Football Daily - Euro Leagues: Penalties, egos, scanners & megaphones

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

UEFA say they’re considering a law change in the aftermath of the Julian Alvarez double contact penalty incident…..do the Euro Leagues panel think there’s a solution? Even though they went through might it not be the happiest camp at Real Madrid? Guillem, Juls and James also chat megaphones in stadiums, the top scanning players, Marco Asensio facing parent club PSG for Villa, and Simone Inzaghi reaching 200 games in charge at Inter.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off. Jupiter versus Saturn. It's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.

And also in this series, we're discussing history of music recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts. Hello there, welcome to the Euroleagues on the Football Daily Podcast. Julien Leron is sitting next to me. Hello Steve. Hello everyone. We've been given paper scripts. Absolutely amazing. It makes me feel like we're on Anchorman. And I'm Ron Burgundy.

Does that make Jules what, Brick? Jules has got Brick written all over him. I'm happy with that I think. I love Paris. He just says that. James Horncastle is in a hotel room. Guillaume Balaguez is in a much fancier hotel room, I think. Yeah, five star is the minimum.

Five star is the minimum. It's beautiful. Where are you, Guillaume? In Pamplona, or as otherwise called by some other people in Osasuna, which is not a place. Let's not go back to last week when I embarrassed myself. I was so upset with that. Do you have any idea how many tweets I got with people saying, Oh, how's the weather in Saus-Saudade? Oh, bless you. Oh, really? You should have done better. You should have done better anyway. Got a little story for you on that before we do anything else. I should have known better.

So I was recanting that story on the phone to my wife the other day and explaining why it was wrong. And as I was doing it, someone was giving me a really funny look as they walked past me in Altrincham. It was Christian Eriksen. So there you go. So he probably looked at me and thought, who is this idiot who doesn't know that San Sebastian is the city? Anyway, everyone all right? Yes. Good. Good. Right. I'm going to do the Champions League bracket. Most of us, I think by now, good. Good. Right. I'm going to do the Champions League bracket. Most of us, I think by now what happened during the week, we're going to talk about all of the games. We'll kind of throw it forward a bit because that's what we're here for. These are

your Champions League quarterfinals, Arsenal Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Aston Villa, Barcelona Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich into Milan. Before we get into Atletico Real, which is our lead item, can I just point out that for the many, many people who watch the Champions League highlights now on the BBC, they will have noticed that when Gabby Logan was throwing into what we call the VT, basically the video tape, the highlights package of PSG Liverpool, Julianne La Ronne's face staring deeply and smugly into camera was a thing to behold. Maybe it happened, I don't know. But if it did happen, I just didn't even notice myself. It's just my natural happiness, I think. I think it might just be his face, James. But I mean, the whole thing about match of the day is the mystique.

If you don't want to know the scores now, look away, whether the news is on beforehand. If you're throwing to the VT and you've got Jules there, you can tell by his face whether they've won or lost. Are you saying we should change on the Euroleagues and just say, guys, Julian Laron's on this week, look away now. Right, let's go with the Madrid derby first of all. So just for anybody who didn't know, it finished at Letico Madrid 1, Real Madrid 0, 2 all on aggregate, then Real Madrid 1 on penalties. We'll talk about the curse and all that kind of thing. But why is everybody talking about, Guilhem, they are talking about Alvarez's penalty where

he accidentally kicked the ball twice. It went in and then it had to be disallowed. That's the story, isn't it? That's one of the stories. I'll go back on a little bit of inside stories that you're going to enjoy. This is the kind of show for it as well. On that one, the latest at the moment we're recording is that UEFA come out with a statement, the most important part of which is, or two important parts, one, yeah, you touch the ball twice, sorry. And the other one, this is on the back of Atletico Madrid asking UEFA, what was going on? What's going on? We don't know.

