Latest / Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football / Barcelona Loses!? Arsenal v Man City | Chelsea Lyon Madrid Bayern Wolfsburg All Win Before UWCL Draw

Transcript

Barcelona Loses!? Arsenal v Man City | Chelsea Lyon Madrid Bayern Wolfsburg All Win Before UWCL Draw · Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football

• 0:02
  OK, welcome to is the channel podcast primarily about women's
• 0:07
  football. I am your host, Dean of
• 0:08
  Deceptress. And as always, we are joined by
• 0:10
  my Coast, Mr. Grant Angle. What is up man?
• 0:14
  I'm feeling all right, buddy. What do you say we get into
• 0:16
  these beers and we talk about some football?
• 0:19
  We like it, cheers. Cheers to you.
• 0:24
  Let's take this episode to talk about all of our Champions
• 0:27
  League pals. So I got a little list here.
• 0:29
  Barcelona lost question mark, exclamation point, question
• 0:32
  mark. City lost three question Marks
• 0:35
  and a frowny face. Chelsea and Byron get close
• 0:38
  wins. Leon Wolfsburg and Real Madrid
• 0:41
  take care of business. And obviously in the city lost
• 0:43
  part, you know, the other side of that, that that's fine.
• 0:45
  We'll talk about all those things in this episode.
• 0:47
  Love it ton of football. Felt good to have all eight of
• 0:50
  our Champions League teams back in action, especially with the
• 0:52
  big Friday live show coming up on YouTube.
• 0:55
  UFO Women's Champions League draw going down.
• 0:58
  Not sure exactly what time, but pretty early Friday morning on
• 1:01
  the East Coast and even earlier on the West Coast.
• 1:03
  Your boys will be back, though. 11:00 AM Eastern, 8:00 AM
• 1:06
  Pacific. But this was a really fun
• 1:08
  weekend. We got to watch all eight teams.
• 1:09
  Mix it up. Two of the 8 go head to head and
• 1:13
  check my notes out. Well, I guess we'll get to it
• 1:14
  when we get to it. Yeah, Mr. Gretta, where do I get
• 1:16
  started? Barcelona won Levante to that
• 1:21
  buddy is a shocking result my Goodman.
• 1:25
  Real shocker, second from the bottom.
• 1:27
  Levante, Barcelona heading into this one.
• 1:29
  Obviously no Kira Walsh, she moves on to Chelsea.
• 1:31
  Talked about that quite a bit last week.
• 1:32
  No Alexia, no Patri, no Eva Payor, Nona Battier Mappi, got
• 1:36
  that Koi. None of those players appear in
• 1:38
  the starting lineup for Barcelona.
• 1:40
  Barcelona had chances early, but the offense did look a little
• 1:43
  off balance, you know, so CGH was effective.
• 1:46
  Itana was really sharp body. Yolo had some really, really
• 1:49
  good looks early. I liked that Vicki Lopez, Esme
• 1:52
  Brooks, kind of like link up on the left hand side.
• 1:54
  I thought they had good chemistry and like I said, a ton
• 1:57
  of chances but weren't able to cash in.
• 1:59
  What did you see from from that Barcelona offense?
• 2:02
  I think you nailed it. I think what it was I mean I had
• 2:04
  in my notes here and first let me just start with this real
• 2:07
  quick. I think I'm taking the mantle.
• 2:10
  I am the Barcelona guy on this show.
• 2:12
  Let's just get that established. I will.
• 2:15
  I will gladly take that. We can maybe expound on that
• 2:18
  later. I had in my notes.
• 2:20
  I think Barcelona could have won this match six to two.
• 2:23
  You know better you Alo hits the posts.
• 2:24
  There were two chances late, could have been more, you know,
• 2:27
  depending on my memory. There were two chances late that
• 2:30
  I feel like Alexia probably scores 80% of the time that just
• 2:34
  she didn't get her foot around. It went over the bar, one went
• 2:37
  over the bar, I think one went wide left.
• 2:39
  They just had chances and the ball would not go in the back of
• 2:42
  the net. And I want to give credit to
• 2:43
  Andrea Tarrizona, Levante's goalkeeper.
• 2:46
  She held him in the match. Her time wasting was absolutely
• 2:49
  exquisite throughout parts of the match.
• 2:51
  I love what she did, but I just think Barcelona, they just
• 2:54
  didn't have their finishing boots on and you know, credit to
• 2:57
  Levante, it's a great win for them.
• 2:59
  I just don't think it's a repeatable thing for Barcelona.
• 3:02
  I just don't see this happening very often.
• 3:04
  Very often, definitely not Levante's defense.
• 3:07
  I thought they played really rugged, really committed, like
• 3:10
  they they just were in the right spots and you know, kind of like
• 3:12
  made it a little difficult. The the stats are out of this
• 3:15
  world. So Barcelona possesses 79% of
• 3:18
  the ball, the shots 47 to 6, amazing, an amazing number shots
• 3:24
  on target. They had the advantage there, 13
• 3:26
  to four corners, 18 to one, big chances, 6 to one in favor of
• 3:30
  Barcelona, and they hit the woodwork twice.
• 3:32
  So they got busy offensively. But I think credit to Levante,
• 3:36
  they kind of pushed him just outside of, you know, their
• 3:39
  comfort zone. I think when Alexia came in, she
• 3:41
  kind of wrecked the game. The head of the Levante defense
• 3:44
  was definitely spinning, you know, when she comes on.
• 3:46
  I think she also came on with Pajor and Ralpho at the same
• 3:50
  time. So I mean, imagine kind of
• 3:52
  having to contend with those 3 fresh offensive attackers, but I
• 3:56
  thought Lavonte deserved a lot of credit defensively for making
• 4:00
  it difficult. And then the other thing I was
• 4:01
  watching was obviously Kyra Walsh will be gone.
• 4:04
  You know, we had a lot of feedback in in the channel.
• 4:07
  I think maybe I got a little a little over excited, you know,
• 4:10
  putting Walsh in in my top 3 Barcelona.
• 4:12
  I guess after I thought I'd throw, I was like, maybe I'd
• 4:14
  want to have that one back. But I think my point stands in
• 4:17
  that you could probably make the case OK Battery is the better
• 4:20
  solution there right now and probably looking forward to.
• 4:24
  She's a younger player, but I want to take a mini victory lap
• 4:27
  in the sense of OK, Battery is not in the starting lineup here.
• 4:31
  OK, you say OK, Ingrid Engin, she's moving from center back
• 4:34
  into that number six role to take that position played OK,
• 4:37
  But sure, what we saw, stats aside that work a complete
• 4:41
  landslide for Barcelona. What we saw was Barcelona
• 4:44
  essentially being 1 odd to the injury away from losing at home
• 4:48
  to Levante. Sure, OK.
• 4:50
  I think, I think that tracks. I think that's fair.
• 4:53
  And I want to apologize to all my my fellow Barcelona
• 4:56
  supporters out there that I didn't push back nearly hard
• 4:59
  enough when you said that Kiera Walsh was at worst the third
• 5:02
  best player on on Barcelona. I think that was, you're right,
• 5:05
  that was strong. But that's on me for not being
• 5:07
  like, whoa, hold on a second, Alexia, CGH, pottery, et cetera.
• 5:11
  Bollandor winner to throw her in there.
• 5:14
  Right, but I want to go back to when I said I don't think this
• 5:16
  is going to happen very often. I would say I'd be shocked if
• 5:19
  this happens again in league play for the rest of the season.
• 5:23
  So if you look at real GI know a stat that you'd prefer over XG.
• 5:28
  Let's look at real goals scored versus expected goals.
• 5:31
  So as we call it RG minus XG that was negative 3.8.
• 5:36
  So they had a a 4.8 XG in this match and they obviously they
• 5:40
  only scored one. That is by far their worst of
• 5:43
  the 2425 campaign. It's more than twice as bad as
• 5:47
  any performance they've had all year.
• 5:49
  They only had 25.5% of their shots on target.
• 5:53
  Also their worst of the 2425 campaign.
• 5:56
  This is a Champions League and Liga F combined and those stats
• 6:00
  are courtesy of our pals over at FB ref.
• 6:03
  I think their second worst shots on target percentage was like
• 6:07
  27.5 in a match I believe they won 8 to 1.
• 6:12
  So this is so it was just a weird amount of shots to not
• 6:17
  even get on frame. So I think I'm going to stand
• 6:20
  firm on the point that I just don't think this is going to
• 6:22
  happen again. It's wild that you frame it that
• 6:24
  way because like in my notes, I'm going to quote myself here
• 6:28
  and I quote this won't be Barsa's only loss of the League
• 6:32
  of Season. End Quote.
• 6:35
  Bold. I don't.
