Latest / Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football / Big Wins For Wolfsburg, Barcelona, Arsenal, Man City | Big Chelsea, Madrid Comebacks + Much More! 🏆

Transcript

Big Wins For Wolfsburg, Barcelona, Arsenal, Man City | Big Chelsea, Madrid Comebacks + Much More! 🏆 · Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football

• 0:03
  OK, welcome to Into the Channel podcast primarily about women's
• 0:09
  football. I'm your host, Dino De
• 0:10
  Suspicious and as always I am joined by my cohost, Mr. Grant
• 0:14
  Angle. What is up man?
• 0:16
  I'm feeling pretty good, buddy. I think that was a hell of a
• 0:19
  weekend of football that we just went through.
• 0:22
  Excited to talk about it with you.
• 0:23
  That was a whirlwind. I got some good mileage out of
• 0:26
  all my various streaming streaming solutions.
• 0:29
  Great football, some surprises. Very excited to get into it with
• 0:32
  you. And I know I was asking you this
• 0:34
  every week. I was asking where you want to
• 0:36
  get started. But you took it a step further.
• 0:38
  You laid out a whole blueprint for us, the whole run of show,
• 0:42
  courtesy of our guy. I appreciate it.
• 0:44
  You already know with that, said Mr. Grant.
• 0:47
  And go. Where do you want to get?
• 0:48
  Started. I want to get started with a
• 0:50
  beer because that is obviously the most logical place to start
• 0:54
  when we're talking about football.
• 0:57
  Agreed. Can't do, can't have one without
• 1:00
  the other. I mean, you can really, but I
• 1:02
  choose not to. Makes sense to me.
• 1:04
  Cheers. Cheers to you.
• 1:07
  So I think anybody who's been with this show for us for a
• 1:10
  while knows your boy loves chronological order.
• 1:13
  I like alphabetical order. But the events of this weekend
• 1:16
  simply demand that we go in the order of interesting stuff that
• 1:21
  happened. And who decides what is most to
• 1:24
  least interesting? Just going to look around and
• 1:27
  make sure on the podcast. I'm going to check your
• 1:28
  background. I don't know.
• 1:29
  We're the only two dudes with microphones.
• 1:31
  So we're going to decide what is most to least interesting.
• 1:34
  So with that said, I want to start with Wolfsburg smashing
• 1:39
  Eintracht Frankfurt 6:00 to 1:00.
• 1:43
  You know, both of these teams coming off a loss we talked
• 1:46
  about, OK, how would these teams look bouncing back?
• 1:48
  Kind of fitting that they go against each other.
• 1:50
  There's definitely jockeying happening at the top of the
• 1:53
  frown Bundesliga table. So this one, massive stakes and
• 1:57
  the score line was a bit of a surprise.
• 2:00
  You mentioned 6 to one. How about this Eintracht
• 2:03
  Frankfurt, the one in the six to one, LED in in possession in
• 2:07
  this one. More touches, more passes
• 2:09
  attempted, more passes completed, more corners, more
• 2:11
  tackles, more long balls. What went wrong today for
• 2:14
  Frankfurt? I mean, really, they just got
• 2:18
  outplayed in the first half hour so convincingly that there is
• 2:22
  just no way back. I want to back up a little bit
• 2:25
  though, because there was a great atmosphere at the
• 2:28
  Volkswagen Arena. One of these two teams are
• 2:31
  playing obviously James Thurgood of the Zone on the well.
• 2:35
  He's on the world feed is the announcer, but that's obviously
• 2:38
  being played on the zone in America.
• 2:39
  He was doing an incredible job setting the scene of the match.
• 2:44
  Tell you about how these are the joint record holders in terms of
• 2:46
  titles 1 and frown Bundesliga in the modern era.
• 2:49
  The you know, tons of great players that these teams have
• 2:52
  had on their squads. But there was one thing that
• 2:55
  during that intro and then, you know, before any of these
• 2:58
  matches are played and when Wolfsburg is playing at home,
• 3:01
  and obviously, I believe the Volkswagen Arena is the men's
• 3:05
  clubs team. So they're playing like in the
• 3:06
  larger stadium. But even when they play, when
• 3:08
  they play at either stadium and Wolfsburg's at home before
• 3:11
  kickoff, the lights are like flashing like black and neon
• 3:14
  green and you hear all the wolves howling in the
• 3:16
  background. Awesome.
• 3:18
  James Thurgood is just engaging in live poetry as he's talking
• 3:22
  about like the magnificence of this.
• 3:24
  And now I'm sorry to ask you to do some editing work on the
• 3:27
  show, but I need you to look at this image.
• 3:31
  So as James Thurgood is doing this and setting the scene and
• 3:34
  the lights are flickering, he's talking about how intense it is.
• 3:37
  Then you go to see the coin toss, and in this very intense
• 3:46
  moment where he's talking about the stakes of this match,
• 3:48
  battling for the Frown Bundesliga title, there you go.
• 3:52
  You see Wolfsburg Math, Wolfsburg's mascot, straight out
• 3:55
  looking like he's a character from Chuck E Cheese, perhaps
• 3:59
  just standing there in the background of the coin toss.
• 4:02
  It was a it was a real live lol. At the start of the.
• 4:06
  Yeah, he just kind of Dang it Outback there too, just kind of
• 4:09
  watching the coin toss, making sure everybody knows what side
• 4:12
  his heads, what side is his tails.
• 4:14
  And I just found that to be incredibly enjoyable.
• 4:16
  That's tremendous. I'm so glad you called out James
• 4:19
  Thorogood. I had this in my notes last
• 4:21
  week. I'm not sure if you saw it but
• 4:23
  last week versus Byron in the DF people call on to zone.
• 4:26
  Our guy gave us a spoiler alert so I wrote down what he said. 56
• 4:32
  minute quote. I don't want to spoil the
• 4:34
  results elsewhere. Something tells me that if you
• 4:37
  want to find out those scores, you'll be able to End Quote.
• 4:40
  How about that? We're now normalizing spoiler
• 4:42
  alerts thanks to our guy James Thurgood pushing that forward a
• 4:45
  little bit. Icing on the cake of the 86
• 4:47
  minute also made reference, very artfully I might add, to the
• 4:51
  football gods. And just absolutely absolute
• 4:54
  legendary performance. I'm so glad I had him in my
• 4:57
  notes last week and you circled back this week.
• 4:59
  For sure, James, open invitation to come on the pro.
• 5:03
  Hell yeah, we can make some old Man rock'n'roll George Thurgood
• 5:08
  and the Destroyer's references to him, see if he has any
• 5:11
  understanding of what we're talking about.
• 5:13
  We'll save that for for when that happens.
• 5:14
  Back to the football. Wolfsburg started incredibly
• 5:17
  fast. They had two goals within 8
• 5:19
  minutes. Sarah Linder was just passing
• 5:22
  the ball right around Eintracht Frankfurt's defense.
• 5:25
  It seemed like they had no idea that this was coming.
• 5:28
  Wolfsburg was playing incredibly direct.
• 5:30
  I mean, the first goal comes flying in and it's an Alex Pop
• 5:33
  header and you talk about this team coming off a loss, Pop
• 5:36
  buries that header and then celebrates like Kevin Garnett or
• 5:40
  Kobe Bryant winning the championship.
• 5:42
  Super locked in. You could tell the old time
• 5:45
  great was like, we're not going out like this again. 100% and
• 5:49
  the crowd almost matched Yeah pops energy, which was crazy.
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  It was just like borderline hysteria early, early in the
• 5:57
  arena or the arena. Did we?
• 6:00
  Did we let? My bad.
• 6:01
  I wasn't locked into the pronunciation.
• 6:03
  Can you give it to us one more time?
