Football Daily - Euro Leagues: Great goalkeepers, an inspired Isco & Sociedad weather

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Steve Crossman is joined by Guillem Balague, Julien Laurens and James Horncastle to discuss the latest from the world of European football.They dissect the biggest storylines from this week's Champions League action, focusing on the performances of goalkeepers including Alisson Becker, who played a key role in Liverpool's win at Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of their last-16 tie.The podcast moves on to the derby knockout clash between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, before considering left-field suggestions for the Ballon d'Or, and discussing how Isco looks inspired and rejuvenated at Real Betis.One of the most shocking headlines of the week is Lyon boss Paulo Fonseca receiving a nine-month ban, and there is a feelgood story with Joseph Kalulu joining his brothers in professional football, but the panel most enjoy teasing Steve about the "weather in Sociedad".TIMECODES:06:02 - Goalkeeping chat on Alisson Becker, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Wojciech Szczesny 21:00 - Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid 26:05 - Inter Milan 28:12 - Raphinha or Julian Alvarez for Ballon d'Or? 31:15 - Isco's rejuvenation at Real Betis 34:55 - Paulo Fonseca's nine-month ban 43:20 - The Kalulu brothersBBC Sounds / 5 Live Premier League commentaries this week:Wed 5 Mar - 20:00 - Paris Saint-Germain v Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League on 5Live Thu 6 Mar - 17:30 - Real Sociedad v Manchester United in the UEFA Europa League on 5Live Sat 8 Mar - 15:00 - Liverpool v Southampton in the Premier League on 5Live Sat 8 Mar - 17:30 - Brentford v Aston Villa in the Premier League on 5Live Sun 9 Mar - 14:00 - Chelsea v Leicester City in the Premier League on 5Live Sun 9 Mar - 16:30 - Manchester United v Arsenal in the Premier League on 5Live Tues 11 Mar - 20:00 - Liverpool v PSG in the Champions League on 5Live Wed 12 Mar - 20:00 - Aston Villa v Club Brugge in the Champions League on 5Live

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. This is Five Live Sports. The Euroleagues with Steve Crossman. Listen on BBC Sounds. It's the Euroleagues. We've already had quite a lot of European action. Europa League last 16 ties, the first leg. Suspect the weather, probably better in Sosyadad and Istanbul.

Good result for Manchester United. One all at Real Sosyad and Istanbul. Good result for Manchester United, one all at Real Sossedad, a great one for Rangers, three one winners at Fenerbahce, not such good news for Tottenham Hotspur, lost 1-0 at AZ Altmar in their first leg in the Conference League last 16, Chelsea have won two, won at FC Copenhagen in their first leg. So we'll focus mostly on the Champions League, Serie A, a bit of Liga mixed in as well. We've got James Horncastle with us. Hello, James. Hi, Crossy. I'm curious what Sausierdad's like, given you said Sausierdad in Istanbul. I've never been to Sausierdad. Well, Basque country, innit? It's probably nice, isn't it?

Yeah, Guillaume. Have you ever been to Sausierdad? Guillaume's here as well. Good work. You probably say this is a slight that I went to James first. Yeah, there's a place that doesn't exist, but I bet it's wonderful. Now I know what I've done. I should have said San Sebastian. I can't believe I've just done that as well. Julien Laron's with us. Hey, Jules. Hello, Steve. Hi, everyone.

That's like me saying, what's the weather like at PSG? Isn't it? Effectively. Yeah, what's the weather like at PSG? Isn't it? Effectively? Yeah, it's a bit of that. By the way, we all thought that you would not make this kind of mistake, but hey. Oh, you were wrong. Crossey now has to book his holidays in San Sebastian. That's it.

No, I'm going saucy down this year, mate. Can't wait. It was weird when I went to find the flights. I couldn't find the airport. I don't know what I was strange that must have been doing something wrong by the way the beach you know the beach you must have been you must have walked the beach of San Sebastian La Concha no it's for sale so you can buy bits of it okay so so cross you can buy bits of it and call it Saucy dad that's it I'm gonna buy it and call it Sossierdad. That's it. I'm going to buy it and build the airport.

Sossierdad International Airport. It'll be great. Five terminals. Right. Enough of that. We've got loads to get through, but before we do anything else, we did all want to have a quick word,

because it's mostly Champions League, but a domestic action we've done there, about the World Cup final half-time show that we're going to get for the first time Next year feels so weird saying next year, but that's when it is Gio Nino Fantino has confirmed that it's gonna happen So if you guys were creative directors, Guillaume who would be playing? Your World Cup final halftime show. I made a list that could be Abba, Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Rihanna and the show has to be presented by Robert De Niro.

And they... Do you know what, Guillaume, we've lost your microphone. So we're gonna fix it. That's the deep state. The deep state is intervening. That's not him. My immediate thought is, has he ever been to see Bruce Springsteen?