• 6:36
  I didn't know I. Didn't know if I was going to
• 6:40
  unleash it on the show, but UK with the exact counter take and
• 6:43
  I'm like, I don't know, just watching them, they're not
• 6:46
  flying through the season the way they were last year.
• 6:49
  So we'll get to Rob and Joe a little bit later.
• 6:51
  But now there's only five points separating those two teams and
• 6:54
  they play one more time at Barcelona.
• 6:57
  Obviously Barcelona still should close to the title, but it's not
• 6:59
  the same as last year. Where was it?
• 7:01
  Where's the absolute walk down the stretch?
• 7:02
  You look at the shots on target, 13 shots on target, target to
• 7:05
  just get the one goal and the one goal was a little bit
• 7:07
  scramble mode. Alexia late, you know, or Ruffo
• 7:11
  late, you know, the ball is kind of like knocking around and like
• 7:13
  all of a sudden balls in the net and it was a little bit after
• 7:16
  the second check on goal. So they just did look out of
• 7:20
  sorts like it didn't look like it was coming easy at that.
• 7:23
  I think I mentioned those those link UPS at the top.
• 7:25
  You know, brooks and and Vicki Lopez looked interesting, but
• 7:28
  barriola was also on that side and didn't look at all connected
• 7:32
  to what they were doing. Kika also not really connected
• 7:34
  to the offense. I continue to think that I Tana
• 7:37
  looks a smidge better when Alexia is not on the pitch.
• 7:40
  I don't know what this means. I'm not the the big football
• 7:43
  brain enough to know exactly what's happening, but I just
• 7:45
  know that she looks sharper. She looks better, she looks more
• 7:48
  confident, she looks faster when when, when she's the one
• 7:51
  driving, driving the car. And I could just see the same
• 7:54
  type of game happening at some point down the line, maybe.
• 7:57
  I'm not sure if it's against Real Madrid in what could be a
• 7:59
  really big game. But all of a sudden now, if
• 8:02
  there's another stumble here or there, as absurd as it sounds,
• 8:06
  the League of title could be on the table.
• 8:10
  Oh man, just firmly cementing me as the Barcelona guy.
• 8:14
  Wow. Noted Barcelona.
• 8:15
  Let's go there, Dino Desespitas. All right, that's fine.
• 8:18
  You've been accused of your Real Madrid biases in the past.
• 8:21
  I mean, I thought the announcer on the zone did a great job.
• 8:24
  That was their first loss at home in Liga F since 20/19/84.
• 8:32
  Home matches in Liga F unreal since their last loss.
• 8:36
  And it's their first Liga F loss in any match in 46 matches since
• 8:41
  2023. Wow.
• 8:43
  I mean, this is a rare bird that we were able to see out in the
• 8:47
  wild. I do want to say, you know,
• 8:49
  we're focusing obviously a lot on Barcelona.
• 8:51
  They are some could argue the best team in the world.
• 8:53
  Some might argue the second best team in the world.
• 8:55
  It's neither here nor there. I do think we we one more shout
• 8:58
  out. You mentioned Chacon, Estella
• 9:00
  Carbonell had 12 clearances in the match.
• 9:02
  Match. She's 20 years old, playing left
• 9:05
  back for Levante. Have a day, Estella.
• 9:08
  That's a, that's a good match for you.
• 9:10
  You put in a good shift. Hell yeah.
• 9:12
  No, I mean super memorable game for her.
• 9:14
  Maria Alaria also great, obviously gets the goal involved
• 9:18
  in a bunch of the action. Her and Chacon brilliant.
• 9:21
  I think the both of them, you need players to kind of step up
• 9:24
  well past, you know, their their ceiling to kind of get a win
• 9:27
  like this. Ultimately I don't think it
• 9:29
  changes any of the longer medium term prospects for Barcelona,
• 9:32
  but it does leave the door. I don't know a.
• 9:35
  Little, a little creaky, a little ray of light coming
• 9:37
  through, so we'll see. I do want to move ahead though.
• 9:40
  The ITC Darby. Yeah, fine.
• 9:43
  Manchester City 3, Arsenal 4. Yeah, I saw.
• 9:47
  Yeah, it's a big, big, big, big, big, big, big talk last week.
• 9:53
  So I want to kick it to you. I want to kick it to you.
• 9:56
  How you feeling man? It's never a good time to panic.
• 10:00
  We, we talked about this in the last episode.
• 10:03
  I never like the panic question because like, is it time to is
• 10:07
  it time to panic? And I always say it's not
• 10:10
  because you don't make good decisions when you panic.
• 10:13
  It's just never. There's no time even I'm on a
• 10:17
  boat and it's sinking. Don't panic.
• 10:20
  You know, move quickly and you know, try to make sound
• 10:23
  decisions. So it's not time to panic for
• 10:25
  Manchester City. But it is a really good time and
• 10:28
  an important time to work as hard as possible to fix this
• 10:32
  defense. You're leaving yourselves way
• 10:36
  too vulnerable in these spots and I think you're going to get
• 10:39
  to it. If it is a physicality issue and
• 10:42
  you are getting out muscled by your opponent, then you have to
• 10:45
  work twice as hard on the organization of your defense.
• 10:49
  And I thought Yui Hasegawa was one of the best players on the
• 10:52
  pitch for City in that match against Arsenal.
• 10:55
  They're gonna have to lean on her a little more, but the back
• 10:59
  4 was just not right in that match.
• 11:03
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 11:04
  Looked a little Swiss cheesy back there.
• 11:06
  Yeah. I think they were getting out
• 11:08
  muscled. They were getting out run.
• 11:10
  Yeah. They were just chasing like
• 11:12
  pretty much the whole every step of the way.
• 11:14
  And I think conversely, what I liked about the Arsenal defense
• 11:17
  was, you know, they weren't harassing or they weren't like
• 11:20
  pressing really, really hard, but pretty much any loose touch
• 11:24
  was a turnover. Yeah.
• 11:26
  They were just in position. They were, you know, defense was
• 11:28
  in position, they were in passing lanes.
• 11:30
  You know, like we're not going to rush it.
• 11:31
  You're not going to run and press you be be all up on you.
• 11:34
  We're going to wait until a touch is a little heavy or a
• 11:37
  pass is a little bit wide, or you say I could slide into this
• 11:40
  passing lane and I'm going to kind of cut this off.
• 11:42
  They really played a really patient brand of defense city,
• 11:46
  though it was tough to watch. I don't know what the fix is
• 11:50
  necessarily because they looked, they looked outmatched across a
• 11:54
  bunch of different dimensions. Like, I don't know, is is there
• 11:57
  a fix that's being talked about or what do you think?
• 12:00
  What's what's the situation? So, you know, I I mentioned Yui
• 12:04
  Hasegawa, I liked Alba Fujino's minutes.
• 12:06
  You know, she looked creative out there.
• 12:08
  Obviously she has the brilliant cross into Mary Fowler.
• 12:13
  Great, great finish. You know, Medema gets the goal
• 12:15
  to able able to kind of get the ball on her right foot and just
• 12:18
  hit a laser into the bottom corner.
• 12:21
  But outside of Fujino, Hasegawa, Fowler and Medema, yeah, that's
• 12:25
  four. That's four if you're 11.
• 12:27
  I don't mean to to rag too much on the defense, but if Wahhabi
• 12:31
  and Alexandre are just going to get fried out there, then you're
• 12:36
  leaving Chiara Keating in a terrible position.
• 12:39
  And I got to tell you, Keating looks like she is visibly losing
• 12:43
  confidence. I trust her with the ball at her
• 12:46
  feet, but when she's out there in these last couple matches,
• 12:49
  she doesn't look totally certain that she trusts herself with the
• 12:54
  ball at her feet. And I, I'm not going to totally
• 12:56
  blame Alejandra just getting the ball ripped off of her by
• 12:59
  Mariona for that first goal like what felt like fucking 12
• 13:02
  seconds into the match. Like I'm not going to totally
• 13:05
  blame Keating for that. But that was that was a little
• 13:09
  bit of a lengthy pass with Mariona just lurking right there
• 13:13
  with Alejandra. You got, you got to trust
• 13:15
  Alejandra to not do that, whatever that was, just get the
• 13:19
  ball taken off of her. But yeah, everybody back there
• 13:22
  except UE looks like they are just unsure of what to do next.
• 13:27
  Yeah, I definitely saw that on the pitch.
• 13:29
  I wanted to talk a little bit about Mariona because she was
• 13:32
  involved in everything that went really well offensively for
• 13:35
  Arsenal. She gets the goal, she gets the
• 13:37
  assist, she gets the hockey assist when she puts a wicked
• 13:41
  ball over the top to Beth Mead for the for the comeback.