This is not categorically clear. And UEFA said, yeah, and showed the video to Atletico Madrid. So they'll go quiet. But secondly, they're going to try to change the rules. And I think that's only fair that actually if you do that kind of thing, then you repeat the penalty at least. But the rule says that it's nullified, so you touch the ball twice and then that's it. Julian Alvarez went to the changing rooms

and told the players that they didn't feel they had touched it twice. Mbappé very cleverly didn't do a lot in the game, but at that moment he became very alive and went to the referee and said, two, two, two, he touched it twice. And yeah, at that point, Villiers was looking into it. It's so tiny the touch, but it is. And hence, you follow the rules. Clearly, then it had to be disallowed. Can I just ask, I mean, Julian, I think is writing a book about Kylian Mbappe. I hope there will be a chapter on his vision, which is better than the VAR in that, like, he could tell what from the halfway line. I think it's more the position of Alvarez and the fact that there's the slip, obviously, that makes you think even if you don't see, because they could

not see it from behind anyway But you think like it's very likely that you have touched the ball twice because of his Supporting leg and the kicking leg and all of that So I think he was much probably smart from Mbappe to actually try more than actually he saw it as he was happening and everything I happen to River Plate I think last season in the Copa Libertadores or the Copa Sudamericana which exactly the same happened. It was a goal but then he got it became not a goal in the shootout. Happened to Middlesbrough twice in one season, season before last and nobody said anything. What a surprise. Really? Yeah. Both times, both won for won against in the same season. Are you telling me

that UEFA didn't change the rule for Middlesbrough? It's mad, right? But they are going to do it for Atletico Madrid. It's funny that, isn't it? It's really funny. And I guess the rule is there because you could, with intention, touch the ball twice and score. Although, as we've been saying yesterday,

there's no intention from Julien Alvarez to do that. And in that sense, it looks a little bit harsh because the movement of the ball actually didn't change that much with the second touch so there was no way Couto would have stopped the ball even if he hadn't touched it twice so you can see the frustration based also the rule and the rule had to be followed. There's an interesting reaction after the game. I was in the fly zone and I spoke to Bellingham, Oblak, Simeone and Celotti and everybody at that point. This is just heated people that come through a tunnel in which players start to shout in

at each other. Atletico Madrid players shouting at Real Madrid, you don't know how to win. You completely like non-gentleman like. It was quite a civilized exchange of words, to be honest, but it was all very heated. And then they turned left towards where we were in the flash zone. And all of them went like, look, especially with O'Black,

that was his first interview. He says, if I start questioning a decision like this, then it would be a disaster. Because who can you trust? Let's assume that this obviously happened. And then when the revolutions in the heart come down, Simeone went to the half empty press conference and said, right, okay, who's seen it?

Who's seen it? What have you seen? Put your hand up. If you've seen it. Push your hand up. He kept saying, put your hand up. Nobody put their hand up. No, no, no.

First, he goes to the journalist that asked him, what did you see? What did you see? And he's like, well, I'm asking you. Well, no, I mean, I'm not going to get a yellow card to you. What did you see? And then he goes, anyway, anybody seen anything? Raise your hands, the ones. And you're not going to raise your hand anyway if Simeone is asking you that.

But there were like six or seven journalists. That's all it was. So he has created a lot of fun, the situation and another, and you know, the knife has been twisted a little bit more in the heart of Olympic-commodic fans too. Will Barron There is a counterpoint here, James, which is I just can't be bothered with more things being looked at. Because what it would lead to is, let's say Julián Alvarez's penalty is saved there, then he's appealing. I kicked it twice. No, no, I kicked it twice. It shouldn't count. The save shouldn't count. And it goes on and on and on. I feel really bad for him. I feel bad for Atletico. I've been with Atletico Madrid fans, thousands

of Atletico Madrid fans on both occasions that they played Real Madrid in those Champions League finals. One at the Vicente Calderon sold out being back of the Champions League final. Another in the basketball arena in Madrid when they played in the final the second time and it went to that penalty shootout. I feel awful for them. Sometimes you just got to say you're unlucky and crack on, haven't you? Of course, what I said after the game, Guillaume, like, oh, Atlético, they're always crying. Stop crying or something like that, which is also a bit... See, that's too far. That's too far because, you know, it was a highly competitive, really intense game. And yeah, you can argue about tactics and everything and who deserves to go through in the end of the two

games. But a penalty shootout like that, I know it happens to Middlesbrough, but if you're not a Middlesbrough fan, you you're not a Middlesbrough fan, you don't see this very often. So you can understand the frustration from an Atletico Madrid point of view. Yeah, I think a few things to say. I mean, Guilhem, you said that Julian Alvarez, or maybe it was Jules, didn't feel like he touched it twice. So like his sensation was different.

