The Press Box - 'Soccer Podcast' with Chris Ryan and Ryan O'Hanlon (Ep. 298)

Episode Date: April 20, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Ryan O’Hanlon discuss UEFA’s decision to force Borussia Dortmund to play after the attack on their bus (1:25), officiating in the match between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid (7:14), and the upcoming market for strikers (20:26). They wrap up with predictions for the Premier League (28:21). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The NBA playoffs are here, and we have you covered with The Ringer NBA show hosted by Chris Vernon, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays all through the postseason. You can hear the ringers, NBA experts, media members, coaches, and players breaking down all the action. Make sure you subscribe to the Ringer NBA show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the soccer pod. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the Ringer.com. I am joined, as always, by Ryan O'Hanlon. It's great to be here, as always. Ryan, guess what my favorite song is?

The chance to Champions League episode. We're not going to talk too much about English Premier League. That might come to the end. I want to talk a little bit about Tottenham, but I really wanted to talk about the Champions League as we get out of the quarters, right? We're going into the semis. It was an exciting and controversial, I would say,

quarterfinal round, and we're going to talk about it all. You know, Ryan, you wrote this Winners and Losers on the ringer.com. You can find that. Beautiful picture of Marcello. celebrating exultant. It's just a rundown of who won and who lost. It's just scores. But you did have a very interesting rant at the end about UEFA,

and we usually don't do, you know, we don't really complain about refs and we don't really talk too much about, like, the business and the structures around the game. But I did think, obviously, with what happened to Bruce U.Rtman, the explosion hitting their bus, injuring Mark Bartra last week, then being forced to play a match,

24 hours after that happened almost I would not say against their own will but much to their chagrin and then going out of the competition against Monaco despite in you know obviously Monaco has a lot of qualities but I think we can all say that there was some mitigating

circumstances surrounding Dortman's Dortman's play and you had a really you know like you basically teed off on UEFA and I wanted to know like let's just talk about that a little bit because I think sometimes when you don't have a personal investment in a team

maybe if you're not living in Europe or whatever you're not like a Dortmund fan you're just kind of like watching this a little removed you can be a Liverpool fan obviously you can be a Dortmund fan but to watch this happen you know you kind of take it in stride it's actually

quite galling that this happened that they were forced to play in a Champions League match after this occurred it's crazy there's really no other way to put it I mean I think we talk about this a lot you know, how much preparation goes into basically every match and how painstakingly sort of organized

these teams are. And then to think that their buses legitimately attacked, like, just like a shocking thing that I don't think you recover from for a long time. Yeah, they were saying that players were crying after the loss. Roman Berkey, the goaltender, like the keeper hadn't slept. Yeah, he doesn't sleep. she said. And they made it pretty clear that they were like,

we do not want to play this game. And UiFo was like you're playing in 24 hours. Yeah, there's a bunch of mixed messaging. UEFA said that they spoke to both parties, you know, very vague language. And Thomas Tuchel, the Dorman manager, said that they found out via text message and just felt, I think he used the word impotent

is how they felt in the face of this. And it's just even if they played the first game yesterday, it would have seemed kind of crazy. Yeah, I don't necessarily have a solution. I couldn't help but think, like, well, what does it take to, what was the bar that had to be cleared or not cleared for this to warrant actually giving these guys a break? Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like, did somebody need to die? I'm not trying to be morbid, but it's just like, what the hell is going on? I think, I don't, I think there were rumors that that if someone died, there would have been a bigger buffer given, which seems just insane. to have that as a dividing line. It seems insane that we're even talking about it. And it's just like, the game didn't get moved because there's all of these interests in the game being played.

