Cross to the far post, Giroud! And Olivier Giroud moves on to 51 French goals, soaring level with the great Thierry Autry.
Hello and welcome to Serie A Spotlight Season 2 Episode 15, we're your hosts Jake and Matt, and this is our World Cup special where we'll also be talking about the most important thing in life, the Serie A. It is currently the 1st of December, we would have liked to record this episode after the round of 16 participants had been settled, but I am off to Africa and that will not be possible.
Exactly, unfortunately he's off to Africa. Yes, it's gonna be an absolute blast, you have two weeks without me, in those two weeks I'm hoping that Matt takes care of the content and we'll be dishing out podcast episodes, at least two episodes, right bro? Look, look, you guys are gonna need to wake me up, okay? Because Jake's out for two weeks and I'm gonna want to sleep for two weeks, but I'm gonna have to get my shit together and dish out some content. DM, Serie A Spotlight,
tweet us out, whatever, hashtag Matt please. Matt please, okay? And that will hopefully wake him up and make him know that the people are expecting something out of him. No, I hope the listeners know that I love doing this more than anything else and that it won't be a problem to get some content from me. Just finding the right people to join me maybe. Yeah, I mean I'm sure there are a few people listening right now who would love to be on, maybe Cesco? Cesco's in Rome though.
Ah, I see. He is, maybe he's coming down in December. You work with a couple of Seya heads, no? No, they're all Prem heads man, they're all Prem heads. Well, you'll find someone. Yeah. Speaking, while we're on the topic of holidays bro, you went to Florence recently. I did. I couldn't help but notice through key stories that you had ramen a few days into your Florence experience. What the fuck's going on bro? Are you uncultured? Who the fuck goes to Florence
and eats ramen? You know that when I go to Italy I have cornetto and cappuccino for breakfast, I then have pasta, pizza, espresso, red wine, that's the way I do it. Fact of the matter. When you're not eating ramen. No, the fact of the matter is in Florence, one of the most beautiful places I have been to by the way, there are a lot and a lot of expats, a lot of tourists, and a lot of the restaurants in the main areas are tourist traps. So, Key's fucking carbonara had truffle in
it for example. Ah, kaskifo. The crust on my pizza was a little bit thick like and maybe the mozzarella wasn't as runny as it should be. So, we felt a bit robbed. We were looking up authentic restaurants and every time we went it was still a fucking tourist trap. I'm sure we could have been like on the left side of the river, it would have been better for example. So, we took matters into our own hands and we're like look, I mean this won't be authentic anyway but at least we'll have had
some ramen while we're here. So, we got some ramen, it was really nice and yes we made quite a funny video out of it. Nice, that's good to hear bro. I particularly love this story you told me before of your wine tasting experience. Perhaps if you get through that before we get to the football. Yes, so it wasn't exactly a wine tour that we went on but we did stop in Chianti. So, what me and Key do when we go on holidays rather than renting a car since we'll only use it for one day is we get
this bus that takes us around some really cool spots like places we'd go with the car. And this one took us to San Gimignano, a beautiful little fortified city. It took us to Siena and it took us to Chianti. Chianti is my favorite wine so obviously I was enjoying myself. This guy was pouring us wine and serving us like salami and shit and we're just yelling out ratings,
we're getting drunk with all the people with us. Now, a lot of them were American and there's a large percentage of the population of Florence being American because there are a lot of expats kind of want to retire. There are a lot of American people want to retire in a romantic city such as Florence. Just as there is a large percentage of people who are from America and listen to say a spotlight right so thread carefully. I have absolutely no problem with Americans. I love the USA,
come on USA! Loud drinkers, they get very loud but so do the Mediterranean so no problems there. So yeah we're enjoying ourselves a lot of Americans and there are also 10 people that were of Asian
descent over there and I do this thing when I see people from different places of the earth. I try to guess where they're from, where they live, what they do, who they are and obviously I try to get their nationality and I was looking at the Asian people and I was saying is this a game you play to yourself or just with myself just with myself I say okay that guy there he's he's Japanese that woman is is South Korean and that kid is Chinese okay okay I think I think I've got this.