• 6:04
  I believe it's the Volkswagen Arena, at least that's what
• 6:07
  James Thurgood was saying. But to kind of get through the
• 6:11
  rest of this just really ass kicking that Wolfsburg gave
• 6:15
  Frankfurt. I mentioned Sarah Linder, she
• 6:18
  hits a pass around the Frankfurt defense right into Lynette
• 6:23
  Berenstein's path. And I think you can see as Linda
• 6:27
  is turning to decide whether or not she's going to make the
• 6:30
  pass, you see her manager point the opposite direction to say,
• 6:34
  play the ball back. And then there's like, no, I
• 6:36
  think I got a path here and just curls it perfectly around.
• 6:39
  Birenstein finishes, it's two nil.
• 6:41
  Within 8 minutes. Frankfurt is is completely
• 6:44
  reeling. And then by the half hour mark,
• 6:46
  we have a handball in the box off of a pop header.
• 6:50
  Yanina Minga finishes the penalty.
• 6:51
  It's three nil 30 minutes into the match and it it was over.
• 6:55
  Like they so thoroughly dominated Frankfurt.
• 6:58
  It did not look like a match up of the top three teams in the
• 7:01
  table. Yeah.
• 7:02
  I think Sarah Dorsun also I think goes out early in this one
• 7:06
  that right around the 12th minute gets replaced by
• 7:09
  apologies on the pronunciation. I think Yellow Vait was a 19
• 7:12
  year old player and I think it showed.
• 7:15
  I mean, Dorsun, you know, sometimes can be had, I think
• 7:18
  defensively, especially against speedier attackers.
• 7:21
  But when she went out, it seemed like it just kind of got worse
• 7:24
  and worse. Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't think
• 7:26
  things are going to get much worse at three nil.
• 7:28
  How about 5 nil at the half? They concede another penalty in
• 7:33
  first half stoppage time. That was lat fine who finished
• 7:36
  that one. Bierstein gets another goal
• 7:37
  right before the whistle. I'll give Frankfurt credit in
• 7:40
  the sense that they played significantly better in the
• 7:43
  second-half. We're able to kind of stop the
• 7:44
  bleeding. But you know, at that point
• 7:46
  you're you're down 5 nil to Wolfsburg going into halftime.
• 7:50
  It's pretty much damage control from that point on anyway.
• 7:53
  But they just got to kind of throw that one away.
• 7:57
  I think they have the mentality to keep it going throughout the
• 7:59
  season. But just a massive, massive win
• 8:01
  for Wolfsburg. If we're going to think about
• 8:03
  where the patented ITC arrow is pointing, I would say for
• 8:08
  Wolfsburg after the disappointing loss in the Pocal,
• 8:11
  I think that arrow is right back flipped in the upward direction.
• 8:14
  I like it. I like it.
• 8:15
  Yeah. And Bernstein didn't start in
• 8:17
  that Pocal quarterfinal match up and obviously gets a start in
• 8:20
  this one. Makes a big difference.
• 8:22
  And then, yeah, waiting for them.
• 8:24
  Well, I guess Barcelona will be heading to Wolfsburg.
• 8:26
  I mean, could be a tough environment and Wolfsburg has a
• 8:29
  few more chances to kind of like sharpen up the form even even
• 8:32
  more. Let's scoot ahead, though.
• 8:34
  I want to jump over to the WSL Chelsea 2, Everton one.
• 8:38
  I'm not sure we learned a ton. I kind of actually, well, let me
• 8:42
  let me wind a little bit. I think I learned a little bit
• 8:44
  about about Everton. They defended really hard in the
• 8:47
  first half. And I think they kind of went
• 8:49
  into this one saying, OK, let's, let's make sure we hold it down
• 8:52
  the first half, try to pick up on, you know, Chelsea's speed,
• 8:56
  you know, what kind of angles they're taking, where they're
• 8:57
  coming from, where they're going to and, like, just kind of get
• 9:00
  get up to speed from a defensive standpoint.
• 9:03
  Let's get to the second-half. Still in the match, which they
• 9:06
  did nil, nil at halftime, jumped ahead one nil 51st minute off of
• 9:11
  a pretty uncharacteristic giveaway from Cat Macario.
• 9:15
  Yeah. Chelsea ties at 10 minutes later
• 9:17
  when Sandy Baltimore takes the ball away deep in Everton
• 9:20
  territory, finds JRKJRK, composes herself, takes her
• 9:23
  time, looks up perfect ball into Maya Ramirez, who's able to turn
• 9:28
  and create a little space offer defender, slides in the
• 9:31
  equalizer 11 and then late in the match, 90 + 3, that killer
• 9:37
  LJ. I mean, what do you, what can
• 9:40
  you say? I mean, what an incredible
• 9:41
  player, what an incredible winner for Chelsea.
• 9:44
  What do you think of that one? Yeah, I mean, she scores in 90 +
• 9:48
  3, like you said, right before the death to get the winner, but
• 9:51
  for the majority of the match, And please, you know, tell me if
• 9:53
  you disagree, but I thought she was very clearly the best player
• 9:57
  on the field for the entirety of the game.
• 9:59
  She just never looks like she's gonna outpace anybody.
• 10:02
  She doesn't look like she's out running defenders out there, but
• 10:05
  her positioning and where she is on the field that any time,
• 10:09
  whether she's passing the ball, whether she's receiving a pass,
• 10:11
  whether she's setting up to receive a pass, she's always out
• 10:15
  maneuvering every other defender on the field, especially when
• 10:18
  she's in, when she's playing like that.
• 10:19
  There, there are some of those LJ games where she kind of like
• 10:22
  disappears and maybe like fades into the background a little
• 10:24
  bit. This was not one of those
• 10:26
  matches. This is one of the This is one
• 10:27
  of the Supernova LJ matches and she was just dictating the terms
• 10:31
  the entire game. Yeah, 100%.
• 10:33
  It's wild that she's able to get around defenders, get past
• 10:37
  defenders, and it looks like she's in 3rd gear.
• 10:40
  Like it doesn't seem possible. She's just cruising and just
• 10:44
  cooking defenders like left and right.
• 10:46
  As I was watching the match, I'm just like, dude, LJ reminds me
• 10:49
  of Magic Johnson. That's good.
• 10:51
  And then later I was like, LJ reminds me of Roy Jones Junior.
• 10:55
  And then the third one was and I want you to, I want, I want you
• 10:59
  to make a pick here. Who does LJ remind you more of?
• 11:01
  Magic Johnson, Roy Jones, Junior or Anderson Silva?
• 11:05
  Oh, wow. And I think that the general,
• 11:08
  the general thought process is so smooth, so natural.
• 11:12
  Doesn't look like she's working too hard.
• 11:13
  Looks like everything's coming so easy.
• 11:15
  But when the time comes and she's got to go from third gear
• 11:19
  to 5th gear, like it's just a snap of a finger and it just
• 11:23
  looks like the most natural thing that you've ever seen.
• 11:26
  Wow, OK, I love this. I am going to, I am going to
• 11:30
  pick because I am not as knowledgeable in the fight
• 11:32
  sports as you. You know, I watch, I enjoy a
• 11:34
  little bit. I know you, you are much more
• 11:36
  tuned into the technical aspects.
• 11:38
  I love the Magic Johnson comp because she also has a wild
• 11:42
  amount of flash to her game. She isn't necessarily she
• 11:45
  doesn't have a big smile on her face while she's doing it like
• 11:48
  like Magic did at times. But there are just those times
• 11:50
  where she'll just like, Oh yeah, back heel.