Sure, I mean, it's an international sporting event and the most... Yeah, there's advertising that's already paid for. Television in hundreds of countries is paid for it to broadcast this match. Yeah. And that, there's no getting around. That's why the game was.

played a day later. And it's just, it's just, that doesn't, it shouldn't matter in the face of this. Just extremely like, I can't, you can't, it's one of those things you can't even put yourself in the shoes of people who experienced it. Yeah, it's strange because we talk about these things a lot in the abstract. We talk about Cutter's World Cup bid and the reported inhumane practices going around in the building of the stadiums for the World Cup. We talk about the weird world of third-party ownership of people recruiting kids out of Africa

and South America and basically duping them into like coming to their training camp and paying agent fees. There's just like anywhere you look in international football, you're going to find really disheartening stories. So this is not exactly the first time I've lost my innocence with UEFA or FIFA but there was something particularly disconnected from reality about this decision that I thought was really made it hard to sort of enjoy the football which actually was quite excellent yeah I mean especially this Dortmund Monaco tie which was awesome like

taking out the storyline was actually just like electric football being played yeah it was it was the best best matchup I think the a ton of goals a ton of ton of exciting young talent, you know, and then one of these sort of overachieving teams was guaranteed a spot in the semifinals. And we talked, we had a piece on our site about how it was the best, the best matchup. And instead, it's, you know, like you said, there are all of these things that you hear about and stories about shady, shady stuff that happens with soccer because of the influence of big money on it.

But this is just such an obvious, tangible example of that, right? Yeah. And I think the fact that it's like that is taking precedent over the game itself. Yeah, you hear a lot about like the solo football and what it meant to people in previous decades. And I think that, you know, in a lot of ways, like an American soccer fan who's into European football is like kind of still like a voyeur. You know, like we don't really have the kind of on the ground connection to it.

But you, even from this distance, like you can kind of feel that happening and feel that it has happened that it is basically like this corporate, the corporate machinations of the game. And especially, you know, I got to be honest, like, I didn't really have a dog in Byron versus Real Madrid, but that was the other sort of disappointing thing I wanted to talk about was like, I hate talking about refereeing because I think it's a hard job and I just think you could just sit there all day and be like, that was offside, that wasn't off sides. It's like the most boring part of the game to talk about. But Ronald was off sides.

And Arturo de Vidal did not deserve a red card. Yeah. And that's tough to watch. This is supposed to be the very best this game has to offer. I truly believe the Champions League is the highest quality of football you can play. Yeah. So to watch it get kind of spungled by this guy and to have, Reale's a very good team and very much deserves, like, talent-wise, to beat Bayern Munich. To have that be why it was a little bit bizarre.

Yeah, well, it's just, it gets back to the, you know, the red card itself. is like a weird thing in soccer. It has such a big influence on the game, and it always comes down to subjective decisions. And I think, you know, over the course of a 38 game season, you lose a guy for a game, play down a man, a couple games. It's whatever, you make up for it. But in something like this, it's one leg.

Yeah. It's like you only get this 180 minutes to watch Real Madrid and Bayern Munich play, and Bayern Munich played half of it, basically, a man down. And it's just, you know, Real Madrid marches on, but it's like, what do you say beyond that? I don't think it's a bummer. You don't feel like it feels like more like one of those Barcelona Arsenal matches from a couple years ago where like Robin Van Tversy gets tossed for kicking a ball to the wrong direction.

It's like I don't doubt that Barcelona would have wiped the floor with Arsenal eventually in that tie, but it does feel like you're just kind of getting robbed of like, and what it is, it would be like if Draymond got thrown out of every finals when that happens. It's like that, that was one thing for that to happen in game five of the NBA finals, and it was kind of bizarre and everything. But, like, to have it happen and feel like every year of the Champions League, something weird happens is a little bit hard. Because it's especially difficult when you're like,

you guys got to watch the Champions League. It's the best soccer in the world. And then they're, like, they're playing a man down. And, like, you know, like, the ref made the game about him. Exactly. I don't know if you, you know, maybe there's a way to, I don't know, this gets into a whole other discussion of like reffing the game differently

when you know that there's only it's a single elimination knockout at that point but I mean it still doesn't need there's nothing you can do about fucked up off sides calls that happens but it's just compared to the Barcelona Arsenal thing

it's like I have no idea I mean if Real Madrid or Bayern Munich is better if one's better than the other there's nothing sort of from those two games that tells me that. Yeah. You know? Real sort of had these advantages that...