• 13:44
  Back the other way for Steena Baxenius to just kind of tap it
• 13:47
  in. Was happy that Steena Baxenius
• 13:48
  got a goal too, because she was slicing up that back line.
• 13:52
  I mean, with, I don't say basic run, she's a really good player
• 13:54
  and she's really good at that, but she created a lot, a lot of
• 13:57
  chances for herself. It was a little bit of a field
• 13:59
  day for her. Was glad to see her get that
• 14:01
  goal. Definitely, definitely well
• 14:02
  deserved. But Maniona was off the charts,
• 14:05
  maybe her best game for Arsenal. She's reading the field, she's
• 14:09
  reading the play. She's kind of anticipating at a
• 14:11
  super high level. The passes are a little bit
• 14:14
  audacious, but they're in rhythm.
• 14:15
  It's just like bop, bop, you know, I'm going to see something
• 14:17
  and then like I'm just going to let it go.
• 14:19
  I don't care that I have to kick it 35 yards into a shopping cart
• 14:23
  like I'm going to, I'm going to make this happen and I'm going
• 14:26
  to do it instinctively. Her and Kyra Cooney Cross, who's
• 14:29
  still just 22 years old by by the way, I think that's
• 14:32
  potentially could be like a devastating midfield connection
• 14:36
  because they can make every pass Iqs are are both extremely high
• 14:40
  to creative players. Cooney Cross can learn a little
• 14:43
  bit too from Aniona. I thought she was an absolute
• 14:45
  difference maker in this one. They couldn't cope with her.
• 14:48
  You're you're 100% right. City's backline couldn't do
• 14:50
  anything with Mariana. I mean, Steena Blaxtenia has
• 14:54
  cost us the title last year, and she continues to terrorize
• 14:58
  Manchester City players and fans alike.
• 15:01
  So thanks. And Steena, appreciate that.
• 15:04
  But yeah, you're right. I mean, when we look ahead at
• 15:07
  the UEFA Women's Champions League draw, which by the way,
• 15:10
  we're doing a live show 11:00 AM Eastern, 8:00 AM.
• 15:13
  Pacific on YouTube if anybody's interested in that.
• 15:18
  When you look at the draw, the only team I want to draw is
• 15:22
  Arsenal because I don't want to draw Leon or Chelsea because I
• 15:25
  feel like we'd be, you know, to use poker terminology, drawing
• 15:28
  dead if we play either of them. But yeah, if you're going to
• 15:32
  defend like that, then it's you're going to play two matches
• 15:34
  in the quarters and you'll be out.
• 15:36
  Yeah, they'll have to find some kind of solution.
• 15:38
  I thought Bunny and Cataline coming on was a little bit
• 15:41
  interesting, but I think Cataline too, I mean, it's still
• 15:44
  early, it's early February, quarterfinals don't kick off
• 15:46
  till mid March. Cataline and very clearly is
• 15:49
  doing things that her team mates don't understand or they haven't
• 15:53
  quite aligned. Like it looks good and it's
• 15:55
  like, you know, it's like, oh wow, look, she she was able to
• 15:57
  kind of find a little space there, but her team mates just
• 16:00
  kind of look a little frozen when she's when she's in her bag
• 16:02
  a little bit. So I think the chemistry still
• 16:05
  has a lot of room to improve and I think it definitely will
• 16:08
  improve. So last quick thing here, Gareth
• 16:10
  Taylor was interviewed by one of the reporters on Talk Sport
• 16:13
  after the match and he was asked like, you're letting in a lot of
• 16:16
  goals. What what can that be attributed
• 16:19
  to in Karen Taylor's answer was, I don't know, hard to say.
• 16:24
  I think some trust, maybe some confidence.
• 16:27
  It's a little little, little jarring to hear your manager
• 16:31
  answer the question with why are you letting in so many goals
• 16:33
  with hard to say. A little bit of this, a little
• 16:35
  bit of that. Yeah, I'm that hilarious.
• 16:40
  Yeah, that's, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence, I'll
• 16:43
  tell you that. I I know this is an extremely
• 16:46
  random reference, but pals of the show know we like to quote
• 16:49
  old sports things. I will never forget when
• 16:52
  American football coach Steve Spurrier moved from Florida
• 16:56
  Gators to the Washington Football Team in the NFL.
• 17:00
  They asked him what was going wrong.
• 17:02
  I believe in the press conference he said something
• 17:04
  very close to, well, we need to pitch it better.
• 17:06
  We need to catch it better in his very Steve Spurrier way.
• 17:10
  And I was like a teenager. And I was like, oh, I don't
• 17:13
  know, buddy. I don't know how long this one's
• 17:15
  going to last. So, yeah, the general, I don't
• 17:18
  know little of this, little of that answer.
• 17:20
  Not not great from your manager or coach.
• 17:23
  We'll see. Definitely a situation we're
• 17:25
  going to monitor. Let's go to head though.
• 17:27
  Aston Villa nil, Chelsea one. This one was a very interesting
• 17:31
  game. Two straight weeks of watching
• 17:33
  Villa. What were your main takeaways?
• 17:36
  I love their makeup. I like the attitude that they
• 17:39
  play with. I mean, it's it's a funny
• 17:41
  situation too, because when they played City last week, they had
• 17:44
  their caretaker manager Sean Goter, AKA Manchester City
• 17:48
  Football Club legend Sean Goter. Even though I will admit I
• 17:51
  started supporting the club in 2005.
• 17:53
  Goter left Manchester City in 2003.
• 17:56
  Doesn't matter. Still awesome to see him on the
• 17:58
  sideline. But now in this match versus
• 18:01
  Chelsea, there managed by Natalia Arroyo, who came over
• 18:04
  from Ray Al Sociedad. I think they play a lot of fight
• 18:08
  when they're out there, you know, tough on defense, you
• 18:11
  know, have some players who can score goals.
• 18:13
  I just think in this match, they had a couple moments in here
• 18:16
  where they absolutely could have got a goal.
• 18:18
  They just didn't take their chances that well.
• 18:20
  And when you do that against Chelsea, you're just going to
• 18:22
  lose. Yeah, I totally agree with that.
• 18:24
  I think they were, they were impressive.
• 18:26
  They played tough. I like they're attacking players
• 18:28
  like they got. They've got like a lot of
• 18:29
  options there. Gaby Nunez, Lyon, Chastity
• 18:32
  Grant, Rachel Daly. Goals can happen for that squad
• 18:35
  for sure and I don't know could be them turning a corner new
• 18:39
  manager, we'll see. But I want to talk a little bit
• 18:40
  about Chelsea. I think the story in this one,
• 18:42
  Chelsea's depth again takes the day.
• 18:45
  So there's there's Subs in this one, Shukanooskin, JRK, Kiera
• 18:49
  Walsh and then the two who link up on the Villa own goal, Myra
• 18:53
  Ramirez, Micah Mano, all those players came on its Subs and
• 18:57
  again change the game end up being the difference one nil to
• 19:00
  Chelsea. I have a depth question.
• 19:02
  I want to kind of get your take on this.
• 19:04
  They're going to need the depth down the stretch in the WSL,
• 19:08
  presumably. Do you think when you think
• 19:10
  about the Champions League after the quarterfinals, it's only 5
• 19:13
  matchups. It's two in the quarters, two in
• 19:15
  the semis and then the final. Do you think depth, like really
• 19:18
  matters? Or to what extent does depth
• 19:20
  matter you think? It's a great question.
• 19:23
  And I mean, I think you saw this with your Orlando Pride in the
• 19:27
  NWSL where and you touched on it earlier, like, yeah, the depth
• 19:31
  of matters over the course of a long season.
• 19:35
  That's tried and true. I think we know that.
• 19:37
  It's a great point by you that you have five matches here.
• 19:40
  You got to win four matches in aggregate essentially.
• 19:42
  And then you got to win the final, to win the Champions
• 19:44
  League. You, you should have, at least
• 19:47
  in my view, you should have a pretty good idea of who you're
• 19:51
  11 are, I guess, depending on the style you want to play
• 19:55
  against that opponent. So if you know, like, OK, these
• 19:57
  are my 11. These are almost assuredly my 11
• 20:01
  in these two fixtures in the quarters.
• 20:03
  And then depending on who my opponent is, these are my 11 in
• 20:06
  these two fixtures in the semis. I think you should probably have
• 20:11
  a, a pretty good feel for who those 11 are and start them in
• 20:14
  both matches. But I I'm glad you bring this up
• 20:17
  because I thought Kiera Walsh said something really
• 20:19
  interesting in her post match interview she described.