• 11:52
  That's actually, not only is it just the flashy play, it's
• 11:55
  actually the right play. And you would see like Magic,
• 11:57
  sometimes you throw the behind the back in order to fool a
• 12:00
  defender. And I just feel like she has so
• 12:02
  much of that in. Yeah, and and right before the
• 12:05
  winner, Sandy Baltimore's got the ball and LG like points down
• 12:09
  like I want it right there. Like give me, give me right
• 12:12
  there. And like smooth little turn full
• 12:15
  extension strike. Looks it looks like AI don't
• 12:17
  like a golf swing or a Ken Griffey junior swing.
• 12:19
  Just perfect, perfect angle in the strike.
• 12:22
  Yeah, there you go, Chelsea. Another three points again.
• 12:25
  The Subs played well for Chelsea.
• 12:27
  Depth played a role. They find a way to win.
• 12:30
  Yeah, I mean, that's the mark of a true champion.
• 12:32
  I mean, they're they're doing the thing where they're very
• 12:35
  obviously playing for something bigger, which is funny to say
• 12:38
  about a team that's won the WSL 5 consecutive years, but they
• 12:42
  are looking to win the Champions League.
• 12:44
  That is what this year is about. And on their way there, they
• 12:47
  want to sweep up as many other trophies as they as they can.
• 12:51
  And it seems like they will sweep up those trophies.
• 12:54
  But this year is very clearly about the Champions League for
• 12:56
  them. And maybe your gear analogy,
• 12:59
  maybe it's good to be in 3rd gear.
• 13:01
  And then as you kind of get into the semis, you're in fourth gear
• 13:04
  and then hopefully you're hitting the highest speed
• 13:06
  possible when you get to the final.
• 13:08
  Kind of sounds like my Eagles. Let's shift gears here.
• 13:12
  I want to head to the to League F Barcelona Madrid CFF.
• 13:17
  This one was entertaining, you know, not not as close as the
• 13:19
  last time these two teams locked up.
• 13:21
  What you see in this one? Yeah, this one was much more
• 13:23
  impressive than the win in Copa de la Reyna.
• 13:26
  It seemed like Barcelona kind of had Madrid's speed here, had it
• 13:31
  recognized, even though maybe the early proceedings didn't
• 13:34
  quite show that. But I want to I want to take you
• 13:36
  like inside my mind for a minute.
• 13:39
  Let me let me soak you guys in my mentals in the words of of Wu
• 13:43
  Tang Clan. So a fun thing about this
• 13:45
  Spotify shirt sponsorship that Barcelona has is that they tend
• 13:49
  to show these like certain music acts to promote Spotify on the
• 13:53
  video board. The first artist I saw in this
• 13:56
  match was Miriam Bryant. She is a Swedish pop star think
• 13:59
  like maybe like a splash of Rihanna, maybe some Miley Cyrus,
• 14:03
  maybe like some Lady Gaga ish vibes in there catchy pop songs
• 14:07
  that people can drink vodka Red Bulls too and just like jump up
• 14:10
  and down in a club for like hours on end.
• 14:13
  She has a song in Swedish obviously called them fun.
• 14:17
  I do which I found out and hopefully Google Translate isn't
• 14:20
  betraying me here. Roughly translates to or maybe
• 14:23
  directly translates to who the hell are you and that's fun.
• 14:26
  So I now you ask yourself, did Grant listen to Miriam Bryant's
• 14:31
  music for roughly 45 minutes while taking notes after this
• 14:34
  match? That's none of your business,
• 14:36
  don't worry about that. But when watching this, when
• 14:39
  watching this match, I couldn't help but think, who the hell are
• 14:43
  you? As I was sitting here watching
• 14:44
  it. And what happens is a stunning
• 14:47
  howler from Marta Torrion, who passed the ball directly into
• 14:52
  the path of 31 year old Argentinian Lorencia Bonsegundo,
• 14:56
  who was immediately one-on-one with kata koi after just AII
• 15:01
  mean. I cannot stress and you know, we
• 15:02
  like Marta Torrion on this program.
• 15:04
  I cannot stress how terrible of a decision this was by her
• 15:07
  completely uncharacteristic and Bonsegundo chips kata koi, which
• 15:12
  is just a hilarious thing to decide to do.
• 15:14
  It'll be like, you know what? I'm only getting this
• 15:17
  opportunity once probably. I might as well go for the chip
• 15:20
  them fan. IDU indeed.
• 15:25
  Pretty awesome. Then Barcelona happened and
• 15:27
  shout out to commentator Andy Bark who pointed out that in the
• 15:31
  previous Liga F match between these two teams, so not the Coba
• 15:34
  de la Reyna match, this match happened in match week five.
• 15:36
  That one also started with A1 nil Madrid lead and Barsa ended
• 15:40
  up winning that match 8 to one and scored all their goals from
• 15:43
  49 minutes onward in that match. But as I'm watching this, I
• 15:47
  thought no, surely that won't happen here.
• 15:50
  Madrid's going to hold on for 87 more minutes and beat Barcelona.
• 15:54
  Disrespect to Madrid, but that I think everybody knew that wasn't
• 15:58
  going to happen. There's a late challenge outside
• 16:00
  of the 18. Mapi Leon scores on a free kick,
• 16:03
  Great shot by her. She's able to get it up and over
• 16:05
  the wall. Like about as difficult as as
• 16:07
  you of a free kick as you can score to like to be able to to
• 16:11
  hop it over the wall and it still dies down enough to get
• 16:14
  into the top corner. Pretty incredible effort.
• 16:16
  Real mustard on that one. A little mustard for sure, and
• 16:20
  Barsa just had Madrid's defense under duress for pretty much the
• 16:23
  rest of the match. They forced a mistake.
• 16:26
  Payor had a had a tap in a 2/1. It was 4 shots on target to one
• 16:31
  in the first half, so not terribly dramatic.
• 16:33
  You go in there with a 21 lead, but then they start to pile it
• 16:36
  on. Vicki Lopez, Laser Rolfo ends up
• 16:39
  scoring, obviously. Fridolina Rolfo, buoyed by the
• 16:43
  Miriam Bryant reference, her fellow Swede on the video board.
• 16:48
  Who's to say whether that played a role?
• 16:50
  But I just, I just want to say this because we talked a little
• 16:52
  bit about the Copa de la Rena match last week.
• 16:55
  Barcelona is fine. They're going to win League F,
• 16:58
  they're going to win Copa de la Rena, and they should be the
• 17:01
  favorites to win the Champions League.
• 17:03
  A spicy, I think I I liked, I liked.
• 17:08
  Yeah, it was stupid to call it a bounce back, but I think a
• 17:11
  bounce back to dominant Barcelona is what we saw in this
• 17:15
  one against Madrid CFF and the things that I walked away from
• 17:19
  in this one. Claudia Pina you get you have to
• 17:22
  find a space for her on the field.
• 17:24
  She has a level of assertiveness on offense that I think the team
• 17:29
  is kind of missing. Pina and Vicki Lopez.
• 17:33
  They're like, I want to go, I want to shoot, I want to fire, I
• 17:36
  want to run, I want to I want to make something happen fast, you
• 17:40
  know, like they're playing it like buzzer beater speed.
• 17:43
  And I think those two players, specifically Pina, I think a
• 17:46
  little bit more so Vicki Lopez, tremendous player.
• 17:49
  She had a great goal in this one.
• 17:50
  Yeah. But I think I think Barcelona
• 17:52
  needs a little bit more of that and a little bit less, I think
• 17:55
  predictability on often just kind of knocking around, waiting
• 17:58
  for the goal to just kind of open way wide open.
• 18:01
  Yeah. But yeah, I was excited to see
• 18:03
  Barcelona kind of get back on track and really get back to
• 18:05
  some of those old ways. Yeah, no doubt.
• 18:07
  And you know, it's always just one of those things.