So if he'd missed, Crossy, I think maybe he would have just been like, OK, hands up, I missed, you know, if he'd missed Crossy, I think maybe he would have just been like, okay, hands up, I missed, you know, and that sort of thing. As for anything when there's a rivalry like this or anything involving Real Madrid, there is bitterness and suggestions, you know, kind of why always them. And I suppose the Athletic fans really went through the ringer yesterday

in so far as Vinicius misses the penalty in normal time and then you look at the Rüdiger shootout winning penalty. Time, oh it's awful. So the way Madrid actually won in the end, when it felt like they'd missed one penalty and might have missed another one and that two-out kept alive. To go out like that, having since, you know, won the game in normal time in that leg, 1-0. There was one Atletico Madrid fan that was happy in the whole world, just one. Marcos Llorente, who of course missed the other penalty. Nobody's talking about that. So he's happy about that, that everything's been put to focus on the Julian Albert penalty. But it was a story of penalties, wasn't it? Let's start, as James has mentioned, with the Vinicius penalty. this was very interesting.

Only chance of the whole game in which Mbappé found a little bit of space and he creates this magic moment that the Real Madrid tends to win the games with and provokes the penalty. Before getting to the penalty, Mbappé wasn't right and that's been confirmed off the record and also on the record and also on the record by Ancelotti. He had an ankle injury. His ankle wasn't blown up or anything, but he felt pain and also he had a nail in his toe that was coming off. So he wasn't at his best at all. And there is another situation which we can discuss after we talk penalties, which is this battle of egos at Real Madrid that is not allowing them to

be the best they can be. We can touch on that in a minute, but let's go back to the penalty. At the moment that the penalty takes place during the game, Mbappe goes straight to Vinicius and says, I'm not going to take it. I'm not in a position to take it. Walks straight away to the bench to drink some water away from the focal point of the game. Vinicius takes it, misses it. And we were surprised that Mbappe had done that, but it seemed like mentally,

but especially physically, he wasn't in a position to take that penalty. As I said, confirmed on and off the record at Real Madrid. The other penalty, the Rudi Gat penalty is also interesting because why did Hendrik come off so late in the game? For Benítez, wasn't it? It was to take the fifth penalty. And this is where this is the magic of Ancelotti, I guess. There is a science that says that he's a very good penalty taker. There is a nose of the man who's been in football for a long while that looks at Hendrick and says, nah, he's not ready. And so Ancelotti, Carlito goes to a Rudi, to Antonio says, do you want to take it?

And Rudi says, yeah, I'll take it. I see it done a year previously against Manchester city takes it. And I asked Oblak, it looks like you knew where the ball was going. He said, yeah, but I reacted a second too late or half a second, whatever it was. I didn't have time to go for the ball with more strength. So I said, will that be the penalty that you will save in your dreams in the next 10 years? No, no, it's gone. It's already forgotten. Well, so he said anyway, but that was the interstory of those two penalties.

I was just going to talk about Rudiger because I just found it fascinating. Rudiger looks so good, I know he was a bad pen and to be fair, Oblak should save it. It's almost on Oblak, really, that one. I just love the fact that Rudiger is happy to take this last pen. In this case, there was not much pressure because had he missed, they would have been leveled again and then you go again into the sudden death. But same against City as Guillaume just mentioned and again yesterday and then this now a bit iconic, although some might not like the celebration with the high knees of Rudiger and then everybody cop in, especially at the Metropolitano, probably something if you're a Real Madrid fan that would stick for a long time. The thing with Rudiger is I find him hard to love because have you got a French phrase

for like the thing we can't say which ends in house? Oh, I see what you mean. Just bear with me. Yeah, we must do. I just need to think about it. Because whatever it is, he would win the ballon d' that. I mean, he's the captain of the houses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see what you mean. I'd love him if he played for my team. Don't get me wrong. But oh my gosh, he is, he is got it down. He should really be playing for Atletico. That's really how it should work. Guillaume, do your egos because we're going to

move on shortly. So let's hear it. Yeah. So stats say that actually there's no many passes between Vinicius and Mbappé. There's been more than there was, but certainly it doesn't seem to be a connection. A friendship that isn't, like a close friendship, that doesn't exist, and everybody will tell you that. But I think Mbappé, I've gone through a process by which at the beginning it was like, well, I've just arrived, I've just gone through what I have

to do, humble. Then he misses two penalties against Liverpool and Atletico and he goes like, I'm going to do my thing within the limits. The limits being Ancelotti saying you're going to be a top goal scorer but you have to be in the middle. I think he wants to play on the left-hand side. And that, Vinicius feels the threat. There is a clash of egos within the camp that it's very, very difficult to manage. Certainly in the last era of Ancelotti, it's the hardest conflict of interest, if you like, or of big personalities in there because you've got Mbappe who wants to take over the team, but this is still Vinicius' team.