Because he does the longest shows in history. It would be like a four hour half time show. By the time the second half kicks off, everyone will be absolutely knackered. Hey, look, the boss has done the Super Bowl half time show before. I think he's still doing it now. I think he's still going on. Well, I can just remember, I remember watching that on TV and feeling like Bruce Springsteen's crotch was going to come out of the TV because he did this knee slide, which he almost ended

off the stage, but into the camera. So yeah, I was glad I wasn't wearing an Oculus or a sort of 3D glasses for the older generation. Jules? Leave me alone with this stupid idea from FIFA again. Come on, what's wrong with it? I'll tell you what's wrong. Oh, the players will get cold and they won't be able to warm up again. You want to copy the NFL and American football, right? Where they play 24 minutes over 2 hours their first half, right?

So then, of course, everybody needs a break after only watching 24 minutes of action in 2 hours. There's almost more adverb break. And I love the NFL and I love the Super Bowl, it's no problem. It's just a different culture, it's a different rhythm to the sport, which is not football. This is not for me, this is not for me. Just to end on this before we actually talk about some football, I think the answer to the question is surely Coldplay because they are asking Chris Martin for his help. So FIFA are asking Chris...

Even the worst idea then, you see? Well FIFA are saying, Chris Martin, what do you think, give us some advice about the halftime show. Surely his advice is going to be, will Coldplay are pretty good? Well, Coldplay are playing in Hull, aren't they, this summer? Craven Park, you know, where Hull KR play, where my uncle, my uncle used to play rugby league for Hull KR, so I'm strangely... What?

Yeah, strangely proud. You knew this story. Never heard that story. Yeah, my uncle, Andy Thompson, shout out to Andy, used to play for Hull KR, still a big fan of Hull KR, goes every week to Craven Park. And the bizarre thing with it being Hull, because the K-Com or the MKM where Hull City now play obviously has become the stadium in Hull. So it's just bizarre that Coldplay would be playing

at Craven Park. But anyway, I don't know how we've digressed from the World Cup halftime show. Maybe the World Cup halftime show could be played in Hull. Is that what we're saying? I mean, I'd love- I'd be on board with that. I was gonna say stranger things have happened,

but I'm not sure they have. In my lifetime, Hull has gone from being number one in the towns list, then it went to being European city of culture. Now Coldplay are playing. So clearly the next logical step is that the World Cup final will be held in Hull in 2026. Bring it on. Can't wait to see it. I think it could happen. It could happen. Right, Champions League, why don't we start with the game that you were at, Jules, if you want to. And just for a bit of context about PSG-Nil Liverpool 1,

producer Paul Fletcher did say, I've never felt so sorry for a team in my life before. And he's a Preston fan, Jules. I know. I know. I mean, first of all, I was really proud, to be fair, to be there as a PSG fan, even if we cover our clubs, we always try to be objective. To see the team playing so well, such a young team, to really, let's be honest here, outplaying

Liverpool, this Liverpool team, they made them look like a random Ligue 1 team that come to the Paris-des-Primes, Nantes, Angers, Montpellier if you want because this was not the Liverpool that we used to see in this season. They were unrecognisable really and I think PSG and Luis Enrique deserve so much credit for that but Liverpool deserve a lot of credit too because they were under massive pressure. They needed Alisson to prove literally the game of his life as he said after the game and they stayed in it. They stayed resilient. It was a bit better in the second half from their point of view and as soon as they had half an

opportunity they took it and that's what great teams do as well and as cruel as he felt in the stadium when Javier Elio scored that goal and Gido Donnarumma had one of those Donnarumma's key moments in his career where he doesn't do what you would expect him to do, save a shot. Actually, when you think about the game and I watched it back when I got home, there was so much positive from a PSG point of view

and also I think from a Liverpool point of view to suffer like they did and still get the win for PSG to be able to dominate the best team in Europe this season. I think for both of them, there was a lot of good things in it. And yeah, PSG felt harshly done because it was a smash and grab proper. But there's a second leg, and I think that second leg would be even better than the game we saw last night.

So I always think with the Euroleagues, our raison d'etre, if you like, is we'll bring people stories that hopefully they won't have heard before, but also give kind of our little Euroleagues seasoning to the stories that loads of people are talking about. And James, everybody is talking about Alisson's performance last night. He made 10 saves. He was absolutely brilliant. But tell us something we don't know about Alisson, because you've got all of the stories. I don't know about Alisson, because you've got all of the stories. Alisson Becker, well, he was the backup for the other goalkeeping story last night, which was Wojciech Szczesny, you know, Barcelona, who made eight saves and was mad the match

in their win over Benfica. Because I know that Szczesny in the UK still has this reputation for being the Arsenal goalkeeper, too young, end of the Wenger era, this sort of thing, cigarettes in the dressing room, which he still has. And he was a bit of a figure of fun. But Cesny in Italy, the perception of him is outstanding goalkeeper. He had such a good time at Roma that Juventus signed him. Why did Juventus sign him? To be the successor to Gianluigi Buffon, which he did. Okay. And Buffon endorsed him. And I would say, Shesney actually, you won't find a Juventus fan who would say that he did not live up to that standard. That is an extremely high standard.