• 20:22
  The the few days ahead of the match as quote, a bit of a
• 20:26
  whirlwind End Quote, which is unsurprising because you know,
• 20:29
  she's moving from Barcelona to Chelsea, she's coming back to
• 20:31
  England, she comes back to play the WSL, etcetera, etcetera.
• 20:34
  But then she also went on to say that she didn't expect to play
• 20:38
  in that match, but she was excited to get in when called
• 20:42
  upon. And I got to say there's not
• 20:44
  much else we can say about Sonia Bonebastar as a manager.
• 20:47
  She's the only person on planet Earth to win the UAFA Women's
• 20:51
  Champions League as a player and a man manager.
• 20:53
  But I just love the fact that she manages in a way to say,
• 20:57
  Kira, I know you're in form. Barcelona plays the same
• 21:00
  schedule that we are. This isn't like a ketoline
• 21:03
  situation where you were in the offseason.
• 21:05
  I know you're in form. I know you can play.
• 21:07
  So go out there and play. And I think it says a lot about
• 21:10
  Bon Pastor as a manager, and I think it probably helps the
• 21:12
  overall ethos of the team of you don't have to get ready if you
• 21:16
  stay ready. Yeah, totally.
• 21:17
  And I think Walsh looked like a player that was playing her
• 21:20
  first match for Chelsea. Like, you know, the the
• 21:23
  chemistry. Not totally there.
• 21:24
  Another point that you know, I think you hit on pretty
• 21:27
  presciently the play styles. You look at who gets swapped on
• 21:30
  for who Nu skin comes on for captain.
• 21:32
  That's relatively close. But then you bring on Myra
• 21:34
  Ramirez for Aggie Beaver Jones. That's a totally different
• 21:38
  makeup of a player. You bring on Micah Himano for
• 21:40
  Kat Macario, that's a totally different.
• 21:42
  You mentioned trying to defend Kat Macario, her skill set, and
• 21:45
  then you got Himano kind of zipping around that, you know,
• 21:48
  doing different. It's a it's a totally different
• 21:49
  player. And you've got as a defender,
• 21:51
  you've got to really wipe the hard drive and, you know, kind
• 21:54
  of like reset, say, hey, what's the situation?
• 21:56
  So I think from that standpoint, it's a tremendous advantage to
• 21:59
  be able to like throw different pitches, go from fastball to
• 22:02
  change up, you know, with with who you bring on for whom.
• 22:05
  But we'll see if if that actually becomes an advantage as
• 22:09
  we head down the stretch of the Champions League.
• 22:10
  I think now two straight, one nil wins for Chelsea in the
• 22:14
  league. Maybe this is a little bit of A
• 22:16
  cause for concern. Hey, Chelsea should be doing
• 22:18
  more with what they have. Or you can say this is a
• 22:21
  champion that finds a way to win when these games get tough and
• 22:25
  you know, at home, on the road, top of the table, mid table
• 22:28
  body, doesn't matter. In a scrappy type scrap kind of
• 22:30
  game, they're going to find a way to win.
• 22:33
  Where do you think you fall with this Chelsea side?
• 22:35
  I think I learn more toward the find a way to win kind of thing
• 22:40
  because you know, they they are, you know, implementing Kiera
• 22:43
  Walsh into the system. They are going to have to
• 22:46
  implement Naomi Kerma into into this situation.
• 22:49
  You know, these are these are good problems to have, but you
• 22:54
  know, they still kind of got to figure things out.
• 22:56
  And if you're winning along the way, I think that says a lot
• 22:58
  about the competitive character of your team.
• 23:00
  And I think Sonia bone pastor spoke to this in the post match
• 23:04
  interview where she said she was really happy with the result.
• 23:07
  And then she went on to give credit to Villa for being like
• 23:09
  really well organized and giving Chelsea some trouble and some
• 23:12
  spots. But then she went on to say that
• 23:14
  Chelsea was, quote, not good enough in possession of the
• 23:17
  ball, especially in the build up phase.
• 23:19
  And quote, she pointed out that she thought there was space
• 23:22
  behind Villa's back line, but the midfield and the forwards
• 23:26
  just weren't able to connect. And so I love the fact that she
• 23:30
  starts with really happy with the result.
• 23:32
  That's what we want. We we were Chelsea Football
• 23:34
  Club. We played to get wins.
• 23:36
  But then she goes around and says a lot of these other parts
• 23:39
  not good enough for my standard. And obviously she knows she
• 23:43
  projects that standard onto these world class players.
• 23:45
  And so I think it fits that narrative of, yes, great, we can
• 23:49
  win these kind of gritty games, but we might have two matches
• 23:53
  against in in the semis, we might have two matches against
• 23:55
  Barcelona. And we saw how that went last
• 23:57
  time where we went in and we got one victory and then we end up
• 24:01
  losing by two in the next. Cannot let that happen again.
• 24:05
  I I saw that as well with the midfield, you know, kind of like
• 24:07
  they're just not like a under utilization of it.
• 24:10
  Yeah, kind of felt like it was a lot of like, right, whether it's
• 24:12
  Ashley Lawrence or Dave Charles or Natalie Bjorn, like it's like
• 24:16
  get the ball, skip the midfield and then it you know, the
• 24:18
  midfielder is also pushing up higher.
• 24:21
  Whether it's Nu Skin, who loves to be up high and RIP shots.
• 24:23
  Cuthbert also is dangerous up there.
• 24:26
  So it's almost like you only have the two lines.
• 24:28
  It's like you've got everybody up, you know, near the 18 and
• 24:30
  then you've got your back line and you're not really playing
• 24:33
  any midfield ball. Seems like that was a missed
• 24:35
  opportunity in this one. We'll see if that that kind of
• 24:38
  like persists moving forward here.
• 24:40
  I want to talk a little Leon Montpellier, what you see in
• 24:43
  this one. I think you know Leon.
• 24:44
  They take care of business. I don't know if we learned a lot
• 24:48
  about Leon. It turns out the aerial attack
• 24:51
  is still extremely dangerous. Wendy Renar and Lindsay Oran are
• 24:56
  just devastating heading the ball.
• 24:58
  I will say 1 shocking thing and we've talked on this program
• 25:02
  multiple times about Lindsay Orans ability to score
• 25:06
  penalties. Amel Majri draws a penalty but I
• 25:10
  think around like the 30 minute mark of the match and Haran hits
• 25:14
  maybe the worst penalty I think I've seen her hit.
• 25:17
  Now to our pals, jump in the comments and let me know if you
• 25:21
  can recall a worse one. But I mean, credit to Marie
• 25:25
  Pettit, to the goalkeeper for Montbellier to make the save,
• 25:29
  but that did not look like the typical effort from Iran.
• 25:32
  And then she immediately bounces back and was influential in the
• 25:36
  in the rest of the match. Yeah, totally.
• 25:37
  She puts that ball into Renar for the goal.
• 25:41
  She gets an assist there. I was funny too when you brought
• 25:43
  up Lindsay Iran. I feel like the originator of
• 25:46
  the misses ugly, you know, observation with regards to
• 25:49
  Lindsay's game. That was a really funny moment
• 25:51
  where Leon Leon is like stringing together this
• 25:56
  beautiful possession, you know, and like they've Leon's got the
• 26:00
  announcer being like look at the only just knocking the ball
• 26:03
  around. It's beautiful football.
• 26:05
  The ball gets the her and she immediately kicks it out of
• 26:09
  after like an 11 fast sequence that looked I mean just
• 26:12
  absolutely stellar. It was beautiful football.
• 26:15
  And then Lindsay knocks out of bounds.
• 26:17
  He obviously misses the the the PK, but then comes back.
• 26:20
  I mean perfect ball into renar yeah smashes and the header as
• 26:24
  mentioned and you know is a is a great player doing great things.
• 26:28
  Leon have four of the leagues top eight goal scorers.
• 26:32
  Yeah, for mentioned Lindsay ran Muchi du Mornay, Katie Diani,
• 26:34
  Tabitha Chiwinga in this 41 win the over Montpellier Leo gets
• 26:38
  three goals from players not that I just named.
• 26:42
  There we go. So they get they get the
• 26:43
  Marjorie goal. Marjorie continues to just be
• 26:46
  one of the best players you can watch.
• 26:48
  Like you could just sit and watch her movement on offense
• 26:51
  the whole match and just be incredibly entertained.
• 26:53
  We've mentioned the Renault goal.
• 26:54
  Sarah Dabritz gets the 4th to kind of put this one totally out
• 26:57
  of reach. But I think I agree with you.
• 26:59
  I don't think we learned much at all from this matchup.
• 27:02
  Yeah, I mean, not not a ton to learn in these situations, but
• 27:05
  I'm glad you you mentioned Sarah Dabritz.