Vinicius was completely confused by the Saudi Arabia offer and who wouldn't because it's one billion euros for five years. That sorts out the three generations of Vinicius. And in the middle of all that- Just three? More than 13, you mean? No, 300. Yeah, depending on your expenses at the end of the month.

Three generations for a billion? Are you sure it's not a six-star hotel? The EM spends a lot of money. It depends on the inflation caused by these tariffs. That billion might be wiped out. It is a situation that will not be sorted this season. It will not be sorted. I don't know if Bianchelotti is sorting it out, depending how it goes in the Champions League, et cetera. But quite clearly, this was on Real Madrid that depended a lot on players as always, but it works better when players are looking after each other's back, which at theagues with Steve Crossman.

Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of the Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet on... Jupiter vs. Saturn! It was very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that it's gonna kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.

And also in this series we're discussing history music, recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts. The commentators view on the football daily. wherever you get your podcasts. weekend's football action with a few untold stories along the way. A wasp flew into my mouth while I was talking and I panicked. The commentators view only on the football daily. Listen on BBC sounds. Right, I've been looking forward to asking this question, okay. So we're going to move on to Paris Saint-Germain knocking Liverpool out on penalties for anyone who doesn't know. PSG won 1-0 on the night, one all on aggregate, then one on penalties. I absolutely guarantee that none of you would be able to guess my first question to Jules. The thing that I think is the most pertinent, important issue,

the thing that I need to kick off with. This is the question. How did the bloke with the megaphone get the megaphone into Anfield? He's allowed. He's the head of the ultras. Oh, good for him. I couldn't get a megaphone into Anfield. I could call myself head of the ultras. But you're not head of the ultra. No, I'm not. But what? Is it an elected official? Yeah.

The capo. That's what they call it, isn't it? Yeah. So if Juventus or Milan or Roma go to Liverpool or to any stadium, they come with the flags, they come with their megaphone, they come with the guy who starts all the chants and then the whole away end, let's put it that way, or the ultra starts singing the song. So without the megaphone, they would not be able to sing because they would not... Oh, that's a shame for him. Hold on. Hang on. What are you unhappy with? I don't understand.

I just think it was hilarious. But you know when you walk into a football stadium and you go into an away end and you see like the sign on the wall, which is like you can't I'm pretty sure that a mega foot is one of the things in the picture. This is the sanitised, sanitised atmosphere of English football. Probably right. What was he saying? He just said me because he seemed to be shouting things at the PSG players as well. So I tried to read on his lips because you could I could not find any audio of enough quality to understand and I could not read on his lips either because the megaphone was

obviously in front of his mouth as you would expect. So I'm not I'm not really sure. I can ask the question if you want. It's one of those clasping megaphone wasn't it? I'm just surprised you don't know the megaphone. Like because James would have answered the same thing. I've been to quite a few MLS games and they've tried to bring that culture in there. So I went with some Seattle Sounders fans and they have the megaphone. So you know, they're called Campos.

They're the ones that lead the champ. I understand how it was. I'm just surprised it was allowed in an English stadium because understandably we're very, very careful about stuff that comes into grounds. Everybody should be very careful about stuff that comes into stadiums. I just haven't seen anybody at an English football game with a megaphone and therefore it piqued my interest. It's a really good question to be fair. There was also somebody mentioned the whistling. One of the PhDs, one of the PhD, quite famous chants has almost a rhythm with the whistle.

So it's not whistling just to whistle or try to pretend you're the referee and you're whistling for something. The whistle is actually the whistling is actually part of the song. And if a few Liverpool fans were a bit troubled by why they're whistling so much with the proper really loud whistle, but that's part of the song. Guillaume said I should have asked a sensible question. I do have a sensible question about Portuguese players, but if there's anything on megaphones you want to throw in there, feel free. No, it's a bit of a whole topic, the part of the pitch that makes a lot of noise. I do have a sensible question about Portuguese players, but if there's anything on megaphones you want to throw in there, feel free.

No, it's a bit of a whole topic, the part of the pitch that makes a lot of noise. I'm taking a little bit far away from megaphones, but the Grada de Animación, the animation stand at Barcelona, for instance, is a bit of a clash with the club because just because they make noise and they're allowed those kind of things like megaphones and flags and whatever. I'm the end up thinking they own the club so there's a bit of a clash in the bus and i pushed him away but just saying we've been fine by uf a few times by doing the wrong kind of thing in the stand so we gonna charge you for it which is a way of saying you don't have the money you're not gonna come back and back. And yeah, it's going to go a little bit sanitized in Spain because very quickly those fans think that they own the club. So it's a bit of a boring atmosphere in Spain. We don't get so much of that.