And then it was only when Chesney went to Juventus that his backup, this little known Alison Becker, who Roma had signed for 7 million euro from Internacional in Brazil, he played. Roma went all the way to the Champions League semi-finals. Remember one of my favourite nights in European football history over the last decade, the Roma and Tarder, when they came back against the MSN of Barcelona and reached the last four of the Champions League. Liverpool then knocked them out, Liverpool then signed Alisson, Roma have not been in the Champions League since, Crimea River. But clearly, both Alisson and Wojciech Szczesny had a very good goalkeeping coach at Roma,

a guy called Marco Savorani, who is the goalkeeping coach for Italy at the moment. And Jules will know that he's been a very good goalkeeping coach for Gianluigi Donnarumma. Jules, do you want to talk about Donnarumma's performance last night? I would prefer not to speak. But unfortunately this is the Euroleague so you will contractually have to. I mean as good as I listen. And really you know when your people ask us the question or what's the best game you've seen live at Stagem because of the work of the job that we do and you come up with some moments that in your career as a journalist you you you were out and just stayed in your mind more than others because

we've seen so many so many so many games and but last night it was one of those games where you were watching Alisson and you were like wow this we are witnessing something a bit special here and and it was because I think PSG could have played another two hours and not scored. It's harsh on Donnarumma because Alisson made those 10 saves, was outstanding everywhere on the ground, in the air, the curlers, the top corners, the one-on-one, just everything. And Donnarumma had one save to do because he only faced one shot on target in the whole 90 minutes and that Javier Lloras shot is not even a good shot. It's not even in the bottom corner where you can't reach even with long arms like Donnarumma has and yet he doesn't make that save and of course Marquinhos is at

fault, Mendez is at fault before, it's not just on Gidjo but at this level, I think you expect your goalkeeper even with just one save to make one shot on target faced to save it and he didn't. Okay we heard about Donnarumma, we heard about Alisson, let me take you to the Chesney story. So the MVP of the Benfica Barcelona game was Pedri who was the player that recovered most possessions, the one who touched the ball most, the one who crossed the ball most, the one who created more chances, the one who gave more passes in the last third and the one who ruined the most.

He was the MVP. And he got into the changing room and gave the trophy to Czesny. The answer from Czesny was he told them the canoplus in Poland. He says, I asked Pedri what sport he played because it's definitely not my sport. It's a different sport. And then honestly, he says, for the good of football, goalkeepers shouldn't get the statutes for the best play of the match. A clean sheet is definitely enough. But I guess that's the key to Czesny. He's fun and a little

distance to the reality of it all or what we consider the reality. And he was outstanding. Starting with the kind of move, the kind of save that changes a dynamic, changes a game. 18 seconds in, Akurtoglu had a chance that could have put Benfica one nil up and instead he was the first of his eight saves out of the 26 shots from Benfica. Obviously a lot had to do with the

Cooberci being sent off in the minute 20 but interestingly enough and only it only came to me just before the show I thought you know also why Chesney did so well because Barcelona had to defend deep because they had 10 players and he loves that kind of situations and every save was a little bit of a miracle save. So the system suited him, is not that comfortable. One is one v one against forwards, when the defense is very, very high. And save Barcelona, on top of it, of course,

Pedri was outstanding, as I said, Rafinha scored. And that explains that kind of miracle victory of Barcelona in Portugal. Can we just come back in a bit more on Donnarummet, James, because I just think his career story is fascinating. Obviously the peak of it is he's player of the tournament, Italy win the Euros, beat England on penalties, all that kind of thing. But before that he was always a story at all times of his career. And now, I don't know, I think I sort of assumed that he would be the best goalkeeper in the world and be that for quite a long time,

but it's not really panned out that way. Well, look, I mean, I think one of the reasons why he was talked about so much is because his agent, when he was a teenager, was the late Mino Raihla. And Mino likes to talk up or liked to talk up his clients. His most famous one of course was Zlatan. Zlatan has this kind of larger than life personality where he compares himself to God and that sort of thing.

And there's almost an expectation that the other clients, the other players that Mino has are of the same personality type and should have the same careers. Now, I mean, Donnarumma, I think people lose sight of how young he was when he made his debut at AC Milan at San Siro. You know, when, yeah, that is something that you shouldn't take for granted. The shirt seems bigger on a lot of people when they play at San Siro.