• 18:10
  It's a it's a parlor trick essentially that Barcelona is
• 18:13
  able to play on you. They win this match 51 Alexia
• 18:16
  Putais, Carolina Graham Hansen don't appear, they don't play.
• 18:20
  They still put up five goals, completely dominant.
• 18:22
  They were ruthless on their set pieces, which I I know I alluded
• 18:26
  to that last week. Anytime they're having those
• 18:28
  struggles anyway, they can just outwit and out strategize you on
• 18:33
  those on those set pieces as well.
• 18:35
  I just left the match thinking this team still has to be the
• 18:38
  favorite and I'm glad I haven't really wavered from that sense,
• 18:41
  you know, since some of these struggles.
• 18:43
  So I don't anticipate myself doing it anytime.
• 18:46
  I like it. Yeah.
• 18:47
  And on that quick note, on that fifth goal, 18 year old Sydney
• 18:50
  Shirton live. Yeah, who's a Swiss on that one?
• 18:53
  She not only goes behind the back, I'll add Jamal Crawford,
• 18:57
  but does a hair flip like mid attack.
• 18:59
  I don't know if you noticed. I saw that.
• 19:01
  Yeah, I've. Never seen that skirt.
• 19:03
  She's like just blasted far quarter to get the 5th and I'm
• 19:08
  just like, who the fuck is that? Yeah, where did this player come
• 19:12
  from? Just looking like just another
• 19:15
  new sports car that's going to be out here doing wild shit.
• 19:18
  So shout out to Sydney. Congrats, big win for Barcelona.
• 19:21
  Let's keep it in Liga FI. Want to talk a little Real
• 19:24
  Madrid versus Levante Batalona, who I was able to confirm
• 19:28
  formerly Levante Las Planas. So from now, from now on the
• 19:31
  show, they'll be referred to as Levante Batalona, formerly known
• 19:34
  as Levante Las Planas. A little wordy, but we'll get
• 19:37
  through it. So in this one, Batalona jumps
• 19:40
  out ahead when Misa Rodriguez gets called for a foul and a
• 19:44
  yellow card on a on a really wicked collision right in front
• 19:47
  of goal. You don't usually see this, but
• 19:49
  I mean Misa went a little little too hard in the paint there.
• 19:52
  Levante Batalona buries the PK Real Madrid fought back though,
• 19:56
  even though early I'd say Levante Batalona was definitely
• 19:59
  the aggressor, playing more physical, trying to kind of
• 20:02
  bully the game, which I thought was like pretty impressive on
• 20:05
  their part. And then Real Madrid took those
• 20:07
  punches comes right back. It's like.
• 20:09
  No, no, no, we're going to impose our will here and very
• 20:12
  impressively notch two goals right before halftime.
• 20:15
  A Caroline Weir corner finds Male Lacrar, who kind of like
• 20:19
  slides through the paint SGA style heads home the equalizer
• 20:22
  and then Yasmine, who was bawling, finds Eva Navarro for
• 20:25
  the second. I was just really impressed with
• 20:28
  with their ability to fight back and then go into the half up to
• 20:31
  one. Yeah, I mean, we we talk about
• 20:33
  it. I feels like every time with
• 20:34
  Real Madrid, their competitive character has really grown since
• 20:39
  we covered last year's Champions League.
• 20:41
  And you kind of think about some of those matches where they
• 20:43
  would fall behind and then they would they would get skittish,
• 20:46
  they would get disorganized. It just doesn't happen anymore.
• 20:49
  And obviously that that team did not have Caroline Weir, did not
• 20:53
  have Alva Redondo. That's obviously a massive
• 20:56
  difference. But they look more sure of
• 21:00
  themselves when they fall behind now.
• 21:02
  I agree with that. I think the the next kind of
• 21:05
  frontier for them though, as a squad is to how about we don't
• 21:08
  fall behind like. Right.
• 21:09
  That would also help, yes. Because they fall behind in this
• 21:13
  one and even in even in my notes in the second-half, I'm like,
• 21:16
  all right, man. Like Madrid's taking their foot
• 21:18
  off the gas here in the second-half.
• 21:20
  A little bit sloppy. You know, Bruin misses a sitter.
• 21:23
  She also tries like an overhead kind of scissors type kick angle
• 21:26
  Doll comes in the match and immediately shoots from 30 yards
• 21:29
  away, which I think was our first touch of the match.
• 21:31
  I'm just like, OK, we're maybe getting away from the stuff that
• 21:34
  was working here. And then a few minutes later,
• 21:37
  Madrid gives up an equalizer. The other one away and that they
• 21:40
  were dying to give away. So now it's 22 heading into
• 21:43
  stoppage time where pretty much bedlam ensues.
• 21:46
  So I think it's like the 90 + 3 ish minute Athania smashes in
• 21:52
  1/2 decent look. True WWE fashion.
• 21:55
  The ref storms and super late whistle soft foul on Alba
• 21:57
  Redondo who did make contact. You know, like couple couple
• 22:02
  boots kind of touched each other like it kind of looked like a
• 22:04
  scene from house party with kitten play.
• 22:06
  And then while dezone is running the replay OK, like it comes it
• 22:14
  comes off of replay to live action and then Carmona's just
• 22:18
  flying up the left hand side blasting across and in true
• 22:22
  Baldo live fashion, Alber Redondo slides into the frame,
• 22:25
  saves the day, buries the shot. Zero chance for Lopez to save
• 22:28
  it. Madrid in this one.
• 22:30
  I think they escaped with three points against Batalona.
• 22:33
  This team is talented enough, but my question to you, based on
• 22:37
  what you saw, are they serious enough to make any kind of run?
• 22:42
  I I think you you've, I think I'm with you that league F is
• 22:44
  maybe maybe the doors. If it's not shut, it's right
• 22:48
  there. But like how much can this team
• 22:51
  push Barcelona down the stretch? Can they stay within striking
• 22:55
  distance or can they try to see if they can make a run the
• 22:59
  Champions League? I know they're taking on Arsenal
• 23:00
  and this performance against the team like Arsenal, I think
• 23:03
  they'd be, they'd be drawing a little bit dead, but the talent
• 23:06
  is there. So like, how do we reconcile the
• 23:08
  talent versus maybe how serious they they look as a as a real
• 23:11
  contender? Yeah, it's an interesting
• 23:13
  question. I mean, it's obviously hard to
• 23:15
  see them losing. I mean, they do play Athletic
• 23:17
  Club coming out of the international break on March
• 23:20
  2nd. They're third in the table, so
• 23:21
  they'll have a test there. I don't even want to call them a
• 23:23
  little bit of a test, but yeah, I mean, five points behind
• 23:26
  Barcelona, can they push them? Maybe, maybe.
• 23:30
  I think Barcelona needs to find reasons to stay maximum
• 23:34
  motivated. I think that should help.
• 23:36
  I like your your analogy of obviously, you know, it's it's
• 23:39
  commonly used in sports of the door being a little open.
• 23:42
  I think the door is a little open for Real Madrid.
• 23:45
  The unfortunate part is it is the heaviest door in the world.
• 23:50
  So I don't know if they'll be able to push it open anymore.
• 23:53
  But you know, it's something for them to strive for while they go
• 23:57
  in and then eventually upset your Gunners in the
• 24:00
  quarterfinals. Come on.
• 24:04
  Well, you play both sides anyway.
• 24:05
  You're a Madrid fan too, so I mean, you can't lose in this
• 24:08
  equation. I can lose a couple of players
• 24:13
  that I mentioned that I want to kind of circle back to.
• 24:15
  Quick, quick shout outs here. Mel Lacroix connected on 53 of
• 24:19
  54 of her passes. How about that?
• 24:21
  And Yasmine, who was awesome, has mentioned 104 touches.