Am I sounding boring? Am I sounding a bit moody? Because I love the atmosphere. I'm not saying what shouldn't have happened. It just peaked my interest. But I had a lot of messages because you saw him quite a lot, I think, on the coverage behind the goal. I had a lot of messages of people saying like, who is this guy with his megaphone at the ground? So it was a good question because I think a lot of people were wondering the same thing. Give me a slow ominous drum beat any day of the week in an English football ground. You also have that with the ultras. They just bring all the literally the orchestra almost. I like it. Right. Serious question is around the Portuguese contingent at Paris Saint-Germain because we kind of could do Donnarumme because he did really well in the penalty shoot out. But we did the life and times of Donnarumme on the show last week. So we'll just say well

done to him. You've basically been asked to pick your favourite Portuguese PSG player of this team. Yeah. Yeah. And to be fair, there's really good contenders from Nuno Mendes, of course, and his performances against Salah to Joe Onerves, a 20 year old, to be able to play the way he does. But Vitinha for me is the obvious and only pick really because for somebody who went to Wolves and Wolves fans who are listening probably will remember or maybe not remember because he didn't play much although he scored an absolute screamer in the FA Cup for them and you see him now and the difference between the player that he was even before joining PSG

from Porto even the player that he was at the start of last season when he was still playing more as a number eight than just in front of the back four that he's doing now to the player that he was or that you would have watched in that Liverpool second leg but also the first leg is just Unrecognizable he's for me one of the best defensive midfielders in the world right now if not the best in what was absence and I just think that he has everything and we were talking earlier with Danny Murphy who was very impressed with PhD on on Tuesday, but he also said About it in here. There's a moment in the game where the ball comes to him with two Liverpool players behind him, almost by the touchline,

and with so much calm and composure, he just turns, never panics, has seen already everything that is happening behind him before receiving the ball, and the scanning that we can touch upon a bit later is maybe his biggest attribute really. But it's just a wonderful player that sees the game before everybody else, even before everybody who plays for Liverpool. Bittenia was fantastic in the penalty shootout as well, didn't he? The penalty too is absolutely brilliant and calm. And it's like Anfield talking about the sanitisation of English football. Anfield doesn't seem to be what he was because nobody seemed to be scared. The PSG team, even though only four players out of the 11 that started, had played in

Anfield before and had never won. They have that mental strength, but big shout out if I can, as we talk in Vitinha and Giorno Neves, to the first manager that put them together. And when Giorno Neves was only 18, and Vitinha wasn't the player that he was now and that Roberto Martinez with Portugal. He was a friendly against Finland. He saw the potential called Giorno Neves ahead of others when he was, as I said, only a teenager.

And I remember talking to Roberto about Vitinha only about a year and a half ago. He said if he actually believes the potential that he's got, if he actually demands the ball more, he's a super player. Then I think he started seeing that against Barcelona last season before the Euros and he thought, yeah, that's it, he's there. And since then, that level keeps improving. He's a fantastic player with a great capability to apply the Porsche in places like Amfield and that's not easy. So I've got this, this is really good. So Carl Marius Aksum, James, is a Norwegian sports scientist who has basically spent years and years of his life dedicated to the academic study of scanning. He said this, I have analysed scanning behaviour of hundreds of elite players. I'm doubtful if I've ever seen a better scanner than

Vitenia. Extreme frequency, timing and symmetry. Complete awareness of his surroundings at all times. I don't think we've talked about the world's great scanners before. I think we had an article about this on the Athletic. Of course you did. No, but I think it was talking to the same expert. I bet it was really long. But I bet it was great. No, I think it was from the same expert and it was talking about how prior to this expert, I think, seeing Vettina, the best player he'd seen as a scanner was actually Frank Lampard, I think.