They drown in that shirt. They wilt, they shrink playing in front of the Coudiver at San Siro. It's a very difficult place to prove yourself in. He did that. You mentioned what he did at the Euros, Steve, which was, save those penalties in the final against England at Wembley in a cauldron. Any of us who went to that game, remember how kind of primal that atmosphere was. And he stayed calm, so calm in fact that he didn't know he'd saved the winning penalty, remember. And then, I mean, he had to deal with a lot of pressure because, you know, when he was at Milan, you know, Meno basically said, look, you

know, you're out of contract, I'm going to take you somewhere else. He was like, I'm a Milan fan, I want to stay at Milan. It meant that in order to stay, Meno negotiated him to be the highest pay player in Serie A, highest pay player in Serie A, right, as a young kid, Burley 21. And you also have to sign his brother to be your backup, which didn't make him popular among the Milan fans. He was a free agent, he moves to PSG because PSG can pay double what Milan were prepared to pay.

If you go to France, Jules, you know this, you kind of like, not everyone watches league on every week apart from Jules, but no, it's a little bit true. That's not to diminish PSG, but that's, you fall off the radar a little bit. And in the meantime, Milan's goalkeeper, who they replace him with Mike Maynard, they win the league for the first time since 2011. Having said all of that, Gio had a magnificent European championship. Italy were very disappointing. He was not.

The only other goalkeepers who bettered him or matched him at the Euros were Mamadash Vili with Georgia. He's been inconsistent, Jules, hasn't he? He's had ups and downs to the point where we're getting to the point where it's maybe 18 months away from the end of his contract and it feels that PSG are not convinced about signing him to a new one. Who has he got to replace him? I mean is Safonov showing enough to threaten his position?

Now Tenaz is the other one? Yeah, no, I think they signed Safonov, they invested quite a lot of money on Safonov in the summer from Krasnodar 20 million euros, but it would not be the answer either. Yeah, you can rotate them a bit, you can use maybe Safonov to put a bit of pressure on Donnarumar, but it's not the answer. As we saw last night and as we've seen regularly, especially in the Champions League, to win it, you need a top goalkeeper and right now Safonov is not and I think Gijo is sometimes the problem is is that a game like yesterday doesn't do much for

his reputation because on one hand you've got Alisson on one side of the pitch and producer Fletch was asking me like what did Likip what were the ratings for Likip this morning because as you know they take them very seriously, everything, Alison got nine out of 10 and Donnarumma got four out of 10. And four is obviously not great. Four's all right for Likip. You could get a break and get a four. But it's because he had one save to make.

And as we said, he should have made it really. And he didn't. But he had nothing else to do. So he would have had a five out of 10 if the game finished nil-nil because he had nothing to do. He got four because he did make a bit of a mistake on the goal. But James is right, there's 18 months left on his contract. He wants to stay. He loves living in Paris and his girlfriend as well. But the club right now is more thinking about who are we getting next because we needed an upgrade on him.

Just to finish on Alisson and the question of whether or not an upgrade on him even exists in world football, Arna Slot said after the match, I don't think I've worked with a goalkeeper that has played on this level and that's normal because Alisson is the best in the world. I know there can be a kind of a bit of a horses for courses about that, Guilhem, in terms of which goalkeeper suits which team perfectly, but there can't be many, if any, that would slot into any team in the world as well as Alisson. No doubt. This is reaction to a magnificent performance. He's been good this season and I can think of all the players of the goalkeepers that have had one or two massive

performances. Chesney, for instance, and he wouldn't be put in that category because of in the bigger picture he doesn't belong there. But I can think of at least somebody else that is at that level if not above that and in Courtois, Thibaut Courtois has showed it in the big games, in the small games. He's even changed his game now, having come back from injury and has reached another level. He does the save of the century in every game to save Real Madrid. It's a great competition, there's something to discuss. I don't know how you come out to a conclusion, but certainly those two will be fighting for the best. BBC and IBF world champion Natasha Jonas and Cardiff's Lauren Price face off in an all British World Welterweight division unification fight.

What a right hook to end the combination! Natasha Jonas calling it on! Jonas V. Price live from the Royal Albert Hall. Friday night from 9. Ask a smart speaker. Play BBC Radio 5 Live. This is 5 Live Sport. The EuroLeagues with Steve Crossman. Listen on BBC Sounds. Guillaume Balaguez, Julian Lerone, James Horncastle, all with us on the EuroLeagues. Let's do Rail Madrid, Atletico Madrid. So Rail 1- 2-1 at the Bernabeu in their first leg on Tuesday night. You were there, Guilherme. Do you kind of think it was maybe a bit of a missed

opportunity for Atletico? Oh, huge, huge. It was three games in one. The first one is Real Madrid, out of nothing, scores 1-0, three minutes gone. And then, perhaps surprisingly to many, Atletico Madrid went like, okay, we're 1-0 down. Let's get our act together and let's do what we can't hear to do which was to control the game to make sure that they dominated at the center of the bell and they did so they had from the middle ten until the middle ten of the second half. I'm magnificent performance they were absolutely brilliant didn't create a lot of chances but scored one goal and then again out of nothing Brahim scores the 2-1. Little by little you start to feeling that both Ancelotti and Simeone were happy with this goal. They feel that they can go to the next leg and win it but for Simeone to think that way is disappointing because not only the hat performs really well, Rodrigo de Po was outstanding, breaking lots of pressure.