Just not to get to, like, let's re-engineer or something. But would you... Do you think it would be more or less fair if they played like a best of five or a best of seven rather than a two-legged... A two-leg tie? Yeah, I mean, I think it would be more fair just because there's a larger sample of...

I wonder how tactics would change if they did that. It would be really interesting. I mean, knowing soccer... I feel like the first like three legs can end up being like zero zero. I feel like that's sort of what happened. There was like those, that 18 month period where like Barsa and Real played each other like 20 times. Yeah, I mean that's true.

Because they were in so many different competitions together. Yeah, we got, we finally, you know, got an answer to the Bayern or Barcelona is better than Real Madrid because they'd be able to so many times. But it's just, you know, that's the same thing with the NFL. It's just not like it, there's just not space for that many cases. Yeah. And it's probably physically. in a way too demanding to do that.

Well, let's talk about Barcelona. That was another big exit. It almost feels unfair to Juventus, who I think have been the best team in the Champions League. And now, because I haven't been watching as much Italian football, Juventus almost has that mystical quality that I think they must have had in some of their heydays in the last few decades,

where if you didn't watch a lot of Italian football and then, like, Juventus shows up and everything about their name and their colors and everything about it just feels like, who are these guys? And, like, freaking supermodel wonder boys. And, like, they really, I just thought, you got to see what Allegory is done differently with this team.

Then Conte, they were already incredibly well-disciplined under Conte. They already were incredibly stout defensively. And they had a couple of playmakers, like Pirlo and Pagba. And now I just feel like DeBala has become one of the best strikers or one of the best forwards. in world football and Allegri is done just enough to sort of tweak how they play with the ball and without the ball now so before when they were just more of like a defensive counter attacking team now I feel like they're really really good in possession yeah I think I think

Juventis at this point you know they're they're in the conversation with the big three teams it's not just real Madrid Bayern and barsa I think Yves like firmly in how many serious have they one of them? This is going to be three or four now? I think it might be five. Five? Just an incredible run. And Suriat is not bad now. Roma and Napoli are both really

good teams. It's not like Uve's playing in league like PSG. And I think there is a sort of I know exactly what you're talking about with the mystical quality. I would feel that all the time when I'd watch the Champions League when I was younger. Yeah. But it's also because they just play a different way. Like,

Juventus is the best, I think they're the best defensive team in the world. And we've sort of come to associate, especially watching the Premier League, you associate good defense with a team that is insanely aggressive and pressing. Yes. Everywhere. And Juventus just doesn't do that. But they're also not, like you don't watch Juventus. So they don't do that.

What do they do? They just keep their shape. They get you to take bad shots because that's what you were saying in your piece, right? Like they don't care how many times you shoot as long as you're shooting from bad positions, pretty much, right? Yeah. And, you know, they let you get the. ball into the box but they know how to deal with the ball once it gets into the box. I think there's a lot of good defensive performances or quote-unquote good defensive performances

against Barcelona where it's like guys sliding all over the place and blocking shots and like deflections just going nearly wide. But with Juventus, it's like they basically turn Barcelona into Arsenal. They're like, you pass the ball to the back of the net if you think you can do it. Exactly. They let them possess it and they let them shoot from bad angles. and they're just, they feel, it's weird for a sort of passive, at least compared to a pressing defense,

a passing defense to still feel like they're in control of a game because they don't have the ball, but that's how it feels. If that's what they did, that should, technically, Barcelona has the three best forwards on the planet. If any three people or if any one player is supposed to be able to make something out of nothing, get a goal from a bad angle, hit a 30-yard screamer, it's messy Namar and Suarez. So do you see that as a decline,

not necessarily of any one of those one players as an individual. I think Namar is probably playing as well as he's ever played in his life. But as a unit, do you think that that is, are they like, are they in decline? Are they, like, is there a little stasis going on there? I think it's, you know, maybe Messi has declined by like one percentage point. Yeah. And he's still better than everyone else. but I feel like the decline is really from the supporting cast