And so there was an interview with Frank and I think it went through various different things, but yeah, so, um, but yeah, Jules Jules is a very good scanner as well. Like anyone's been on a football pitch with Jules. I try, but I think for people to really understand, and I didn't look in details about Vittinia on the game against Liverpool, but he touched the ball 136 times in the 120 minutes. That's a lot of touching the ball and I should have looked at how many times he scanned and how many times he turned his head basically to see but to just get an idea Kevin De Bruyne, I speak at the peak of the City

Under Guardiola team, used to scan literally four or five times every 10 seconds. So just imagine, imagine you, and this is why I think one of the differences between really good players, even professional players, but really good players and the best of the best is that because for you to actually scan and turn your head, whether you have the ball or not, whether the ball is far away from you, close to you, on your left, behind you. Literally, like almost, so you scan once every two seconds. It's just incredible. And a lot of grassroot football coaches try to teach the kids as young as possible about scanning, because once it's ingrained in you it becomes as natural as breathing and you almost breathe a player of the quality of Vitiniya, De Bruyne, Rodri, we can go on there's that list but they almost scan as much as they breathe and I just found that incredible that he becomes such

a second nature that Vitiniya is doing it without even thinking it's just naturally for him when he doesn't have the ball to just turn his head all the time to see the bigger picture on the pitch and that's what makes him so special. Can I take this a little bit further in that it's another sign of a team that's so well drilled. It was so impressive in the way how they organized themselves, how they track back, how with the ball the distances were kept at a good level that not even Liverpool could actually break. The expected goals is one of many stats where it shows that they annihilated Liverpool but they exploited their virtues. 4.4 to 1.9 in both games, a sign of a team that is really, really well drilled. But also, expose the team that doesn't defend that well in Liverpool. I found that interesting. Before we got together, I was reading the UEFA report

on the game, and it exposes a lot of mistakes from the way that especially Liverpool tracked back. When you play football at a maximum speed, it's only normal that the distances don't stay as they should. The distances between the lines, between the players themselves, theidiness, of course, has got an effect. And as a consequence, what we saw, especially on Tuesday, was a lot of teams that they didn't defend very well, with the exception of PSG, which provoked a really good entertaining football, very offensive. All but Benfica should on target eight times or more in the case of

Barcelona, 20 times. And we perhaps are seeing a trend because things are done so fast, because teams don't defend that well and perhaps not a lot of work has been put on it, again with exception perhaps of PSG. We've seen a football that played a million miles an hour. It's really entertaining. It's really, really good. It's offensive. It creates a lot of chances. It scores a lot of goals.

So perhaps we've gone now away from the position of football that has dominated so often into another brand of football that has to do more with like sometimes a con in the air. Yeah, offensive football, it's entertaining. A little quiz question for you all. Why, as we look ahead to the quarterfinals of the Champions League, did producer Rory and I both shout the name in unison, Le Mano Lluar Lluar, this morning? Anybody think why that might be? I know the answer, so I'm going to let James answer. Did you have a megaphone when you shouted this? No.

Anybody? Anyone? No. It's because he is a very famous example of the now outlawed scoring against your parent club. Because of course, if you're on loan somewhere now, you can't play against your parent club. Because of course, if you're on loan somewhere now, you can't play against your parent club. And Lamano Luah Luah famously scored a last-minute goal for Portsmouth against Newcastle when on loan from Newcastle. Why is it relevant?

Because of the just brilliant storyline, Jules, that Marco Asensio can and will play for Aston Villa against PSG, who he's on loan from. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm very happy first for Marco Asensio to have had such a great impact on Aston Villa, whether he's off the bench or as a starter. I think this is great for him. It's not because he didn't work out really for him in Paris for whatever reasons that he's not a good player, of course. What I like about this before Guillaume can talk about Asensio too probably better than I do. I love the fact that this Aston Villa team has so many ties with Paris and PSG. Unai Emery obviously famously coached PSG for two seasons with highs

like the win against Barcelona and with lows like the defeat against Barcelona in the same time unfortunately for us. Luca Ding is a Paris born and bred player who played for PSG, Axel Di Sassi is a Paris born and bred player who plays for Paris FC, Marcus Rashford obviously went with Manchester United to the Paris de Prince under Soske and knocked out PSG in a dramatic way and you've got Bobaka Kamara who's obviously as a Marseille born and bred player, former Marseille captain, will face the old enemy again, probably the team that he hates the most in football. So loads of really ties to make this tie even more interesting. Have our colleagues at BBC West Midlands been in touch yet? As early as 8am this morning, I was on BBC Birmingham.

Were you? Yeah, to talk about this game. Love it. They know what they're doing. Guillaume, Marco Asensio. Yeah, I was going to say, Jules, are you ready for the master of knockout football to actually do one on PSG? Yeah, I knew you were going to come up with this. I still hear a tone of like, yeah, we've done very well.

