Oh yeah.
18:39
I mean, they played really tough.
18:41
This was an absolute ice bath match, very physical.
18:44
I mean, they got into it, got a little chippy and I thought
18:47
Celtic did a lot with the chances that they got.
18:50
I thought they were, they were aggressive.
18:52
They were happy to put crosses in, try to get on the end of
18:55
those. And then defensively they didn't
18:58
roll over. I mean, I think we saw a lot of
19:00
lopsided decisions match day three.
19:02
This certainly was not one of them.
19:04
And I'm not gonna lie, man, got me, got got me excited for match
19:07
day four. And I think more, more Celtic
19:09
football. They want to compete, they want
19:12
to be physical. They want to stay in these
19:14
matches. So I'm excited about these next
19:16
three from the Celtic side. Likewise, you know, they're
19:19
gonna travel to London. That's a pretty easy trip for
19:22
them from Glasgow. And I'm glad you mentioned the
19:24
cross is coming in. I thought Lucy Ashworth,
19:26
Clifford played really well, kind of delivering some of those
19:29
crosses. So easily my favorite match in
19:32
match day three. It's the only match where both
19:34
sides scored in this match week. So I mean that was a little
19:38
disappointing considering the other matches, but this was this
19:41
was great. I am just very much looking
19:43
forward to match day 4 for these squads.
19:45
Absolutely. All right, man.
19:46
Well, that is the Wednesday slate.
19:48
Anything else you want to hit before we get out?
19:50
Of here, I think we covered it, man.
19:51
I think even with the results being kind of as wide as they
19:54
were, I think we should expect probably every match to maybe
19:58
tighten a little bit this time around.
20:00
I like it. Quick programming reminder,
20:02
later this week we're going to be back with an NWSL final
20:04
preview. Definitely check that out.
20:06
Orlando Washington going to be a banger this weekend.
20:09
And then later this week we will be back with a match Day 4 full
20:12
recap. We're going to look at all 8
20:13
matchups, break those down, get excited about match Day 5.
20:16
It's a few weeks out. That's a little sad, but your
20:19
boys will persist if you miss Part 1 again.
20:21
We talked about the NWSL semifinals.
20:24
Go back and check that out. And coming up, Part 3 of this
20:28
episode, we're going to preview all four UEFA Women San Francig
20:31
Thursday matchups, including City, Hammerbee, Byron,
20:34
Valarenga, Juventus, Arsenal and St.
20:37
Polton against the Little engine that could Barcelona.
20:41
That sounds good to me man. Let's get into it.
20:43
All right, man, I think we did it.
20:44
There's been another episode of into the channel.
20:45
Sincere thank you, thank you, thank you for watching,
20:47
listening, following, liking, subscribing, just playing,
20:49
hanging out with your boys and remember to like if you liked,
20:52
subscribe or follow into the channel, YouTube, Spotify, Apple
20:55
podcast or wherever you like to watch or listen.
20:57
Leave us a review over your favorite podcast app, links to
21:00
all of our socials in the show notes of this episode.
21:03
And a big thank you to my coast as well.
21:04
Mr. Grant Angle, my Champions League running mate.
21:08
He's ready for match day 4. I'm ready for match day 4.
21:10
You already know what's time it is.
21:11
I appreciate you man. Likewise, buddy, and you know
21:14
what I will proudly say, no disrespect to Murphy, Agnew and
21:18
Harvard University, but this podcast, I think we're more
21:21
University of Alabama at Birmingham than maybe Harvard
21:24
University. We're out here grinding.
21:26
So thank you for rocking with us.
21:28
Come and enjoy some working class football with your boys
21:31
and we will see you guys next time.