Okay, Real Madrid didn't defend very well, especially the two forwards, but there was no midfield at Real Madrid. It was a great opportunity. No Ceballos was injured, no Velingam who will return for the second leg. And, yeah, Atletico Madrid, they just put the brakes on. That was surprising, that was annoying,

but four out of the five times that Simeone has gone into the second leg at home with one goal advantage, he's managed to turn it around. So he's confident that the team can do it. And to be honest, as a structure defensively, the way they attack as well, they were much better than Real Madrid. But now they've got a Real Madrid type of player in Julian Alvarez, who's caused out of nowhere and can take Atletico Madrid to the next round. Gilles, I did like Brahim Diaz when he scored the winning goal, went over to Diego Simeone and did the whole talk now, talk now thing because Simeone was asked before the game,

who do you think will play instead of Bellingham? And he said, I imagine Kamavinger and Luca Modric. There's the possibility of Brahim Diaz, but I don't think so. I mean, you're just asking for it, aren't you? Exactly. So typical. You just knew something then when we saw the lineups and we saw that Brahim was started. If you had followed the whole story, you knew this is the beauty of football.

It often happens like that. Karma is strong in the game. And you knew, and I just, I just love the celebration from Brian and, and, uh, and, uh, you know, he gave it, he gave it back as good as he received. Really good on him. Did you see how he scored his goal that he twisted his ankle? He went one way and twisted his ankle. There's a couple of friends of his in the media that the way they describe

it is he does that in training. He twists his ankle and the defender believes that he's going that way. Unfortunately, I asked some Celotti about this and he said, oh no, he said in the changing room where he was pure luck, he didn't mean to do that. He actually broke his ankle almost. So no, it wasn't meant to be that way. But it was clever that he came into the box with the idea of passing, surrounded by five Atletico Madrid players. He does this ankle thing, he made it go the wrong way, a little bit of a gap and he thinks, you know what, I'm not going to pass, I'm just going to try it.

And that was the goal that's put Real Madrid ahead. Yeah, Brahim is like a dodge room, you know, like, you know, where you're at the fairground, he just like bounces, he bounces around players to the point where you think you look at his size and you think he's going to get flawed here. Yeah. And often that that has been a prejudice against him. He's like, he's too small. He's too slight and that sort of thing. But then there are games like this where he performs, he gives supplies a goal like that of such skill in such tight spaces, which, as Guillaume said, like what?

Six atletico Madrid defenders around him and he finds a way through, you know, and that's, that's why he's, he's still a Real Madrid player. Why he was signed by them. Yeah. And spent a few years on loan at Milan. And I think Milan miss him to some extent, which, um, you know, given they've signed Poulicic, they've still got Liao, all these players. Yeah.

I think it's, it's, it says something. It's a feather in Braem's cap that he's still a Real Madrid player and a club like Milan miss him. I just wonder, Guillaume, whether people in Spain are looking at it and thinking about that prospect of a first ever Real Madrid Barcelona European Cup final? Yeah, absolutely. It's been already discussed, but of course you have to trust Simeone that he could, or trust at least, give him the chance to actually spoil that. But Barcelona is in the easier side of the draw, isn't they? And Gramatit may still have to face next.

Arsenal next, the winner of the Madrid derby. So yeah, it's been talked about, but not very loudly yet. In any case, it's disappointing that two Spanish teams are made at this stage because I think the three of them are in a very, very good form. James is just sitting back thinking, listen to you people with your multiple teams in the Champions League. I mean, he's lucky to have won. He didn't have one last season. I have been spoiled the last few years, so I'm happy, particularly when I'm off writing

a book that no Italian teams other than Inter are actually doing any well. Inter 2-0 at Feyenoord, so you can sleep easy there for presumably for the quarterfinals potentially, should be. Yeah, it took care of business, mature, professional performance from Inter as we've come to expect, I would say, over the last few years under Simonin Zaghi, who's really progressed his team in the Champions League. Particularly when you look at how Feyenoord embarrassed their cousins AC Milan, you know, with what, 13, 14 players out. Santi Jimenez, Feyenoord's best player, going to AC Milan and Feyenoord still put them out. Santi Jimenez, finalist, best player going to AC Milan, the finalist still put them out.