I mean it's Eniesta is just he's good when he's fully fit but he loses his fitness by half time of every game basically you know he just can't move in the way he used to Bousquet's had basically his worst season since he's been with Barsa Rackettich is you know he's he's a good like connective midfielder but he's not going to be like a superstar I need a point they don't have Danielle as doing what he used to do on the flanks.

So it's sort of, I think when it's a... They don't have like that second wave of player who's going to come through and get it, like a Pedro. That's sort of like for, like to put it in basketball terms, like they, those guys, you don't have to worry about them, you know, so you worry about the front three. And for a defense as sophisticated and organized as Juventus, like you can deal with three guys like that.

I mean, we should say like Arsenal, or Barcelona, had a ton of like shots obviously and sometimes those go in and maybe the game unfolds differently if that happens but I mean it's it was you know Juventus I think played it about as well as you could have I kind of this is the first time I have ever actually been able to see Messi on another team only because there's been a lot of managerial change over there since Guardiola left There's been several managers. Most Spanish teams have the degree of turnover in the managerial spot. But there hasn't been, I think that the fact that they've invested so heavily in the forward line,

and Messi, to me, is the one who's almost suffered the most for that. You know, I could see him on Paris or Manchester City if they could come up with the money. I mean, it would basically have to break all concepts we have of transfer fees. Because you're not only talking about a player who can win you the league, you're talking about a global brand that you'd be buying. Well, yeah. And I mean, it's like you're buying him maybe toward the end of his career, but who the hell knows? Because he hasn't really slowed down, and he's probably going to figure out a way to play even when he can't run. Yeah, he just doesn't have the same effervescence, the same sort of, doesn't seem to have the same joy that he used to have, say, two years ago, three years ago.

No, and maybe that's just... Attack stuff. That's life, wearing him down. We were both curmudgeon's when we first met. Well, we're talking about one player who, I don't want to say he was on decline. That's like saying LeBron's on decline. It's like you're never going to be right saying that. Let's talk about somebody who's about to hit the become of household name.

That's Killinghambabe on Monaco. It's one of those cool moments. One of the actually really nice things about social media is that it does serve as a little bit of a litmus for when someone has achieved a degree of notary. variety or people know who they are and Mbapa is like you know before Monaco played on Wednesday I think it was Tuesday yesterday yesterday there was like I could hear you could see people just be like I can't wait to watch this kid I can't wait to watch this kid it kind of reminded me I couldn't remember if this was the 06 World Cup or the 08 euros but when Riberi first really broke out and people are like oh my god this guy is like one of the

10 best players in the world right now and he was just like a winger on Marseille then it was 2006, I think. 2006. I think he was on Marseille, and so it was before he went to Byron. And, you know, it was just, he, Embapa is so good. He's so fast, so physical,

with so much skill. And he seems like he's just one of those forwards who you can't even peg him as like, oh, he's like a pile, like a Le Caku-style bowl, you know, or a, he's not a fox in the box. He just has, like, a very Henri, like, set of skills where he can do a ton. Well, I remember we talked to Jordan Morris

a couple weeks a month or two ago on the podcast and he talked to us about how important it is, like what can take you from being a average striker to a good one or a good one to a great one, is you like pounce on those half chances that don't really come down to, like it's not gonna be on a highlight reel, you know what I mean? And the goal against Dorman he scored yesterday

was a long-range shot, shot everyone's standing and watching and he just sprints toward the keeper. The keeper can't catch the ball. He knocks it down and Mbapay hits it in. So adding that to like the incredible physical and technical ability he has, it's, you know, you don't want to get to, this happens in soccer, I think, almost more than any sport. We overhite people too much, but it's just like he does literally everything. You were saying in your piece that his underlying numbers suggest someone who's already around