• 27:07
  I think Dabritz, Majri and Madajan, those three players
• 27:12
  jump out to me as players who just have a unique ability to
• 27:15
  hit a shot from like almost any position.
• 27:17
  Like they might look a little off balance and just need to hit
• 27:20
  it like off the side of their foot with their right foot, or
• 27:22
  they can bring the ball down and then quickly RIP a shot.
• 27:25
  Just to have like those 3 patrolling the midfield.
• 27:28
  It's like as a goalkeeper, it just feels like you have to be
• 27:31
  constantly on edge whenever those three are on the pitch.
• 27:34
  I just love watching them all play.
• 27:36
  Yeah, for sure you could throw less American and there is a
• 27:38
  yeah, no smash and grab type player.
• 27:41
  Another midfielder for Leon Damaris Agarola, Orlando legend
• 27:45
  Damaris Agarola leaves leaves the match a little bit early.
• 27:48
  I ran one of her quotes through Google Translate with regard to
• 27:52
  her injury, Damaris says. And I quote, everything's going
• 27:55
  well, nothing serious. End Quote.
• 27:57
  That's Orlando's strong right there.
• 27:59
  There, there you go. So I'm talking about obviously
• 28:01
  Damaris Agarola, Netherlands International played one match
• 28:05
  for the Spanish national team before using your one time
• 28:09
  eligibility transfer. Born in beautiful Orlando, FL,
• 28:13
  the home of Disney, the home of the Orlando Pride, and obviously
• 28:16
  the home of Juan Dino de Cespedes.
• 28:18
  Half the ITC it's so it can go. One other player I want to call
• 28:21
  out Sophie Svava left back. Oh, she's good.
• 28:25
  She's really good. I mean, obviously that's the
• 28:27
  summer bash of spot. So that makes it a little
• 28:30
  tricky. I don't think they can go wrong
• 28:31
  with either of those players. Svava has been unpredictable,
• 28:34
  super engaged, kind of somebody that you have to game plan for
• 28:38
  defensively because she's so tricky and like she's like up
• 28:41
  and back so quickly and like, I don't know, she's a dangerous
• 28:44
  player from from that left back spot still super young, 24 years
• 28:47
  old from Denmark. She gets the assist on the Haran
• 28:51
  goal and I don't know, another weapon for Leone to try to
• 28:54
  figure out. You know, once, once everybody's
• 28:56
  back healthy, how they sort it out.
• 28:58
  But again, good problem to have. Yeah, the Pastor Haran was, you
• 29:01
  know, directly onto her forehead.
• 29:02
  No way she could miss. I thought there was another
• 29:04
  funny moment where Sava, like, slipped and fell down as the
• 29:08
  ball was being passed to her and she popped up with an
• 29:11
  unbelievable quickness and then hit a perfect pass to Matajan,
• 29:15
  who then had a go at goal. Was to like, Speaking of what I
• 29:17
  was saying earlier, where I didn't expect Matajan to have
• 29:20
  that accurate of a shot, but then like, rips it at the corner
• 29:22
  and forced to save. Yeah, really impressed with
• 29:25
  Svaba so far. I mean, obviously you are the
• 29:28
  inventor of the term Basha ball. Selma Basha, always an ITC
• 29:33
  favorite, always an ITC legend. Now that's a one of those other
• 29:37
  good problems to have for this super team who to play at left
• 29:40
  back is no wrong answer there. Yep 100% so we'll see we'll see
• 29:44
  who Leon draws on Friday. I don't well, let me ask you
• 29:48
  this real quick. I'm going to put you on the spot
• 29:50
  a little bit Power rank your top three of the eight.
• 29:52
  Who would you put in the top three of those eight?
• 29:55
  How would you rank them? 123 Arsenal's won, so let's go
• 29:59
  to. Matched up against Manchester
• 30:03
  City. Arsenal's won for now, by the
• 30:05
  way. Let's see what happens in the
• 30:06
  League Cup. I'm not going to.
• 30:09
  I understand the WSL is, is the big league that we're that we
• 30:12
  care about. But we're recording this for,
• 30:14
  for anybody who's curious, we're recording this on Tuesday,
• 30:17
  February 4th. The League Cup match is still to
• 30:19
  be played. I expect a Manchester City
• 30:21
  victory in that match. These colors don't run, Bubba.
• 30:24
  They don't defend very well, but they also don't run.
• 30:28
  I digress. My top three, obviously, I'm the
• 30:31
  Barcelona guy on the show. So Barcelona is still one.
• 30:34
  They have to be 1. They have too many good, great
• 30:36
  players. I think they're going to be
• 30:38
  fine. It's tough.
• 30:39
  It is tough between Lyon and Chelsea, man, because you just
• 30:43
  watch these two teams play and it's just like, well, maybe the
• 30:47
  only team that could beat them is Barcelona or Orlando Pride.
• 30:51
  Obviously there is not a lot between them.
• 30:54
  If you put me on the spot, I'll say Barcelona 1, I'll say
• 30:58
  Chelsea by a nose 2 and Leon 3. All right.
• 31:03
  So I said I would, I would list mine as well.
• 31:05
  I've been thinking about the whole time you've been talking.
• 31:07
  Apologies, I think I have to go. And this is I'm, I'm doing a
• 31:12
  little bit of projecting here. I am taking into account
• 31:15
  somebody seems to have added some players.
• 31:17
  It's going to take a little time for them to get going.
• 31:18
  Assuming that all these players find their roles on this team,
• 31:22
  let's say by the 18th of March when the quarterfinals kick off,
• 31:25
  I think I have to say Chelsea won.
• 31:30
  It's it's wild, but I just think that between Bon Pasteur, you
• 31:35
  look at the other two teams also you look at Leon, you look at
• 31:37
  Barcelona, the managerial changes from last year to this
• 31:40
  year. Obviously managerial change for
• 31:42
  Chelsea as well, but they're getting a tried and true.
• 31:44
  Obviously champion of champions. As you mentioned, I think I have
• 31:47
  Chelsea 1 based on the moves, based on how they've looked 2-3.
• 31:52
  I think it's a slight edge to Barcelona.
• 31:55
  I think they're they're more dangerous.
• 31:57
  I think they're slightly more dangerous than attack, but I
• 32:00
  think Leon one is better defensively.
• 32:02
  Yeah, I would still have Barcelona a smidge ahead of
• 32:05
  Lyon, so that would be my 123. Barcelona's goal differential in
• 32:09
  League F is +6372 goals for 9 against.
• 32:14
  It's an interesting call to say, you know, Leon's defense by a
• 32:18
  hair over Barcelona's defense. Hard to argue when one team as
• 32:22
  Wendy Renar and Vanessa Gill and Torciani, that's a great call.
• 32:27
  So, you know, it's definitely going to be interesting to see
• 32:29
  all three of these teams. I didn't even really give it.
• 32:31
  I mean, like we've talked about all three changes.
• 32:33
  We've, you know, discussed them, but all three of these teams did
• 32:37
  the coaching carousel like the the the whole coaching change.
• 32:41
  So it's going to be fascinating to watch the three of the four
• 32:45
  absolute juggernauts in the world game going at it in in
• 32:48
  this league only until obviously UEFA adopts Cameron Pope's wild
• 32:53
  card idea. So then Orlando Pride can get
• 32:55
  into this tournament in in future years.
• 32:57
  Wild. Card, let's head over to
• 33:01
  Germany. So the two German championship
• 33:04
  sides, Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg in action this past weekend
• 33:08
  after a pretty long break. It was good to see them back.
• 33:11
  Bayern, they head to Leipzig. Really tough matchup.
• 33:15
  I mean, I think it ends up one nil.
• 33:17
  Magdalene Erickson smashes in the header early 11th minute in
• 33:20
  that one really good header. Corner kick from Caroline Simone
• 33:23
  even better. I mean, it was just, yeah, right
• 33:26
  on the money. When you see them do that, like,
• 33:28
  why can't they just do that every time?
• 33:29
  Like in the corner, just like pinpoint accurate.
• 33:32
  And there's just seems to be 3 or 4 fire Munich, you know,
• 33:36
  skyscrapers there to smash it home.
• 33:39
  Bayern also made a personnel move this week, signing Ariana
• 33:41
  Caruso from Juventus, 25 years old.
• 33:44
  I think she's going to come in and definitely scratch out some
• 33:47
  minutes. That's a good player and a
• 33:49
  player that great change of pace for Bayern.
• 33:52
  I love the pickup. You know, that's another
• 33:54
  unpredictable player. I think she's going to be really
• 33:56
  effective for Bayern. I, I mean, that Ericsson header,
• 33:59
  I mean, she got way up there. I mean, we didn't really talk
• 34:02
  about that much in the Lyon. Just to rewind real quick, Wendy
• 34:04
  Renar way up there for that header.