• 24:25
  That was good for second on this day, I think just behind Biera,
• 24:28
  if I'm not mistaken, and five shot creating actions for
• 24:31
  Yasmine. She was great basically half the
• 24:33
  field. She was just going to be
• 24:35
  wherever she wanted on that left on the left side of the field,
• 24:38
  Offense, defense, midfield, didn't matter.
• 24:40
  I know Olga's in that spot and Olga came off the bench in this
• 24:43
  one. It could be it could be some
• 24:45
  lineup machinations. I think down the stretch here
• 24:48
  for Madrid as they try to figure out what is their best 10,
• 24:51
  what's their best 11, And I'll be, I'll be definitely
• 24:54
  interested to track how that could change, how that might
• 24:56
  change heading down the stretch here.
• 24:58
  Yeah, absolutely. And always remember about Olga,
• 25:00
  you can play her at right wing if you want.
• 25:03
  I mean, with that strong left foot of hers, she she could come
• 25:06
  in there and then RIP shots from there.
• 25:08
  I'll be interested to see it. Everybody knows.
• 25:10
  I think I've made it very clear on this podcast, I am in the
• 25:13
  tank for 24 year old Olga Carmona.
• 25:15
  I think she's one of the better players in the world.
• 25:16
  I think she's one of the better defenders in the world.
• 25:18
  I know people take issue when I say one of the better defenders
• 25:21
  in the world because she does have some struggles when she's 5
• 25:24
  foot 3. So I think there are some
• 25:26
  questions there. I just love her passing ability.
• 25:28
  I love her mental makeup, even from from back there on the back
• 25:32
  line. Yeah, we're going to see some
• 25:34
  machinations because, boy, it didn't take Yasmine long to fit
• 25:38
  in with Real Madrid. Huh?
• 25:39
  That worked out pretty well. Yep, absolutely.
• 25:41
  And obviously Olga gets the game-winning assist in this one
• 25:44
  as well. Let's head back to WSL, Talk
• 25:48
  about the team that this Real Madrid side will be facing.
• 25:50
  My Arsenal put it on Tottenham. The North London Derby, 5 nil.
• 25:56
  Arsenal thoroughly dominate Spurs.
• 25:57
  Bunch of different places we can start.
• 25:59
  Four times as many shots, 6 times as many shots on targets.
• 26:01
  Five goals, none conceded. Goal differential.
• 26:03
  Very happy after this date, Renee Slager's WSL and Champions
• 26:08
  League. How about 13-1 and one for the
• 26:11
  new head honcho in North London? Some Mikkel Arteta vibes I
• 26:16
  think. Leavalti awesome match, yes I
• 26:19
  think impossible not to notice. Caitlin Ford I think as as good
• 26:23
  as she's looked in the last few months, the Alessia Russo, Stina
• 26:26
  Blacksteinius mishmash, I think we solved that figure.
• 26:29
  Figured that one out. Kyra Cooney cross look great as
• 26:31
  well. Arsenal begin to turn her
• 26:33
  accuracy into goals. Freedom on them.
• 26:36
  Put her at the 10, give her some more options.
• 26:37
  Pretty much everything the Slagers did worked on this day.
• 26:40
  What you see in this one I mean. Leavalti was jumping off the
• 26:45
  screen as I mean, it's hard to say because you're right about
• 26:49
  Caitlin Ford. Like, it's hard to tell which
• 26:51
  one of them was the best player on the field at any given point.
• 26:55
  They were just running in what looked like miles of space at
• 26:59
  times. They had taught them on their
• 27:01
  heels the entire match. The offense looked completely
• 27:04
  dominant. We've said a lot of names and
• 27:08
  Mariano Caldente is just unreal awesome.
• 27:11
  It's just it just has worked out so well for your gooners that I
• 27:16
  mean there are times where your attack looks completely
• 27:19
  unstoppable. And now we get to see kind of
• 27:21
  how how the defense is going to balance that out as they as they
• 27:25
  go and play Real Madrid and maybe take a look at A at a
• 27:28
  Champions League semi final. Yeah, I think things are
• 27:30
  definitely trending that way. Jenna Nicewarner, she gets gets
• 27:33
  into the match. I think when she comes in,
• 27:34
  McCabe gets pushed up the field. McCabe was also so I mean, like
• 27:39
  everybody had a big game in this one.
• 27:41
  It was incredible. Mariona, she obviously gets the
• 27:43
  the goal with the I I think we can give her the assist as well.
• 27:47
  She gets the goal. She gets her shot blocked, comes
• 27:49
  right back to her. She goes left and then she's
• 27:51
  like, yeah, let me let me try to go right here like a perfect
• 27:55
  like 1-2 combination to kind of like bury that one, put them up
• 27:58
  two goals to nil. Emily Fox.
• 28:02
  Golaso, yeah. Let's fucking go.
• 28:05
  That was crazy. I mean, we could talk about
• 28:08
  Moppy versus Fox versus LJ for goal of the weekend and I think
• 28:12
  we could be here for another hour, hour and a half to kind of
• 28:15
  deliberating that one. I think that's right on.
• 28:17
  I mean, I would I would say we have not yet discussed her.
• 28:20
  I would say Bunny Shaw would like a word with that.
• 28:23
  But no, you're good. I mean, there we had a lot to
• 28:27
  choose from. Like we said at the top of the
• 28:28
  show, a lot of good football. I mean, we could have spread it
• 28:31
  out like between Saturday and Sunday.
• 28:32
  It felt like all the matches were played on Sunday.
• 28:35
  That's OK. That's just me complaining about
• 28:36
  the scheduling. It's fine.
• 28:38
  Really difficult Sunday for me. I had to watch a lot of football
• 28:42
  all day, which is obviously, you know, working in the coal mines,
• 28:45
  doing what I can do, make sure we could produce this show.
• 28:48
  But I got through it. We appreciate all your all your
• 28:51
  hard work and your your sacrifice.
• 28:54
  I got some Chloe Kelly minutes as well.
• 28:56
  I think what makes what makes this Arsenal side so dangerous?
• 28:59
  They've got runners and then they've got people that could
• 29:02
  get the ball up the field, whether it's Caldente deep, Leo
• 29:05
  Valti was dealing, Cooney Cross, Leah Williamson.
• 29:09
  Like they just have players that can move the ball great
• 29:12
  distances and find players that are on the run.
• 29:15
  And if the finishing is going to be there.
• 29:16
  I mean, this team all of a sudden gets a lot more
• 29:18
  dangerous. And the last quick note here,
• 29:20
  Alessia Russo is kind of like my favorite type of player, which
• 29:25
  is basically you cannot go 5 minutes, 6 minutes without
• 29:29
  noticing that player doing something dangerous or
• 29:33
  interesting or aggressive or forward or attacking.
• 29:36
  Like she's a really good striker and a really good goal scorer,
• 29:40
  but her work rate is just, she just beats you down with the
• 29:44
  work rate. Like she's just going to just
• 29:46
  take every half chance, quarter, chance, 110th, 120th of a chance
• 29:51
  and try to try to squeeze the absolute most out of it.
• 29:54
  And I just love players like that.
• 29:55
  Yeah, phenomenal player. Does it for the Lionesses, for a
• 29:59
  country as well. Yeah, I think.
• 30:01
  I think you're totally right. I mean, Arsenal with a great #9
• 30:04
  what a concept. Speaking of great number Nines,
• 30:08
  let's head over to Manchester where your squad put it on
• 30:12
  Liverpool. What'd you see in this one?
• 30:14
  I like to see that. Speaking of great concepts,
• 30:16
  Manchester City beating Liverpool, it's something I like
• 30:18
  to see, I'd like to see more often coming into this match.
• 30:21
  I mean, I, I've been down on City a little bit.