Alexis Sanchez. So he's scoring a third of his shots, which that just won't happen. And if it does, he's the best soccer player of all time if that happens. Messy's at 20% for his career, and that's basically the unheard of mark. And for most people, it fluctuates. But still, he's based on the quality and the number of shots he has, he's still, based on, you know, expected goals and metrics, he still would be putting up, he should be putting up very good goals numbers. Right around, like you said, Alexi.

Sanchez and that's he's 18 so it's like that just that almost never happened and you were saying like some like you know there's going to be this really interesting market for strikers the messy thing is pretty much just like fantastical but Lukaku would probably be for sale yeah Aguero has been in and out of sort of the future plans of might man city Sanchez could be for sale yeah Obama Yang and you have a bunch of teams like man you could We just saw, there's a lot of time to go down with what looked like a pretty bad knee injury. You have Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea could be looking for a cost of replacement. You've got to figure that Barcelona is going to spend some money this summer,

although I would imagine it's going to be mostly on midfield. So there's going to be a lot of money being thrown around there for somebody like in Bapa. The reason why people are like, oh, let's watch it. Like, if you buy a kid at 18, theoretically it gives you a higher amount of leverage in terms of controlling his wages and controlling his future than if you try to. try to buy him at 25 and he's going to cost you 150 million. Well, exactly. Unless he costs you 150 million now.

Well, I think the interesting thing is like how much he's going to cost because part of what gets baked into a transfer fee is... Sellons. Yeah. Sellons or how long you could have the guy for. So it's like most, you don't, you can't project someone confidently until they're producing for like, like, what, five or six years at the professional level, you know, and then you can kind of put a price on him but for him it's like he's already producing at a near elite level he's producing at like an insane level and he's performing at like just below the elite level right and for an 18

that's absurd so it's like you could be buying that for 12 years yeah so if you're if you're confident that's what you have if you're monaco and if you're a team buying that I mean it should be just a crazy number but at the same time it's also the hey he's only 18 this is a half a season. So do we actually want to spend that much money? I think it's kind of fascinating how much he'll go for. Let's say you were going to put Mboppe on an English team that, like, not that they deserve him or something,

but one where you think he would be best utilized. Forget the transfer fee. And don't say like Bormmouth. But I was thinking about Mboppe on Tottenham and just like what that would mean to see him there instead of like the ghost of Eric Lamella, who is no longer there. But having Mbapapap as like a secondary forwarder

line goal threat along with Kane with Ollie behind him was just like I was like man totem to win the Champions League if they were that good you know yeah he does seem like he would fit amazingly on any of man city Liverpool or Tottenham like think Tottenham and Liverpool are probably not going to be able to afford them yeah yeah but it's also like if you put them on Chelsea and they're just counter attacking this guy's like built for that too he can run around and press or he can counterattack he shouldn't go to man menu, but he probably will. Yeah.

What else jumped out of you about Champions League? We can talk about that a little bit, and then we could talk a little bit about Premier League before we get out of here. Yeah, I think the biggest takeaway from it for me is, it just seems like all of the best teams aren't as good as they used to be. They're just like a slight level below. I was thinking about that a lot,

because there's a couple articles about being the end of a cycle at Byron and about Lom's gone, Alonza's gone, you know, rib-rob. is definitely aging and needing to find spaces for guys like Kingsley-Cohman and Renato Sanchez and how they'll probably have a year of transition, which could open up the door a little bit in the Bundesliga for teams like Leipzig and Dortmund. But that kind of being the case for a bunch of these teams, and we talked a little bit about Barcelona seeming a little bit stale.