• 34:08
  I mean, good Lord, nobody's getting anywhere near that.
• 34:11
  I'm glad. You brought that up because the
• 34:13
  the announcer's like oh Haran finds renar for a free header
• 34:16
  and I'm like bro that wasn't a free header.
• 34:18
  There was like 5 people Renar Renard jumps before the defender
• 34:23
  and lands after the defender, you know, and like the
• 34:27
  announcers love to kind of like comment on the ball were like,
• 34:30
  oh, you know, that was still rising in that instance.
• 34:32
  Renard was still rising and it goes up and down.
• 34:35
  I mean, it was marvelous. Every chance you get to to kind
• 34:39
  of watch Wendy Renard go out there and do her thing
• 34:41
  defensively too. She was a beast.
• 34:42
  I mean, yeah, sign me up for all the Renard minutes.
• 34:45
  I just love watching her play. Always.
• 34:47
  Absolutely and no. And obviously Magdalena
• 34:49
  Erickson. Hard to hard to live up to the
• 34:51
  Wendy Renar standard. But I mean, she she did great.
• 34:53
  I mean, she got way up there. Good hops for her to score that.
• 34:56
  I thought Leipzig, you know, obviously we're talking about
• 34:59
  the, you know, the Champions League team.
• 35:00
  So I just a little love for Leipzig.
• 35:01
  They had a few looks at getting level in this match.
• 35:04
  Not to totally dismiss that. Bayern also had some looks to
• 35:07
  maybe go 2 ahead in this match. I do love that Bayern Munich saw
• 35:12
  Ariana Caruso twice in the group stage of the Champions League.
• 35:17
  And I, I'm always interested in that where it's just like, Oh,
• 35:20
  yeah, she's good, but we should see if we can maybe turn her
• 35:23
  head and get her to play for our team.
• 35:25
  So I was, I was interested to see that signing.
• 35:27
  And the last thing I'll say about Bayern, Leipzig, good
• 35:29
  goalkeeper match up. Swiss goalkeeper Elvira Herzog
• 35:33
  saved 5 of 6 for Leipzig. She had some really good
• 35:35
  moments. And then obviously Mahmudovic,
• 35:38
  you already know what time it is for Bayern.
• 35:39
  She, I mean, she is just a really smart, savvy, athletic
• 35:43
  shot stopper for Bayern. She saved four of four to keep
• 35:46
  the clean sheet. Good match in the Frown
• 35:48
  Bundesliga. Absolutely.
• 35:49
  Yeah. Great to see her getting back on
• 35:50
  track. Let's go cross, cross town,
• 35:54
  cross country. Wolfsburg.
• 35:56
  Not sure the not sure the geography there.
• 35:59
  Maybe we're going north, maybe SW, OK, could be somewhere else.
• 36:03
  Anyway, Wolfsburg 3. Our favorite lens maker is Carl
• 36:06
  Zeiss. Nil, what'd you see?
• 36:07
  What'd you see in this one? Svenyahuth Olympico, Let's go,
• 36:11
  let's go. We don't.
• 36:12
  We don't see enough Olympicos in this sport.
• 36:14
  I want to see more Berenstein had the had the tap in off a
• 36:18
  free kick. Another Wolfsburg match, another
• 36:21
  dynamic framing of set pieces by Wolfsburg.
• 36:25
  I mean, they're just they're just tough to beat in in that in
• 36:28
  those kind of situations. But they also dominated
• 36:31
  possession and pretty much every other category 7030 possession.
• 36:34
  They had ten shots on target to Carl Zeissena's zero shots on
• 36:39
  target. Yanina Minga had one goal, one
• 36:42
  assist, 1 tackle, 1 interception, one block and 131
• 36:47
  touches of the ball. She LED.
• 36:49
  She led the entire match in touches of the ball and had more
• 36:52
  than double than any player on Carl Zeissena.
• 36:56
  Let's go. A pretty thorough victory and 1
• 36:59
  you would expect from Wolfsburg. Yeah, and I like to see them get
• 37:03
  into a rhythm, too. I mean, such a long break for
• 37:05
  Brown. Bundesliga Wolfsburg sit one
• 37:07
  point behind both Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayern Munich, one
• 37:10
  goal behind Bayern Munich and role differential.
• 37:12
  So they're definitely in the mix, but just two points ahead
• 37:15
  of Leverkusen. So we'll keep an eye on that.
• 37:17
  Cannot wait for the draw. I mean, you just talking,
• 37:19
  talking through these teams, getting excited.
• 37:22
  Oh shit. Wolfsburg's going to be really
• 37:23
  excited at the quarterfinals. Byron's going to be exciting.
• 37:25
  You know, Chelsea, who are they going to get Lyon knowing that
• 37:28
  Friday? But this time Friday evening,
• 37:30
  we'll have our answers in terms of who's playing whom.
• 37:32
  I'm just absolutely pumped. One more team tip before we get
• 37:36
  out of here. Real Madrid in action, They
• 37:37
  actually had two matches since we last potted.
• 37:40
  They get A5 nil win over Espanol and a four one away win versus
• 37:46
  Real Sociedad, Maybe a couple deceptive score lines.
• 37:49
  I think for in each of those matchups with Sociedad, more so
• 37:53
  they're 1/3 of the table. They have they they gave, you
• 37:55
  know, Ramadrid a tougher shot, but didn't totally cruise to the
• 37:58
  9 to one that it looks like. What were your main takeaways
• 38:01
  from from Real Madrid in action? So let me let me crack just a
• 38:06
  hey coping the coping beer because now that I am the
• 38:10
  Barcelona guy, obviously I now have to deal with my hated
• 38:13
  rival, Real Madrid, lifelong rival since a few months ago.
• 38:21
  I mean, I used to play with Barcelona and FIFA when I was a
• 38:23
  kid. So I mean, you know, I didn't
• 38:25
  know anything. I probably didn't know where
• 38:26
  Barcelona, I obviously couldn't point to it on a map, but you
• 38:30
  know, they just had a good rating in FIFA.
• 38:31
  So I used to play with them. I digress, as per usual, you're
• 38:35
  right about this Sociedad match. Senior Brune is a relentless
• 38:40
  monster out there. You cannot do anything with her.
• 38:44
  Her paired with Kai Sado when they are running at you on the
• 38:48
  break has to be fucking horrifying as a defender.
• 38:53
  Those two especially. But Sociedad was super in this
• 38:57
  match for significant stretches. I walked away really impressed
• 39:01
  with their performance, but circling back to Real Madrid,
• 39:04
  that made me more impressed with the way that Madrid was able to
• 39:08
  kind of keep the pressure on and then pull away at the end.
• 39:12
  I think the last time we discussed it, Real Madrid had
• 39:14
  the worst odds to win the Champions League.
• 39:16
  Now, what's fun about them and if I can hear camp open my head
• 39:20
  saying wild card like is I think they are a wild card like I
• 39:24
  think they have the widest variance between, you know, can
• 39:28
  they come out and smash somebody?
• 39:30
  Like you look at a team like Wolfsburg, they don't seem like
• 39:33
  they have that same feast or famine type thing.
• 39:35
  Like I think you know where you're getting with a team like
• 39:37
  Wolfsburg kind of thing with Arsenal.
• 39:38
  Like Arsenal is not going to really explode for a crazy
• 39:41
  number of goals. Like they're they're very, you
• 39:43
  know, consistent with a fine band.
• 39:44
  But I think Real Madrid, because they have so many of those
• 39:47
  spectacular players. Atenea, like she.
• 39:50
  Looked the best. She looked like AF1 car out
• 39:54
  there. Yeah.
• 39:56
  Flying like there was just no contending with her.
• 39:58
  It was just like, OK, let me just try to run in the direction
• 40:00
  where she I'm not going to catch her, but I'm going to just.
• 40:02
  Running to see if I can kind of get sort of where she is and
• 40:05
  maybe she trips on a patch of grass or something and I can
• 40:08
  make up some ground here. She looked incredible.
• 40:10
  Real Madrid just has the widest range of of outcomes that are
• 40:14
  available to them as we approach these quarterfinals.
• 40:17
  I think that's a great call. I mean, and I think it's because
• 40:20
  like you said, you have these these super dynamic players.
• 40:24
  We also saw in some of those group stage matches where like
• 40:28
  Celtic was keeping it close with them through long stretches and
• 40:32
  credit to Celtic for doing that. I think there is the what they
• 40:35
  had the one match where they absolutely destroyed Twente.
• 40:38
  I want to say, am I misremembering this?