Inter didn't make them look like a threat at all. Yeah, and they didn't go into that game with a lot of form. I remember Simone Nzaghi, the eve of the game in Rotterdam said, we are in an emergency. You know, we've got injured players. Federico Di Marco, one of the best left backs in the world, out injured so they had to play their centre back Bastoni out as a left wing back. He didn't play his two best midfield players. I think although Inter's midfield is old, as we've seen with Real

Madrid's midfield or when it used to have Modric and Kroos starting. Doesn't matter age sometimes. If those guys have got the rhythm, got the tempo, yeah, they're very good. Caelonoglu and Miketajan do that for Inter. They were not in the team in Rotterdam. It was Aslani, the Albanian, and Zilinski who would miss a penalty. But it didn't matter because the boys up front,

one of the best strike partnerships in the world, Lautaro Martinez, Marcus Turam did it. Turam scored in the stadium where his father won the Euros. Jules will remember that because France prevailed over Italy in Euro 2000. David Trezeguet. David Trezeguet. But for Inter, nine games in the Champions League this season, they've only conceded one goal. And that was a stoppage time winner from Bayer Leverkusen in their only defeat in this competition.

Right, so we've done some of the big Champions League stories. So I just want to sort of take this moment to ask the Ballon d'Or question. This is kind of inspired by a couple of things. One, it feels like the right time to start talking about it because we're at the business end of domestic seasons and European seasons. Also, Rory Smith said on Champions League match of the day, Raffini should be in the conversation. And of course, he's right, he should be in the conversation. But will he be, Guilherme?

I think so. I think he's shown to be consistent this season. He's scoring important goals like against Benfica. He's a leader of the side. He's a captain. Double figure is already in assistance and assists in goals for a team that has required his help in important moments. So no doubt that if Barcelona manages to get to the semi-finals against Inter and beat

Inter for instance, and get to the final, then you will be talking out of that team about Rafinha, even ahead of Laminha Mal, who was replaced yesterday. He wasn't very happy. But every now and again, you have to bring him down to earth because he wasn't doing the work that was necessary to stop Perfiga conceding chances. Well, Rafinha does as well. He's a complete player, but if you want to go beyond Barcelona and see what he's doing in the national side, he's the number one. He's the leader of Brazil as well so you are talking right now about not only one of the most consistent players in the world, one who is able to reach heights that not many can in world football at the moment.

Other competitors? I mean we know the the obvious names, but anyone left field guys, James? Well, the one that I would look for, and this isn't recently biased, is Julian Alvarez. Julian, like, I mean, let's even go back to his World Cup campaign in 2022. I mean, Lautaro Martinez started that tournament, Julian took his place, Julian was fantastic alongside Messi, as Guillem well knows. He's having a magnificent season. I think it's 25 goals in all competitions, seven assists. Jules?

Yeah, the thing is with no big tournament in the summer, unless you count the club World Cup, but obviously not all the top clubs and not all the top players will play it, it will all be down to the Champions League and what happens in the second leg of this last 16 rounds, then the two quarterfinals, the two semi-finals and the final. You don't have to win it, I think, to then be the favourite for the Ballon d'Or.

It would help massively, of course, but you will have to have a really good knockout stage of the Champions League to go and win it. So if Julen Alvarez is at next week, he won't win it. Even if he scores another 10, 15 goals with Atletico Madrid between 90 and over the domestic season, losing in the last 16 of the Champions League, I don't think bring you high enough in the conversation. But then if he goes further, yeah, for sure,

same for Rafinha, same for Mo Salah, same for Kylian, same for Vinicius Bellingham, like you want really, it would be one of them. But that journey between now and the final in Munich of the Champions League is the decisive one. I feel like this gives us a nice moment here just to mention for a couple of minutes Isco, because he is a player that you rewind a few years and you might have looked at and thought God he could be a future Ballon d'Or winner. And then he's really sort of dropped off the radar until last weekend, because he scored when Real Betis beat Real Madrid 2-1, of course he's very well known as a former Real Madrid

player, won multiple Champions Leagues with them. Why do you think he has dropped off the radar? And I know a lot of people even at a club like Real Madrid do, Guillén. And is this just a good story, you know, him coming back and scoring? Or is it a sign of something like a bit of a rejuvenation in the career of Isco? Bit of a sweet story, really. Remember, if you put the context from the beginning, Valencia got rid of him. Then he goes to that Malaga that had Joaquín, Batista, Maresca,

Demichelis, Cazorlava, Nistelroy, the Euro Malaga. Real Madrid decided to take him. At that time, he had agreed to join Manchester City with Pellegrini, but decided against it because when Madrid calls you, you have to go to Madrid, he said. Then he became a star at Real Madrid. His best season perhaps was 2016-17 when Sidon was in charge and they won absolutely everything, the Champions League, the league, the Super Cup, the Club World Cup. And then when he was at the top of his game, 2018 everything collapsed. Spain goes to the World Cup and do really badly. It was going to be Lopetegui, but of course he gets the sack.