Real, I think, you know, it's hard to be critical of Real Madrid since they just keep winning Champions League trophies. But they are still very much a Galactico team that's based on a series of relatively aging Galacticos. They have to eventually turn it over to bail, I guess. What do you think is behind that? Do you think we're just at the end of a cycle for a lot of these major clubs

and they're going to have to retool a little bit? Yeah, I think it's partially... Part of it is Ronaldo and Messi getting older and just maybe they're not, the influence they have on the game is just not quite as outsized as it used to be, so that lets the other teams catch up. And I don't think,

I don't think Barcelona has sort of managed the team well at all. You look at the bench and the guys they brought off the bench yesterday, and it's just like those guys shouldn't even be playing for Barcelona. Same thing with Madrid. And Byron, it's probably, it's probably a year of transition. I feel like going from Pep, Cordial, at any manager is probably really difficult just because he's so hyper-specific with everything.

But it's also, I think it's Reber and Robin. Those guys are, they've gotten hurt a ton, but they're just below Messi and Ronaldo when they're healthy, and they're getting older too. I think it's, I think it is just, we probably underestimated the impact of, if possible, of Messi and Ronaldo. Well, it's not that surprising,

is it? I mean, like, you think about where we were, say five, six years ago and Manchester United and Chelsea were routinely in the semifinals of the Champions League. Yeah. Neither of those teams are even in the Champions League this year. Exactly. So it's sort of, you know, I think you and I kind of came of age as far as soccer, being

soccer fans of seeing Premier League teams routinely make these deep runs in the Champions League and, you know, those maddening Liverpool, Chelsea's quarterfinal matches, drogue boe flops and, you know, Fernando Torres. Like that was like a cycle, and that cycle is over. You know, a lot of those teams that were very good at that time are not as good. And Barsa has had 10 years now of dominance, and Madrid has now had five years of close to dominance. I think Madrid will probably just always be able to buy the best player and just the fact that, like, you know, they'll just get Ed and Hazard. You know what I mean?

Like they eventually will get Ed and Hazard in the next two years probably. because if he wants to go, it's going to happen. Yeah. But the teams like Byron and Barser are interesting because there's so much of a belief in, there's like a little bit more of an identity question there than with Real where it's just like the 11 best guys in the world. Barsa and Byron have more of a relationship to an ideal.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's with Real Madrid, it's like they get in their own way by just buying, the next most expensive player and then he doesn't fit with the team in the way that the current previous most expensive player did but that's like the talent is always so incredibly high that they're just always going to be fine roughly you know they'll always be first or second in the

la league yeah and barsa I think it's they're devoted to playing a certain way and to the ideal of the club whether it's accurate or not and it's it makes it hard I think to find the players that you think fit there. I think in the way that the club wants the game to be played, it's very, very hard to do that

and those players are just few and far between. Yeah. So you can see them sort of being too idealistic about things and that sort of stunning their progress in a way. Yeah. Byron, I think they're always still buying

the best players in Germany, you know. They're just always doing that. They're always doing that. And like liquidating the competition domestically so they can concentrate on Europe. Yeah. Yeah. So they're always, they're always going to be okay, I think. Let's talk really quickly about the Premier League.

We have a weirdly hot title race now, which I don't think anybody expected in February. And now it's become a four-point gap between Chelsea and Tottenham, the same amount of games. Here's my prediction for this. Tottenham's going to win the F.A. semi-final, F. F.A. Cup semifinal this weekend. and then Chelsea's going to win the Champions the Premier League pretty comfortably. I think Tottenham will

I think they'll easily get into the Champions League. I think they'll probably finish second. I just think that there's like a weird like Tottenham's going to have like a fake sense of like well we got them and then Chelsea's going to win the league. They have an easier run in Chelsea. So I just think playing the North London Derby on April 30th is like that's wild.