We're thinking of the semi-final, but it's Aston Bieler first. Let's see what I can come up with. But yeah, Marco Asensio, shy guy who hadn't played, as we said here, I think before, as a number 10 since his time at Mallorca. He's now playing as a number 10 for three-marked windows. Unai has tried to get him. And what's perhaps surprising many is that people were saying he's not physically very strong and perhaps that's true.

He hasn't got high intensity, he doesn't sprint, he doesn't win duels, but he runs more than anybody. He's got an average of 12 kilometers per game and that is what you have to do when you're the number 10 and when you want to be influential. So he's really, really enjoying himself. Nobody knows what's going to happen next with him, obviously. Astabila would like to keep him, but if they don't qualify for the Champions League, that will be very, very hard to do.

But it's good that he's finally, you know, 11 years after Real Madrid sign him, he's finally kind of confirming his potential because even though at Real Madrid he's won five Champions Leagues, he hasn't been a regular player in the big games. He was at the beginning, but not so much at the end. I think he himself was losing a little bit of faith that he could actually make an impact in modern football. Well, he's got the perfect context for it and context is everything. It may not be the biggest wages, but I think it should stay at Aston Villa.

We've got to do a bit of Inter Milan, James, not just the fact that they kind of took care of business against PSV Eindhoven, as was expected, but Simone Inzaghi's 200th match in charge at Inter was that second leg. Not a lot of managers get to 200 games in charge of Inter Milan. No, that's true. I mean, sometimes it's because after two years they do something unprecedented, like win the treble, Joseph Mourinho left of his own accord to take over at Real Madrid. After that, I suppose if you go back to the Moratti period when Massimo Moratti was the owner throughout the 90s and sort of one of his last coaches was Jose,

Massimo was, I wouldn't say he was impatient, but there were some times where he would go through four coaches in a year. Roy Hodgson had a couple of spells under him. So yeah, to reach 200 games in a, what this is like, I think what his fourth or fifth season is really impressive considering the club he walked into, which was one that was close to going bankrupt. At the end that came to a head last summer when the Chinese owner was kind of evicted for not being able to pay back a loan he'd

taken out in Covid from an American hedge fund. The first couple of years meant that he had to be very strict. The club had to sell the best players. Lukaku, for example, went to Chelsea. Hakimi went to Paris Saint-Germain. Onana then in the following year after they reach the Champions League final, he goes to Manchester United. So he's had to not change the team dramatically because they've always had a very strong core. And I think at the end of the day, Inter are the oldest team left in the Champions League, average age of 28. I think there's a feeling that it's not the last dance for this group of players like it was, for example, in 2010, when the likes of Zenetti, Samwell, Stankovic,

etc. won the treble. But yeah, it felt like their peak was almost last year. And they're still capable of intermittently sort of reaching that peak, but can they now sort of really begin to find form going into this, the latter stage of the Champions League? You know, I think Inzaghi will look at Bayern and, you know, he's got more experience than Vincent Company. You know Bayern have some sort of devastating wide players but I think into a look at that they won't be phased considering their experience over the last five

years you know reach the Europa League final, reach the Champions League final, beat Liverpool, Anfield all of those things. Nothing fazes this team anymore and I think Inzaghi deserves a lot of credit for kind of lifting an inferiority complex that Inter had in Europe, even under Conte when Conte took them to a Europa League final. One of the things, Jules, which is quite nice about the rest of this Champions League season, is the number of teams that could get a treble. Inter, obviously, top of Serie A, they're in the Coppa Italia semis against Milan, so the treble is on for them. Same goes for Barcelona, Real Madrid and PSG. Yeah, that's right. What is also interesting is that for three of those teams, PSG are really

the only ones who have pretty much already won the league. For Inter, there's still a big battle with Atalanta and Napoli, of course, for Real Madrid and Barcelona, with each other and Atletico Madrid. And there might be a point where, when you are also focused on the Champions League, the domestic cup may be not so much.