Anyway, he joins Lopetegui at Real Madrid. He wanted to make Isco one of the stars of the team. Lopetegui gets the sack. And then him and Santiago Solari, the new manager, didn't get on. And he said, Isco said, perhaps because of the huge expectations on him, he was at the time 25, 26,

he felt that something broke in his head. That's something that he could not do anymore. Uh, he stopped enjoying football at that point, 25, 26. So having been a superstar and you said that he won five champions league the last two, three years in Madrid, he didn't want to leave, but he wasn't playing either. Eventually he leaves. And then he goes to Sevilla where he's going to find Lopetegui, who gets the sack as well halfway through the season.

So again, he had an argument in the club with Monchi and four months have been signed for Sevilla, four months later in the middle of the season he goes and then he says, okay, I've got to stop. And then he decides to take his family and himself away and And for six months, he doesn't want anything to do with football. Union Berlin calls him and says, right, we're just going to give you the opportunity to be our superstar, Union Berlin. He travels to Berlin and then everything collapses, goes back, and then he gets a call from Betis.

And again, he's found with Pellegrini the opportunity to enjoy football again. The conversation with the manager took two minutes to convince him and now he's sharp mentally, he's fresh. So many players say that an injury or a stopping halfway through a career, it's healthy to them. Certainly has been for Isco who's in the pre-list for the national sites. See if he makes it again. And also it's worth adding James that presumably enjoying the climate there in the beautiful hot city of Betis, right? Ah nice. He's caught tonight in Betis. Although that's closer to the truth because Andalusia, that part of the world in Roma, in Roman times used to call Pettica.

Oh, okay. Close enough. So you see, you've got to be able to laugh at yourself. And that's a good job because lots of people laugh at me anyway. Let's do a bit on Paolo Fonseca. Leon manager suspended from match day duties in inverted commas for nearly nine months. This is after he angrily confronted a referee during their win over Brest last week. So the French Professional Football League say that he will be barred from accessing the bench, the official's dressing rooms, barred from carrying out any official functions before, during or after matches until 30th November. Punishment also prevents him from going to the team dressing room, the pitch, the tunnel and I like this

one, any corridors which lead to those areas until the 15th of September. Although one small detail Jules is that at the moment it doesn't apply in Europe. So he did coach them tonight and they won 3-1 at FCSB. Yes, they won in Romania tonight. We saw Tagliafico scoring and I think the team in a way rallying around Paolo Fronseca because it was a shocking attitude for him, the behaviour, what he did, especially at the end of the week where all the talk in France was about the referee and what happened the weekend before with Pablo Longoria, the Marseille president who called the referees corrupt and the corruption in the league and how bad the league was etc etc.

So everybody got the memo this weekend let's be chilled, don't talk about the referee, don't do anything against the referee and what do Paulo Fonseca does? He goes wild and mad at the referee and that cost him the longest ban we've ever had really in French football. I think Lyon will probably appeal. The question really right now is, he's been there two minutes, right? But this is a, there's a case if you were Lyon and John Textor, the owner, to say, listen, I'm sorry, I like you a lot.

And I think there's a lot of people who like Paolo Fransica. He's a really charming, charming guy, he has an incredible story, because he also went to coach in Ukraine, his wife is Ukrainian, his son, well, their son is obviously half Ukrainian too. And he's a really, James has met him, I've met, he's a really interesting guy. I don't know what happened on Sunday

when he just got on that wild behavior with the referee but can you actually really coach a team and I mean like not just a top team in France to go and qualify for the Champions League, you might qualify for the Champions League for next season without being there on match day in the stadium, in the dressing room at half time, before the game, after the game and yeah you can do your team talk at the hotel like a love Could well pretty much every coach don't forget the corridors Jules can't go in the corridors The corridors leading so not all corridors, but the corridors leading to those areas. Just them just them They're gonna have to mark those corridors really clearly You know like in airport they put his photos everywhere in those corridors. This man is not allowed

But really like because you can suck him now and say gross misconduct, we don't pay you anything because this was unacceptable from a club. Because I really wonder, can you actually coach, can this team do well without their manager being there really physically for all that time? It's a very long time, the end of this season, the start of next season. I just don't know. I think it's a bit of a dilemma for Lyon what to do now. Jules said that Lyon would be within their rights to sack him for gross misconduct after this finding from the Disciplini tribunal. I mean, that's what happened in Italy with

Roberto de Versa at Lecce, who went on the pitch to stop his players getting into it with the referee, then got into it with the referee so bad he was banned for five games and was sacked and had to start this season as Empley's new coach in the skybox because he still had to serve that ban. So they could have done that. Fonseca obviously got what he would imagine termed his dream job only in the summer, which was to be coach of AC Milan.