Doesn't it feel to you? if Greg Popovich managed soccer and he was a manager of Chelsea right now. He would throw the FA Cup basically. Yeah, it would be all youth players playing. I totally agree. I think Totem, it's tough because they've, since they lost to Liverpool, their schedule has been relatively easy. Their toughest game was Everton and they basically pulled that out in the last minute.

But we talked about this. A lot of other teams are having trouble with that teams below them part. Like Liverpool is very competitive with the top four, top five teams. But when they have to play somebody who sits back and they need Emory Sean to like create, they're screwed. Yeah, that's not a good situation. And it's just math. Like most of the teams in the Premier League aren't one of the top six teams. So if you beat up those teams like Tottenham is, it's putting them basically on the borderline of being back in the title race.

And it's possible that they figured something out and they're, going to keep doing this against good teams, but I just, you know, the schedule has been too easy for me to get too excited about it. It's a test championship to me. They are playing the best football of the year right now. Their best players are at their best. But it's too little too late. And I think Chelsea's just not going to lose a four-point lead on a team.

I guess we can just quickly discuss, we go over this every week. 3-4-5 is separated by six points. Arsenal seems pretty well out of it at 57. They're three points. They are seven points off of fourth. We only a few games left. So how do you think the top four shakes out of Chelsea and Tottenham or won two? I think I'm going to stick with what I said last time, probably the, it's Man City third, Liverpool fourth.

Okay. But again, it's tough because Liverpool has an easy, very easy schedule. They've played all the top 16s already. But that's not easy to Liverpool, and they don't have Monnet. Exactly. And Liverpool has beaten some of these worst teams recently, but they actually haven't played that well. I think they've sort of been fortunate. They go to a pretty good palace team, a palace team that dunked on Arsenal. They host Watford. They go to Southampton, and then they finish the season hosting West Ham. You can argue that Southampton and West Ham will be on early summer break by then. But it's just nothing's ever easy for Liverpool when it comes to these sort of mid-table teams. No, and they have a bunch of injuries.

So it's, I think one thing, though, with this is that when we do sometimes look at the table, because Liverpool has a couple of games in hand with Manu, we always project that Manu will win every game. Like their average points so far would put them behind Liverpool. Yeah. So I think it's just the safe bet to pick Liverpool over Manu, because Manu also has another avenue. They're three games away from getting in the championship.

League through the Europa League and I think they're the favorites to win that. Yeah. I'm shitting my pants as a Liverpool fan, I would say. But if I was betting, I would still take them forth. I think it's just, it's, the Manchester United has defeated Anderlecht, so I assume that means they are going through. Yeah. Right.

So they won two, one today. What's very important about this, the reason why we keep bringing it up, obviously, is not just, It's not just the money that comes in by making the Champions League, it is the chance of Champions League football that attracts just the perfect level of player. You can't even get in the room with Killing Mbapa unless you're like, we're going to go to the Champions League next year. So for even a team like Arsenal, who used to have a pipeline into France and used to be the kind of place that Killing Mbapit would probably have in his top five choices to

where to go. If Arsenal's not playing in the Champions League and they have a lame duck manager if Venger comes back or a new manager, if he leads. He's not going to even think about it. It's true. But then it gets into the maybe Arsenal will then be better next year because they don't have to play in the Champions League. You know, it's like it almost feels like we're headed toward a cycle

where it's like between Manu, Tottenham, Liverpool, and Arsenal. It's like they're just going to cycle in. Yeah, it's mini tanking. It's like we have to get out of like all this, like, you know, we can't sustain this sort of like, to sustain greatness, we have to be out of the running for greatness for a season or two. Yeah. The problem is getting back in as Liverpool is an example of.

Yeah, it's like you're just accepting that you're going to be good one year and then not good the next year, which is very weird. All right, we'll be back probably in a couple weeks to talk about championship league semifinals and the run into the Premier League. Until that, I'm Chris Ryan. I'm Ryan. I'm Ryan O'Hillan. Take care.