• 30:24
  I can't, you know, I kind of bounce back and forth.
• 30:26
  They're obviously my squad, but they had lost four of their last
• 30:29
  five league matches and even though they are two behind your
• 30:33
  Arsenal for 3rd place and on points in the, they've already
• 30:37
  drawn and lost to your Gunners. So catching up to them is going
• 30:41
  to be a really tall order, especially considering the form
• 30:44
  that your squad is in right now. So I mean, I have, I'm starting,
• 30:47
  the concerns of qualifying for next year's Champions League are
• 30:51
  already kind of starting to crawl into my mind.
• 30:54
  But let's not focus on that right now because this was an
• 30:56
  overwhelmingly positive match. We have to talk about Bunny
• 30:59
  Shaw, who played in her first league match since February 2nd,
• 31:03
  the day she was the victim of racist abuse.
• 31:05
  After the four three home loss to Arsenal, Shaw just found
• 31:09
  herself didn't find herself put herself in good attacking
• 31:12
  position at the half hour mark. She was helped I think a little
• 31:15
  bit by Liverpool midfielder Lucy Perry kind of playing her on
• 31:18
  side. But Shaw knew where to be and
• 31:20
  she delivered an incredibly slick low shot, tucked it just
• 31:23
  inside the post after scoring. She runs to go celebrate and she
• 31:27
  raises her fist in the air. And it is also to see how many
• 31:31
  of our pals on social media immediately stand in solidarity
• 31:35
  with Bunny Shaw. Because it is up to all of us to
• 31:38
  find any way we possibly can to stamp racism out of football.
• 31:42
  So more power to Bunny Shaw. Like I said, we stand in
• 31:45
  solidarity with her. It was a great moment.
• 31:47
  Tremendous moment and I mean tremendous football.
• 31:50
  This is like a an important, I think point in time too, because
• 31:55
  the women's game is obviously growing along many dimensions
• 31:59
  and it's just, you know, nascent enough that we have to sort of
• 32:03
  like make sure that the foundational pieces are are kind
• 32:07
  of like on the up and up. But I really love that players
• 32:10
  are speaking out, people in the community speaking out, thought
• 32:12
  leaders like, you know, front of the show, Leanne Sanderson
• 32:15
  dedicating a lot of air time and and kind of like insight into,
• 32:20
  you know, these issues, whether it's the Bunny Shaw situation or
• 32:24
  the Moppy Daniela Caraca situation.
• 32:27
  I think I'm really glad that these conversations are
• 32:29
  happening 1000% on the pitch. Bunny Shaw, I mean, her ability.
• 32:36
  Myra did this a little bit for Chelsea, but her ability to
• 32:40
  define a little space where there really isn't any space and
• 32:43
  then just make the finish so easy just through clean,
• 32:47
  efficient positioning, She's just a genius.
• 32:51
  Like an absolute genius, no doubt.
• 32:52
  Me probably. It's hard to figure out who's
• 32:55
  better, you know, than Bunny at that.
• 32:58
  Just be do it so consistently. Yeah, and she did it again on
• 33:01
  the second goal is it's a it's a good pass.
• 33:03
  It's a pretty good pass by Mary Fowler.
• 33:05
  Honestly could have been a better pass.
• 33:07
  But Shawn demonstrated that calmness and just a mystifying
• 33:11
  level of control to bring the ball down, get it right in that
• 33:14
  spot. And like you said, like, OK, I
• 33:16
  have this tiny amount of space, but I've, I've created a little
• 33:19
  extra now I'm ripping the shot. Goalkeeper has absolutely no
• 33:22
  chance of stopping it. It's Bunny's 11th goal of the
• 33:25
  season right before halftime. And you could pretty much tell
• 33:28
  it was curtains for Liverpool right there.
• 33:31
  And because Fowler provided the assist on both of those goals,
• 33:35
  fun little stat that I thought the broadcast did a good job of,
• 33:37
  of, of amplifying. Fowler is the first player in
• 33:41
  the history of the WSL to record 2 or more goal involvements in
• 33:46
  four consecutive league matches. Pretty incredible accomplishment
• 33:50
  for a young player. And I, I think it, it just spoke
• 33:53
  to a run of form that Fowler has been in that you and I have
• 33:57
  talked about over the past couple months is that, yeah,
• 34:01
  it's, it's hard for her to be like a supernova consistently.
• 34:04
  But now she is putting together these performances where it's
• 34:07
  not always just scoring on a wonder strike.
• 34:10
  Now she's using that passing ability and that vision that she
• 34:13
  has that's just absolutely incredible to just get in the
• 34:16
  game and be involved. Yeah, I mean, she's definitely,
• 34:19
  definitely growing up, definitely maturing in her game,
• 34:22
  just finding different ways to hurt the opposition.
• 34:25
  Just turned 22 years old. Definitely the Sky's the limit.
• 34:28
  I think this is sort of like the Mary Fowler leap that we had
• 34:30
  been waiting for. And then last quick note on
• 34:33
  Bunny Shaw, how about 11 goals? She's 3 ahead of the the next
• 34:37
  highest on the on the ranking in terms of WSL, which is Alessia
• 34:41
  Russo from my Gunners. But eleven goals in nine starts,
• 34:45
  12 matches total. Just an unfathomable streak that
• 34:48
  Bunny's on. I mean, she's totally
• 34:50
  inevitable. She gets the ball where she
• 34:52
  wants it. It's just over.
• 34:53
  Yeah, man. And now you have players like
• 34:56
  Viv Meadeba, Mary Fowler and Alba Fugino in cases who are
• 34:59
  able to to get her the ball. We mentioned also, and I mean
• 35:03
  Jill Roord is is helpful in getting the ball forward as
• 35:06
  well. We've talked about some of her
• 35:08
  struggles on on on scoring some goals.
• 35:11
  She's had a lot of opportunities it feels like in the last three
• 35:13
  or four matches. Speaking of the of the self
• 35:16
  assist roared had a very similar play where she rips the shot
• 35:20
  once it gets blocked and as the announcer is saying, oh, great
• 35:24
  block by the defender and the ball's falling to her feet.
• 35:26
  She's already blasting it into the the side corner of the net.
• 35:29
  So it was nice to see that off of a off a roared right inside
• 35:33
  the 18 first league goal since November 18th.
• 35:36
  So I think we might just have to accept that she's going to get
• 35:39
  some shots. Some of them aren't going to go
• 35:41
  in, but I don't think anything's going to stop the Dutch player
• 35:44
  from ripping more shots and that's kind of the attitude that
• 35:47
  I wanna see from her. Yeah, I'm hoping this one kind
• 35:49
  of gets Jill back on track. She gets great looks and she
• 35:53
  does. If she could just kind of get
• 35:57
  things calibrated, maybe this is what was kind of sets that in
• 35:59
  motion. So it was definitely excited to
• 36:01
  see her score. Last item that I want to match,
• 36:03
  20 year old Gracie Pryor notches her first WSL start for City at
• 36:09
  right back. She scores her first league goal
• 36:11
  for City. She played about 1/2 hour versus
• 36:14
  Palace back on November 2nd. But that long range effort she
• 36:17
  took from the from the side of the 18.
• 36:20
  Definitely a shot, not a cross. You could just ask her after the
• 36:25
  match, Gracie Pryor said. And I quote, the manager said
• 36:29
  well done, good goal and I played well.
• 36:31
  The girls were really happy too. They said it was a cross, but
• 36:35
  I'll claim a shot. End Quote.
• 36:37
  Good for you, Gracie. Take, take your victory lap.
• 36:40
  Yay. The ball went in the in the back
• 36:42
  of the net off of your foot. You call it a shot.
• 36:44
  You can't score a goal without taking a shot.