• 40:40
  Yeah. They had the seven nil win over
• 40:42
  Twente, but then they had that 32 win over 20 where they were
• 40:45
  able to just kind of like Twente would get close and then they
• 40:48
  would pull away. And so they have these different
• 40:51
  abilities to go play. You have Olga Carmona, you know,
• 40:54
  playing left back who can kind of dictate the way the offense
• 40:57
  looks, the bugaboo for them and the just the thing that I would
• 41:01
  absolutely hate to see even as a Barcelona guy.
• 41:05
  Oh, crap, do I have to rethink this?
• 41:08
  I I was just going to say I don't want them to draw
• 41:12
  Barcelona because I have a little bit of like, OK, no, I
• 41:16
  have to erase all my love for Real Madrid.
• 41:18
  You know, you know what? I hope Barcelona draws Real
• 41:21
  Madrid and continues to pound them into dust because.
• 41:25
  Fucking guy didn't learn his lesson from last week.
• 41:27
  OK, continue this. Is the, this is their bugaboo
• 41:31
  though? They, they go up against Barsa
• 41:33
  in the league and they get smashed.
• 41:35
  And we, we talked about it when they played in the league
• 41:37
  earlier this year. They were defending well and
• 41:39
  they went down by one goal. And you could just see
• 41:42
  everybody's shoulders immediately slump and be like,
• 41:44
  oh, Jesus, here we go again. So they're going to have to get
• 41:48
  past that. But you know what?
• 41:49
  Let me just say they're not going to get past that because
• 41:52
  Barcelona's too much of A juggernaut.
• 41:53
  So they better hope they draw somebody else other than
• 41:56
  Barcelona and then maybe they'll have a chance to get out of the
• 41:58
  quarters. Really interesting stuff because
• 42:01
  we talked about it March 18th. March 19th is when the
• 42:03
  quarterfinals kick off. March 23rd is match week 23 in
• 42:08
  League F when Real Madrid head to Barcelona.
• 42:11
  Could be a six pointer Madrid just five points behind
• 42:14
  Barcelona and League F table, 17 thirtieths of the way through
• 42:18
  the season. We talked about the variance of
• 42:20
  what we can expect or maybe not expect from Real Madrid, but I
• 42:23
  don't know. That could be a really fun eight
• 42:25
  or nine days. If they do drop Barcelona, they
• 42:28
  playing back-to-back to back. One thing I do want to add,
• 42:30
  because I want to look, I wanted to look this up courtesy of our
• 42:33
  pals over at Foot Mob. So counting the Super Cup and
• 42:37
  Liga F matches, Barcelona has defeated Real Madrid in the
• 42:42
  Super Cup on January 26th, 5 to nil, in November at 2024, four
• 42:47
  to nil, March of 2024, three to nil, November 19th at 2023, five
• 42:52
  to nil. And then March 25, 2023, credit
• 42:54
  to the Madrid Estas, they only lost one nil to Barcelona.
• 42:59
  So it's been a rough go against Barcelona so far.
• 43:03
  But you know what, some of those teams, obviously they didn't
• 43:05
  have Alva Redondo coming off the bench.
• 43:07
  They didn't have senior Brune. Obviously we we had the the long
• 43:10
  term injury for Caroline Weir. So, you know, think things might
• 43:13
  go better for Las Blancas, but tough road to hoe, yeah.
• 43:17
  First thing you had to do is score.
• 43:18
  It's a lot of three nil, 4 nil, 5 nil.
• 43:20
  Yes, one nil. You know, one nil.
• 43:22
  If one nil is the shining light of the, that makes a little
• 43:26
  tough, but we'll see. We'll track it either way.
• 43:29
  A lot of fun. I can't wait for Friday.
• 43:31
  We're going to get our matchups. I want to have a quick
• 43:33
  conversation though. We're talking about Real Madrid,
• 43:35
  one of one of the the greatest pre eminent superstars ever
• 43:42
  graced the holes at Real Madrid. Ronaldo, Luka Doncic.
• 43:45
  Oh, that guy? Yeah, sure.
• 43:48
  Traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.
• 43:50
  You know, we're a show primarily about women's football.
• 43:52
  But you know, we could we could for, you know, we're an hour and
• 43:55
  we could kind of, you know, Mosey on over the little NBA
• 43:57
  talk. Shout out to our guy, Mr. GOOG
• 44:01
  on Reddit, who I'm not sure is also at Warsaw reader on
• 44:04
  Twitter. It could be or maybe there is
• 44:06
  more than one Houston Dash fan in the world.
• 44:07
  That's also possible. But I ran it by Mr. GOOG to see
• 44:11
  if he get his take on on whether or not we could talk about this
• 44:15
  Luca Doncic straight on the show.
• 44:17
  He was like, yeah, I'm down cosign.
• 44:19
  So shout out to you at Mr. GOOOG.
• 44:22
  Of course I've got one take on the Lucadante trade.
• 44:26
  Now, I'm not going to live long. Presumably I'm not going to live
• 44:29
  long enough to see if if this take actually comes to pass.
• 44:33
  Let's rewind January 5th, 1920. The Boston Red Sox trade.
• 44:39
  George Herman Ruth to the New York Yankees for $100,000,
• 44:44
  payable in four annual installments.
• 44:46
  A nice chunk of change in 1920. Sure.
• 44:48
  You know, it's not a it's not a mint.
• 44:51
  The Red Sox then go on to play baseball for another 84 years
• 44:55
  without winning a World Series. And this is a franchise that had
• 44:59
  won five World Series prior to 1920.
• 45:01
  Not a not a loser franchise by any stretch.
• 45:04
  No, my take is that the Dallas Mavericks will go longer than 84
• 45:09
  years without winning a championship.
• 45:12
  And we could chalk it up to, you know, it's not the curse of the
• 45:15
  Bambino, it's maybe the curse of El Mahiko.
• 45:18
  Everyone think about, we'll, we'll figure out the branding of
• 45:21
  it, but this is such an abomination of a trade.
• 45:25
  The basketball gods. I mean, I can't imagine a
• 45:28
  personnel move angering them more than giving away Luka
• 45:32
  Doncic for $0.25 on the dollar. I'm really bummed that I won't
• 45:36
  live long enough to see my take get validated, but this team
• 45:42
  will not win another championship.
• 45:44
  It will be give me the over on 84 years on the next Dallas
• 45:48
  Mavericks win an NBA championship.
• 45:51
  I mean, I think it's, you know, I think it's probably fair if if
• 45:54
  you believe in basketball gods, what the I the next day after
• 45:58
  the trade, they get absolutely waxed by the Cleveland
• 46:02
  Cavaliers, one of the best teams in basketball, by the way, I
• 46:05
  think they got outscored like 50 to 19 in the first quarter.
• 46:08
  So the first quarter of basketball they play, after
• 46:11
  making this egregious trade, they get absolutely run off the
• 46:14
  floor. I think the basketball gods are
• 46:16
  probably alive and well and sternly shaking a finger at Nico
• 46:22
  Harrison and the Dallas Mavericks.
• 46:24
  My mind immediately, as you, as you might imagine, went to some
• 46:29
  football comps here. And you, you and I were texting
• 46:33
  about it. And I was trying to think of any
• 46:35
  kind of analogous situation to this.
• 46:39
  And in terms of shock value, I would like to turn to our pals,
• 46:44
  the viewers, to let us know. Because, you know, I know I've,
• 46:46
  I've said on this show a lot of times, obviously, I was 13.
• 46:51
  I was, yeah, 13 years old when US women's national team won in
• 46:54
  the 1999 World Cup. And then I started to really pay
• 46:57
  a lot closer attention to women's football in 2015.
• 47:01
  But even then, like, transfer news was like, not exactly easy
• 47:04
  to track and all that stuff. I can't think of the most
• 47:08
  shocking transfers. Obviously, you think about,
• 47:10
  like, bad moves. So you think about, like, bad
• 47:13
  decisions that clubs might make. But this one coming super out of
• 47:17
  left field is really fascinating to me where it's just like,
• 47:21
  whoa, what is the decision here? Why, why did they decide to do
• 47:25
  this? And when I think about the
• 47:27
  analogy, I know you and I were texting about it.
• 47:29
  I just imagine if the Washington spirit were just like, you know
• 47:34
  what Trinity Rodman, she demands her espresso to be a certain
• 47:39
  temperature in the locker room. And we don't want to deal with
• 47:43
  her anymore. So we have now sold her contract
• 47:47
  to Gotham FC or to like Racing Louisville.
• 47:51
  And we're fine with we're we feel great about that decision
• 47:54
  we're going to assign to defender because defense wins
• 47:57
  championships. Haven't you heard?
• 47:59
  And I just feel like it's an indefensible position to make.