But certainly, although there's Derby for the Milan teams, but you wonder if at some point there's even subconsciously a priority to go to either the Champions League or the league and how you manage it. However, saying that all those teams are very experienced with experienced managers, they've done this before, so it should not maybe derail too much one or the other journey in the competitions, But it's interesting that of those four, one is obviously done and dry for the league. Will Barron Let's finish with a bit of Xabi Alonso, shall we? For anyone who didn't see Leverkusen lost in the end 5-0 to Bayern on aggregate in the Champions League last 16. I think, Guillaume, lots of people admired

Xabi Alonso even more than maybe they already would have done for the fact that he stayed at Leverkusen in the summer. There were so many options. I think we know that Liverpool were really interested in him, Bayern Munich would have been really interested in him as well. I'm sure Real Madrid will be interested in him. Do you think there's any part of him that might look at where Leverkusen are now and could be forgiven for thinking, ah, maybe the time to get out was the summer? When you think of Xavi Alonso, we're going to have to think in a different way. He's not somebody that sees a step laden going up in his career. He has to be in the right

context. He's got to be somewhere where he's respected, where he's paid back debts as well, which is partly why he stayed at Leverkusen. He was given the chance, he worked well. He felt, okay, can I, as a new experience, as three or four of the top players are going to go, can I still manage to convince some of the ones that I need to stay, which he did, and then can I still make the team competitive? And I think the answer has been mostly yes. They lost, I think, in 2025, only two games, then the semi-finals of the Cup.

And yeah, okay, experiencing the Champions League, show them that they're not at that level, fine. And the league is escaping from them. Nobody at Bayern Leverkusen expected Bayern Leverkusen to challenge for the league or to challenge for the Champions League. So they're still within the targets. And then you think, okay, well, he's done the Bayern Leverkusen thing, the new experiences, the new tests, it's time to go, isn't it?

Because Ramadit is proven to be a team that they don't have organized attack and they depend too much on the individuals and blah, blah, blah. Xabi Alonso should go next. That's the logic. And yes, the contacts are there. But Xabi Alonso will be the one deciding. And if he feels for whatever reason that we cannot compare it in now, that he's got to stay at Bayer Leverkusen, he will.

One thing is clear, and I explained it here before, he had a path which was go to bi-level cushion. If it doesn't work, I go back to Real Sociedad as the number one manager after Al Wazeel. If it does work, then I've got Bayern Munich, and then he feels it's not right after having won the league. But Liverpool, not the moment either, obviously, and Real Madrid, that's what he wants next. So sometimes you can, even though he will write his own script, you cannot always choose your timing. Logic would say that Ancelotti finishes this season

unless he wins the Champions League and Chavallon takes over next season. Yeah, sounds good, I think. It's a pretty good career plan as well, to be fair. Unless, Guilhem, you think that it might be a little bit early for him to go to Real Madrid because really it would be only two full seasons at Leverkusen and then going to the biggest club in the world? I would say if he didn't know the club, if he didn't have the personality he's got, if he wasn't a sponge, if he hadn't overcome situations that he's overcome already at Payal of Akusun, you probably think, it's a little bit too early. You've all spoken to him. He's ready. He's ready in front of any challenge whatsoever. The challenge at Real Madrid will be to balance

that squad in terms of egos, but to give it more. And the problem will be to give this team, this Ramadit side, more, as in asking Demba Pe and Vinicius to defend and Rodrigo, which doesn't always happen, not even against Atletico Madrid yesterday. It requires a little bit of a change of culture. So we'll see. As I said earlier, the Saudi office is still on the table. Vinicius may not be there for a long while. That may have Xavi Alonso. Otherwise, he'll have to deal with all of that. That

is, of course, if he goes there next. Before we go, I just have one thing to do, which is just to tell everybody about the live football commentaries coming up on 5LiveSport and BBC Sounds this weekend. Saturday, 3 o'clock, Ipswich versus Nottingham Forest. Jules, where's Ipswich? In East Anglia. Yeah, where's that? In the east of the country near Anglia. It's true!

Near West Anglia. Nottingham? In Nottinghamshire, in the centre of the country. Perfect. This is really good. I imagine you know where Arsenal and Chelsea are. The weather in Chelsea.

Oh no, Chelsea is a place. Arsenal-Chelsea Sunday 1.30. We'll also have the second half of Bournemouth-Brentford on Saturday after Wales versus England in the Six Nations. You know where Wales is, right? What does Peter Galle actually mean? So a country of Galle as in a whale. What else? We've got Leicester Manchester United, seven o'clock on Sunday and in between the two, the big one for us, Jules will be there, I'll be there.

The League Cup final, Newcastle versus Liverpool, which we're all very excited about. Guillaume, James, thank you both very much indeed. Cheers. Lovely. Jules, thank you. Thank you, man. Right. That's been the Euroleagues on the Football Daily

podcast. As always, thank you all so much for listening. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get rid of one way, your body's trying to go another. Lance Stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm Landon Harris, racing driver for McLaren Formula One team. They opened the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak.

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