• 36:46
  I love it. Yeah.
• 36:47
  And to her credit, there was nobody there.
• 36:50
  I mean, true, she wasn't looking.
• 36:53
  Yeah. She was like her head was in the
• 36:56
  grass, but there was nobody there.
• 36:57
  I think you can conceivably get away with that being a a shot in
• 37:01
  the annals of history. It's a shot.
• 37:03
  Great goal for Pryor. Was excited to see that happen.
• 37:06
  One other. What do you think?
• 37:07
  Catalin, because I she she had a couple runs.
• 37:09
  One in particular, we're just seeing Catalin in the sky blue
• 37:12
  in the open field just straight galloping that that's got to be
• 37:15
  exciting. Had to have been exciting for
• 37:17
  you. This is not exactly a
• 37:19
  controversial take. It's going to work.
• 37:22
  She's going to be good in the WSL.
• 37:24
  She's going to be very good, dude.
• 37:25
  Like they're they're going to be matches out there where you have
• 37:30
  Bunny Shaw, Ketaline and Viv Mitima on the field at the same
• 37:35
  time. And I don't know if you can find
• 37:37
  the place to put Jess Park on the pitch at the exact same time
• 37:41
  all that is happening. I'll take my chances with those
• 37:45
  four and their creativity and what they're able to do.
• 37:48
  So, yeah, I mean, we've talked about her ever since her, you
• 37:52
  know, her MVP run in the NWSL, We were dying for her to get
• 37:57
  back on the pitch in the Olympics.
• 37:59
  She's back. She's looking more back every
• 38:01
  time she's on the field. I think they're just, they need
• 38:04
  to do a good job of ramping up her playing time.
• 38:06
  But she's going to be awesome. There's no kind of, oh, she's an
• 38:10
  NWSL player. She's a footballer flat out.
• 38:13
  She is a, she's a Brazilian genius footballer.
• 38:17
  And yeah, again, I'll, I'll give you my great analysis that's
• 38:21
  going to work well for City. We'll just got to see if they
• 38:23
  can qualify for the Champions League.
• 38:25
  Totally agree and definitely got my fingers crossed.
• 38:27
  No, nobody wants to see United there.
• 38:29
  Let's reach gears, we're going to head back to Germany.
• 38:32
  Bayern Munich took on 8th place Verter Bremen in a match that
• 38:36
  had some real stakes, especially considering what happened with
• 38:39
  Eintracht Frankfurt at the very top of the table.
• 38:42
  So Bayern definitely needed to win here.
• 38:44
  Didn't totally blow the doors off of Verter Bremen.
• 38:47
  This one ends one nil. Pretty harder.
• 38:49
  Gets on the board in 60 minute off a great Carolyn Simone
• 38:53
  assist. Yeah, What'd you see in that
• 38:55
  one? Simone hit a couple passes.
• 38:57
  You could tell. I don't know if the scouting
• 38:58
  report was, hey, let's we're just gonna curl in crosses from
• 39:01
  like kind of like that diagonal angle, if you will.
• 39:04
  They try. You could tell Byron was going
• 39:06
  for that from both sides of the pitch.
• 39:09
  But yeah, that's Simone pass right on the meat of of Harder's
• 39:13
  forehead. No way she could miss from
• 39:15
  there. And yeah, sometimes you just
• 39:17
  like, I mean, we talked about it with Chelsea.
• 39:19
  The the Chelsea match was obviously more exciting with the
• 39:21
  late winner. Sometimes you just got to win a
• 39:23
  snoozer from time to time. And that's pretty much just what
• 39:26
  Bayern Munich did. Yeah, Carolyn Simmons, third
• 39:28
  assist of the season. Got it done.
• 39:30
  Glottis Figas Totier completes 91.4% of her 140 passes
• 39:36
  attempted in this one. There we go.
• 39:40
  And then the aforementioned Carolyn Simone six shot creating
• 39:43
  actions in this one gets the only assist on the day.
• 39:45
  Bayern really kind of controlled this one.
• 39:48
  But this is sort of been, you know, their bugaboo a little bit
• 39:51
  like when it comes down to it, putting the ball in the back of
• 39:54
  the net, you know, whether it's a Leia Schuler or, you know,
• 39:57
  Clara Bull or pretty harder. Like she's got you know, she'll
• 40:00
  she'll run a little hot and cold.
• 40:02
  You do wish heading into the quarterfinals of the Champs
• 40:05
  league. And I was kind of bringing
• 40:06
  things back to Champs League that Bayern could find their
• 40:08
  way. Into the back of the net a
• 40:10
  little bit more often, with a little bit more proficiency.
• 40:13
  Yeah, just cuz I think that they're gonna start to run into
• 40:16
  some stiff competition and they're so good everywhere else.
• 40:19
  Like defensively, their sound in the midfield, their sound in
• 40:22
  possession, their passings on point.
• 40:25
  You just kind of want to see that finishing at a level that
• 40:28
  could make them a real threat to a team like we're going to talk
• 40:31
  about here in a minute, like Leon that they're going to face
• 40:34
  here in the quarterfinals. Yeah.
• 40:35
  I mean, in their two previous matches, so in the poke aisle,
• 40:38
  they beat Eintracht Frankfurt 4:00 to 1:00, and then in the
• 40:41
  league they beat Hoffenheim 3 to 1.
• 40:45
  So how many of those where they can, they're putting up crooked
• 40:48
  numbers many of those matches can they put up?
• 40:51
  Probably a few I would say. I mean, they they definitely
• 40:53
  have players who can do it. They come back from
• 40:56
  international break. They play FC Colon at Colon on
• 40:59
  on March 9th, but I got bad news for you.
• 41:03
  You got to play Leon in the Champions League and I just
• 41:06
  don't see any path where that's going to work out well for him.
• 41:08
  Yeah, talk to the Georgia Stanway injury as well-being a
• 41:12
  real hindrance to that match up. Let's talk a little bit about
• 41:15
  Leon. They took on Gangom on our one
• 41:18
  in our one Saturday affair versus our seven Sunday matches
• 41:22
  that we had to try to keep up with.
• 41:24
  What do you see from Leon in this big win?
• 41:26
  Domination from Jump Street. Vanessa Giel scores on a header
• 41:30
  off a corner kick 10 minutes into the match.
• 41:33
  I've gone back to this a couple times.
• 41:35
  I was actually chatting with some of the other beat writers
• 41:38
  at the Seattle rain training camp.
• 41:41
  If I'm Vanessa, Jill, I don't want to go back to Angel City.
• 41:45
  Like I I get Los Angeles is nice, but I would rather play
• 41:49
  for Lyon and try to win the Champions League and and
• 41:52
  continue to win the Premier League over there in France.
• 41:54
  I know, I know people, you know, it is a weaker league.
• 41:57
  I'm not going to lie about that, but I just wouldn't want to go
• 41:59
  back to Angel City. And no disrespect to that club
• 42:01
  or or the players on that club, but Jill is absolutely thriving
• 42:06
  1. 100% totally flourishing and and that finished too kind of
• 42:10
  shades of the Wendy Renard, you know, finishing school.
• 42:14
  I'm not sure if they they shared some notes after some of these
• 42:17
  practices, but Geo is really kind of becoming like a
• 42:21
  foundational piece like this generation of Lyon.
• 42:25
  It's like, you know, Angel like it is tough to be like, I'll go
• 42:29
  back to Angel City and just kind of slot in to one of the
• 42:32
  middling, you know, kind of like mid mid table type teams in
• 42:36
  Angel City. I think yeah, their prospects
• 42:38
  aren't necessarily at that championship level.
• 42:40
  So I totally it makes total sense to me why Vanessa Jill
• 42:44
  would continue to want to be like a centerpiece of
• 42:47
  foundational piece of that Leo defense.