After the fans protested about the club going for Lopetegui, he was the second choice. That made it difficult for him. He found it hard to manage the dressing room there, but he also felt that refereeing decisions were going against Milan a lot. In you know in his first spell in Italy when he was in charge of Roma, Jules has mentioned how charming Fonseca is. He's a really charming guy and when he was at Roma he had this reputation for being a gentleman and the influence from that was like he's a soft touch as well. And so when he came back to Italy with Milan, I think there was a determination to show he was not a soft touch. And at the same time he felt isolated at Milan. You know, the executives, when things were going badly,

Zlatan, other executives, they didn't come out and defend him. When refereeing decisions went against them, they didn't come out to defend him or talk about the bad refereeing decisions. And so he did that and he got very angry with referees in that period. And so I wonder if, even in the kind of break that there is between going from Milan to Liverpool, whether there is this continuation in his head of thinking more bad refereeing decisions, more bad refereeing has basically, you know, denied my team, has got in the way here and it's boiled over, it's percolated into this. But a nine month ban, I mean... It's long. It's long. And then there's the summer in between, so it's not nine months of football,

football that you will miss. Because obviously there's nothing between mid May and mid August, but still. Guillaume, it's also context, isn't it? In that you mentioned it before about everything that Real Madrid are saying about referees. Real Madrid TV are tweeting videos out ahead of games saying this referee has done this in a game against us and they don't like us. You have the thing that Jules mentioned with Marseille. We're in this really febrile atmosphere at the minute where people are being told quite clearly you cannot treat referees this way. So there is an argument that if you go and do what Paolo Fonseca did, you have to realise right now people are coming down hard

on this and therefore if you do something like this you are going to get a serious punishment. Yeah, it's a good way to put the context. Let me put another context. I wanted to find out his side of the story and made some calls and as you can imagine Paolo really regrets his actions. This is not something that he wants to be known as and has been suffering a lot since Sunday. And he accepts that he deserves to be punished. But as James just said, he thinks that nine months is an excessive ban considering what you've been describing, his record and his reputation.

And it was one mistake, he feels, and he's been crucified for it, perhaps because of the reason that you say, but he's going to discuss the situation with the club directors to find out the next steps regarding appeal. He's very thankful for the support of the owner, he feels the support of the players and the fans, which suggests to me that there's no intention to get rid of him at the moment anyway and that what the club have done is exactly the opposite to say, we're going to fight for you. And he's very appreciative of that. There are so many stories out there that need combating around referees and abusive referees

seems to be an all time high because I've not been here for all time, but it's bad. It's really bad at the minute. So there is an argument that it can feel harsh and at the same time be fair enough in context. Yeah, there's no sympathy for Paulo Fonseca at all in France anyway. Even in Lyon, there's a lot of people who think that he deserves to get heavily banned because I mean, the referee was, and Paulo Fonseca is by the way, much bigger. If you all confront a referee who's bigger than you and taller than you, but in that case, he was not even like that. So, Parlon-Francais not just look threatening

and was threatening towards the referee first time, then the players separated them, then he came back for more. And he was also bigger than the poor referee that was there that never faced anything like that. So, you can apologize as much as you want. He wrote a letter. He wanted to call the referee.

Okay, good. But still, still, that's not acceptable. You should not really make example of people. But in this situation now, I think things have gone so far that is the way it's going to be. Jules, in one minute, we want to end on a feel-good story. Tell us why we should care about Joseph Kouloulou signing his first professional contract

with French second tier side, Pours? Pours, that's it. Yeah. An actual place. This is for real. And a telly, Toby. Exactly. Joseph Kalulu is 20 years old and Joseph is a decent player, not amazing, but decent, plays in the second division. So first contract, professional contract, sorry. The thing about Joseph, he's got three brothers,

three older brothers, Pierre, who's 24, that you might have heard of, Pierre Calulou, Gedeon, who's 27, and Aldo, who's 29. The thing that they have in common, they are all professional players. So you knew the Cimerone brothers, the sons of, of course, there'd been others, the Hazard brothers, the four, four brothers, all pros, even if they're not in top clubs, Partizan, Lorient, Juventus, Pierre is the most talented of the four and the best one and he's at the best club.

And then Paul, so not all are stellar careers, but they are all paid to play football at the professional level. And that's a fantastic achievement from the Calhulu family. Me being me, I'm just like, imagine if you were the worst of the four brothers and people were like, you might be a professional, but you're not even the third best in your own family. Anyway, that's just the pessimist in me. Guillaume, Jules, James, thank you all very much. That's it for the Euroleagues.

I guess I'll go book a holiday to San Sebastian. The next episode of the Football Daily will be the commentator's view. As always, thank you so much for listening. by Manchester City. Eight Premier League titles, six League Cups, three FA Cups, one Champions League. And they've won three! And more than a hundred charges. Somebody turned up at the Etihad Stadium and effectively served papers.

I'm Clive Myrie and this is Football on Trial. The Manchester City charges. They believe they've got irrefutable evidence. Listen on BBC Sounds.