• 48:03
  So I'm asking folks, let us know what are the most shocking
• 48:06
  transfers you've witnessed in your time watching woman's
• 48:09
  football? And I want to pose a question.
• 48:12
  Let's say hypothetically, you are the director of football for
• 48:14
  Portland Thorns FC and I am the director of football for Utah
• 48:18
  Royals. And I call you.
• 48:20
  I have your, I have your cell phone number.
• 48:22
  And I call you and I say hello, Dino.
• 48:24
  I'm interested in acquiring the contract of one Sophie Smith,
• 48:28
  who I believe now after her marriage, she put on her
• 48:31
  Instagram profile. Anyway, Sophie Wilson, I am
• 48:33
  interested in acquiring the contract of Sophie Wilson.
• 48:36
  You then say what? No, there's nothing.
• 48:42
  Of course. I I just went to the whole the
• 48:44
  whole world. I'm like, all right, can we
• 48:46
  piece together a couple? No, there's nothing.
• 48:49
  The comp that I texted you, I still think is my my, my comp.
• 48:53
  Trinity Rodman transferred to the Orlando the the champion
• 48:56
  Orlando Pride for $5000 is like that's the equivalent of like
• 49:02
  the absurdity of this Luga Doncic trade.
• 49:04
  A quick call to the Dallas Mavericks fans.
• 49:07
  I know that, you know, there's a heat Mavs, you know, blood
• 49:11
  rivalry. You know, we we were an underdog
• 49:14
  and won the finals and then Dallas is underdog.
• 49:16
  They beat us in the finals. You know, this is some some
• 49:19
  interesting paths getting crossed.
• 49:22
  Come on over the Heat, you know, wow.
• 49:24
  Like, there's definitely room on the bandwagon with that
• 49:28
  franchise. What the ownership, what the
• 49:30
  management did to you as fans, Just despicable.
• 49:33
  If you want to go root for Cleveland and the Cavs, it's not
• 49:36
  the worst time to do that in NBA history.
• 49:38
  So I'm sure my guy Grant would open the door, you know, be just
• 49:41
  as welcome. But, you know, it's just fandom.
• 49:46
  You can kind of, you know, take a take a hat off, put another
• 49:48
  hat on. But yeah, my heart definitely
• 49:50
  goes out to those Dallas fans. I got to tell you, I know for a
• 49:54
  fact, just by the way sports fandom works, there have to be a
• 49:58
  certain group of people who fit in the center of the Venn
• 50:01
  diagram of Manchester City Football Club supporters and
• 50:05
  Dallas Mavericks fans. That has to be one of the worst
• 50:09
  fucking weekends you could possibly have as a sports fan.
• 50:14
  Our women's team gets mashed. I mean, obviously it was four to
• 50:17
  three, but it it shouldn't have been that competitive.
• 50:20
  Our men's club, that happened and then.
• 50:24
  Really about women's football. Yeah, this.
• 50:27
  Yeah, this is a show primarily about women's football and.
• 50:30
  And then Luca gets traded for, and I don't mean to dismiss
• 50:34
  Anthony Davis, who's a fine player, but Luca gets traded
• 50:37
  for, like you said, $0.25 on the dollar.
• 50:40
  That's about as badly as a sports weekend could go.
• 50:44
  I think I. Wasn't going to bring up on the
• 50:46
  men's side what happened, but wasn't pretty.
• 50:53
  We're humble. We're we're, we're staying
• 50:54
  humble now. Well, you know, your guys set it
• 50:59
  in motion. You know, he, it was really, he
• 51:02
  was really speaking to himself and in a very abstract.
• 51:04
  Way. That's right, He found a way.
• 51:07
  Let me ask you a question. I mean, obviously if somebody
• 51:10
  were to call the great Hayley Carter of the Orlando Pride and
• 51:13
  the first couple words out of their mouth are I'd like to talk
• 51:17
  to you about acquiring Barbara Benda.
• 51:20
  She's hanging up the phone before the the sentence
• 51:24
  finishes, right? Oh my God.
• 51:26
  I mean, I'm trying to I'm trying to figure out how she would
• 51:30
  escalate that. You know, it's definitely
• 51:32
  there's definitely a block feature that that definitely
• 51:35
  calls for some kind of escalation.
• 51:37
  There are just some players that need to be untouchable.
• 51:40
  They just need to be untouchable.
• 51:42
  Bandas in there, Luka's in there, Tamocha Winga's in there.
• 51:45
  I mean, like these are players. And you know, it's funny because
• 51:49
  like to take it back to the what we were talking about last week,
• 51:51
  Trinity Rodman, you know, should be in that untouchable space.
• 51:55
  And imagine, I'll give you another, let's shake up the Venn
• 51:58
  diagram a little bit more. How about city?
• 52:01
  And we're going to rewind by a couple weeks.
• 52:03
  City, Dallas, San Diego way fans, you know, because you
• 52:07
  could make the case that they might have let one, maybe two
• 52:11
  generational type talents out the door.
• 52:14
  Obviously they they cashed in, but you can't just turn around
• 52:17
  and write some checks and replace those two players.
• 52:20
  That's the thing about these generational players.
• 52:22
  There is no replacing them. The economic mechanisms do as
• 52:25
  much as they can to try to like balance the scales.
• 52:28
  All right, there's, there's different types of funds and
• 52:30
  different players, young players and like we try to make it
• 52:33
  equitable, but you've seen this across all sports. 90% of the
• 52:38
  time the team giving away the better player loses the trade.
• 52:42
  Of course, yeah, because I mean, yeah, okay, so you got a million
• 52:45
  for Germa. You know, folks, please correct
• 52:47
  me if I'm wrong, but it was somewhere in the ballpark of
• 52:49
  like half a million for Shaw. So if you're San Diego Wave,
• 52:53
  great, you know, 1.51 point 6,000,000, the bag of cash isn't
• 52:58
  going to score goals or play center back for you.
• 53:01
  So like you better have a really good plan for who you're going
• 53:05
  to sign with that money. And you know, but if if what's
• 53:09
  happening at San Diego Wave is any indication, I don't know if
• 53:14
  I'm a fan of that club, if I feel really great about what
• 53:17
  that plan might be. Yeah, bag of cash, not going to
• 53:20
  fix the culture either, so we'll keep an eye on that.
• 53:25
  All right, quick programming reminder in the coming weeks,
• 53:27
  we'll continue to track our HMC clubs across Europe.
• 53:29
  We'll continue to track personal changes in the NWSL.
• 53:32
  Had a move today, Rebecca Bernal signs with Washington Spirit.
• 53:35
  That was fun. OK.
• 53:37
  And yeah, man, we'll be back Friday, YouTube Live, 11:00 AM
• 53:40
  Eastern, 8:00 AM Pacific. We're going to be talking about
• 53:43
  those four quarterfinal matchups.
• 53:44
  I'm very pumped for that. Anything else you want to hit
• 53:47
  before we get out here? I think we did it.
• 53:48
  I mean, obviously we covered the 8 Champions League teams.
• 53:51
  We even found a way to shoehorn in some Luca Doncic talk.
• 53:55
  I get, you know, as you mentioned, Real Madrid legend.
• 53:58
  So I, I think we, we pretty much covered the gamut of everything.
• 54:01
  All right, man, I think we did it.
• 54:02
  So another episode into the channel.
• 54:03
  Thank you, thank you, thank you for watching, listening,
• 54:05
  following, liking, subscribing, commenting, just playing,
• 54:07
  hanging out with your boys. Remember to like if you liked,
• 54:09
  subscribe, follow into the channel, YouTube, Spotify, Apple
• 54:11
  podcast, wherever like to watch or listen.
• 54:13
  Leave us a review over your favorite podcast appletes, all
• 54:16
  of our socials and the show that's of this episode.
• 54:18
  Your boys are out here. Please connect with us.
• 54:20
  We love hearing from you. We want to hear from you.
• 54:22
  And a big thank you to my close as well, Mr. Grant and go for
• 54:25
  being our version of the untouchable talent.
• 54:28
  Anybody call any GM's out here trying to get a hold of me?
• 54:30
  It's an immediate hang up. Block report.
• 54:33
  Dude, I'd send the angry texts. I tell them I'm on the do not
• 54:36
  call list. Leave me alone, you already know
• 54:38
  what time it is. I appreciate you bro.
• 54:39
  Likewise, buddy, you know I feel the same way.
• 54:41
  Nobody's breaking up this super team, that's for sure.
• 54:44
  And the Super team would not be complete without all of you
• 54:47
  hanging out with us. We appreciate it.
• 54:48
  You're the nicest people on the Internet.
• 54:50
  I will continue to believe that I I know it's true for a fact.
• 54:53
  Thank you for rocking with us and we will see you at the live
• 54:56
  show on Friday.