• 42:49
  No doubt. I just don't see any reason why
• 42:51
  she wouldn't want to. And then now she could have the
• 42:53
  opportunity. Her and Tarsiane back there as a
• 42:56
  center back duo, It's got to be appealing to her.
• 42:59
  I would think so. I mean, we'll obviously talk
• 43:01
  more transaction talk another day to this match against
• 43:04
  Gingham. We got like a different flavor
• 43:07
  of Basha ball instead of like a beautiful instead of the
• 43:11
  beautiful aerial cross, Basha hits a perfect long pass on the
• 43:14
  ground right into Melchi dumonnaise path.
• 43:17
  Like right around the half hour marketation superstar type,
• 43:20
  tucks it away with ease, shakes the hell out of the defender
• 43:24
  before she even hits the shot. And then my friend, it was
• 43:27
  cutting out to DNE time. And so it's the first goal of
• 43:30
  Dionne's 28 minute hat trick where Tabitha Chewinga plays the
• 43:34
  ball to herself forward but boots it like 30 yards and then
• 43:38
  just flies past every defender for playing the ball into the
• 43:42
  middle of the field. And Dionne finishes it with
• 43:45
  ease. I mean, you know, you're gonna
• 43:48
  get these matches with Leon. I just gotta say the Super
• 43:51
  weapon is completely operational right now.
• 43:54
  Yeah, offensively they seem to be humming in this one.
• 43:58
  Obviously the competition not not super stiff 28 minutes it
• 44:02
  took Diani to to notch a hat trick.
• 44:04
  To put that in perspective. We we've been recording for a
• 44:06
  little bit over double that and we're we're nowhere near even
• 44:09
  our first our first goal. She was awesome.
• 44:12
  I I just think, I mean, I continue to think Melchi du
• 44:15
  Mornay is a total live wire. I mean, capable of things that I
• 44:21
  don't think there's a mean in the world that can do what she
• 44:23
  does in flashes and DNA. So rock solid Chewinga starting
• 44:28
  to settle in Bosh. It was great to see her back in
• 44:31
  the mix, bringing in like a new evolution of Basha ball.
• 44:34
  Super exciting. You know, we don't want to get
• 44:37
  too, too high. And I just realized that we
• 44:40
  totally abandoned our arrow pointing up, arrow pointing
• 44:42
  down. Yeah.
• 44:44
  Yeah. I don't know that, you know, we
• 44:46
  can take this result and say, OK, Leon, I mean, Leon, their
• 44:49
  hours always pointing up. I think their arrow remained
• 44:52
  unchanged with this one. You know, the competition not
• 44:55
  quite there, very much handled their business, kept their foot
• 44:58
  on the gas against inferior competition.
• 45:00
  And yeah, that that's what you expect, you know, a great team
• 45:03
  to do. Yeah, no doubt.
• 45:05
  I I would be remiss if I did not mention that Sophia Huerta notch
• 45:09
  the 7th and final goal of this match of this seven nil victory.
• 45:13
  It came off a great action between her Debritz and Van de
• 45:16
  Donk where the Dutch midfielder plays it right back to the
• 45:19
  Seattle Reign legend Sofia Huerta, who's on loan to Lyon to
• 45:23
  score the goal on the replay. There's a great shot of Jennifer
• 45:27
  Matajan behind the play. She's probably like 20 yards
• 45:30
  behind the play when the pass is even just not even at Huerta's
• 45:33
  feet yet she already has her hands up like Lane Kiffin style
• 45:37
  before like Tua would throw a touchdown for Alabama.
• 45:40
  So she already knew what time it was.
• 45:42
  And here's the last thing I want to point out.
• 45:44
  When Sofia Huerta was loaned from Seattle Rain FC to Lyon on
• 45:48
  September 12th, the last game she played for the Rain was on
• 45:52
  September 6th. It was a three two win over
• 45:54
  Angel City, who we talked about a little earlier where Huerta
• 45:57
  scored on a penalty. I understand Huerta as a
• 46:00
  defender, but I think it is worth pointing out that the
• 46:02
  remaining 7 league matches the Rain played after her departure,
• 46:07
  they scored four goals. Four goals in 630 minutes of
• 46:11
  football to end the season season.
• 46:13
  Sofia Huerta just played a match where she scored the seventh
• 46:17
  goal for her team in that match. So I think it's safe to say
• 46:23
  Leonas humming and they are in that same Chelsea space where it
• 46:28
  is win the Champions League or bust.
• 46:30
  I believe that's true, and we'll see that they've got a real shot
• 46:33
  and we'll obviously be back before the Champions League
• 46:36
  really kicks off. We'll do our whole preview
• 46:38
  thing. We'll do a recap thing, get
• 46:40
  everybody kind of fired up. Maybe they will shoehorn a draft
• 46:43
  in there of some sort. We're not sure we're gonna
• 46:44
  draft, but we'll we'll draft something that's for sure.
• 46:47
  Quick look ahead though, Episode 100, buddy, right around the
• 46:51
  corner, celebrating or maybe lamenting the result between
• 46:55
  USA, Colombia in the she believes Cup.
• 46:57
  Hopefully it's a huge victory for our US women's national
• 47:00
  team. And as mentioned prior, we'll be
• 47:02
  back covering Champions League. We'll get warmed up for the
• 47:05
  NWSL. We're going to stick or we're
• 47:06
  going to keep hanging out in Europe making sure that we've
• 47:09
  got a finger on the pulse of all eight quarter finalists.
• 47:12
  So a ton, a ton coming down the Pike.
• 47:15
  Very exciting stuff. Yeah, psyched to watch, watch
• 47:17
  all of it with you. 100 episodes already, man.
• 47:20
  That's, you know, I'm pretty happy about that.
• 47:22
  And I appreciate everybody for the, the folks who have stuck
• 47:25
  around, maybe the folks who've seen the last 20, the folks
• 47:28
  who've seen the last 50. We appreciate all of you guys
• 47:30
  for hanging out with us. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 47:33
  All right, man, I think we did it.
• 47:34
  It's been an episode into the channel.
• 47:35
  Thank you, thank you, thank you for hanging out.
• 47:37
  If you enjoyed the show or loved ones as much as your boys do
• 47:40
  like if you liked it, make sure you're kicking it with us.
• 47:42
  Subscribe, follow YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcast, wherever
• 47:45
  you like to watch or listen. Leave us a review over your
• 47:47
  favorite podcast app links all of our socials in the show notes
• 47:50
  of this episode. And when we say all of our
• 47:52
  socials, that's everything except for Twitter, because fuck
• 47:55
  that site. Who needs to be on there?
• 47:56
  Just some absolute cesspool and we're not going to support
• 47:59
  anything going on over there. We want to hear from though.
• 48:02
  We love hearing from you. And a big thing to my coast as
• 48:04
  well, Mr. Grand Angle, for being the kind of Co host that I'd
• 48:07
  never have to ask. Who the hell are you?
• 48:09
  I already know what you're about.
• 48:10
  I already know who you are. I appreciate you bro.
• 48:13
  Likewise, buddy, you know what, we are the world's foremost SK
• 48:17
  Brown podcast. We are the world's foremost Lily
• 48:20
  Johannes podcast. We are without a doubt the
• 48:23
  world's foremost UEFA Women's Champions League podcast as a
• 48:26
  whole. And now I think let us add to
• 48:28
  this, even though I'm sure she's immensely popular, but we're
• 48:31
  stupid Americans. We don't know.
• 48:32
  We are now the world's foremost Miriam Bryant podcast as well.
• 48:37
  Thank you guys for the patience and dealing with all of our
• 48:39
  nonsense. We appreciate you and we will
• 48:41
  see you all next time.