We're obviously drinking and we all start introducing ourselves and every single one of these Asian people were from Seattle Washington. Seattle Washington, New York, Los Angeles, there was the guy from Los Angeles didn't speak a word of English like I'm from Los Angeles like okay that's interesting. Yeah I mean you know immigrants and then they they raise their kids to be basically they sound American they are American you know it's it's a very you spend enough time in a place
and you and you identify with that place then yeah. So yes we're gonna go through the say our players participating in the World Cup and how they have performed thus far if you notice from our intro of course we highlighted the great Olivier Giroud's second goal against Australia that was his 51st goal for France he has equaled Thierry Henry's record and has become the joint
top scorer for the French national team with 51 goals what do you think bro? So everyone here knows how much we love Giroud you know he's my fucking luck screen for crying out loud it's funny though that when I speak to French people they don't really at least the ones I spoke to don't really
value Giroud. The ones I speak to don't rate him either they call him a go-kart that's the oh man I've heard that before and I'm telling no Benzema no Griezmann no Mbappe look fact of the matter is this guy blossomed late for club and country he started playing for France in 2011 exactly and he managed to get 51 goals tied with Thierry Henry he claimed a god for the French football fans which he is but
ladies and gentlemen Olivier Giroud goes down with history alongside this man they both won the world cup yeah for France exactly 116 games is what it took Olivier Giroud to score 51 goals that's that's a very good return and it's crazy when you consider that he didn't score a single goal in the 2018 world cup yeah that's that's true yeah he could he'd be ahead of him had he scored at least one exactly but yeah that's the utility striker he is the selfless legend Olivier Giroud yes sir
so we've obviously bro we've had some beautiful moments in this world cup so far you know the Saudi Arabia's and the Senegal's the Cameroon's the Japan's so on so forth alongside that brother we've had some very funny moments some hilarious moments so many to choose from but you are kind enough to make a compilation of your favorites yes sir so here that goes I'm not gonna say that I'm looking better than him which is true but today I feel gay excuse me what is missing
guys sorry you're live on sky news do reaction to the win we lost sorry reaction to the loss and apologies reaction to the loss uh shit apologies for the language do you know Hansi Flick sorry do you know Hansi Flick Hansi Flick what is this German coach they're too good bro let's just run you through them quickly in case you did not recognize what those were and the first one is the infamous Pierce Morgan interview with Cristiano Ronaldo
where he publicly states that he's not going to say that he's better looking than Wayne Rooney but then he does I mean sure fair enough you know much better than you know more humble probably not the next one was in Funtino saying that he feels a little bit gay he felt many things bro to be honest he felt Arab he felt African he felt African he felt many things and he also compared the plight of being an immigrant worker in conditions that could actually kill you to being
born with freckles and Funtino is clearly a man who has been through many hardships and you can tell when you see him on your television screen sitting on a custom-made sofa watching all the fucking world cup games you know Madonna that was so funny man he looked like an evil born villain he's an evil born villain bro and he always has a different sofa for every match it's hilarious the next one one of my favorites where is missy where is missy that has to be honestly one of my
favorite moments in football history for Saudi Arabia to beat Argentina who are hailed to be one of the favorites to win the world cup Saudi Arabia one of the worst teams quite frankly one player will go down in memory forever he'll go down in history Aldo Sarri what a player what a fucking finish on him it's a real shame Saudi Arabia couldn't get it done and we're very disappointing against Mexico they played well in their second game but couldn't quite replicate that performance
against Mexico maybe the pressure was too much the Mexicans were hungry as well brother they had to get goals yeah they had all their people you know the circuit the pride that Mexicans have of course of course and obviously Poland infamously going through because they had two lesser yellow cards than Mexico so heartbreaking and they have one of the best goalkeepers out there at the moment I believe yes yeah the next clip was a couple of Wales fans being Wales fans the interviewer
asks them what do you think about the win the one of them says we lost and then he says how do you think it went and then the guy says shit and then he says apologize for the language it's fucking hilarious I mean that's what you get you interview someone whose team just lost you don't know who you're interviewing they would have had a few drinks but they wouldn't have had a few they probably have had some before yeah maybe do you know Hansi Flick it was a was another fun one a
question asked to Takuma Asano Hansi Flick of course is the German manager Takuma Asano is the Japanese player who scored the winning goal against Germany he did not know what that word was that word was indeed the name of the German manager so disrespectful the man should know who Hansi Flick yeah I mean he spent so long preparing he didn't understand the pronunciation but whatever the next one was Nagatomo saying bravo something he learned during his inter games anything Nagatomo does will
end up on this podcast exactly I can't believe he still plays man Nagatomo yeah hey I couldn't when I saw him I was like whoa and he has red hair now trying to understand Infantino's struggle the final clip we had over there was the Italian commentator announcing South Korea's lineup uh they had their goalkeeper was called Kim and their entire back four consisted of Kim Kim Kim and Kim that was a fun one very fun I saw people saying that that uh the commentator is gonna have
such a hard time no he's not someone at the back gets it that's Kim there we go plays it laterally plays the ball to Kim someone scores off a corner you're not sure who it is it's Kim have a good chance of getting it right now does this Kim start for league leaders Napoli or does he play in the Chinese Super League doesn't matter he's Kim exactly yes before obviously we get into the World Cup stuff this is primarily a serial podcast and there's something that needs
to be discussed urgently okay there's some drama involving Juventus what's going on brother so basically I'm sure you guys heard but Anjeli Vice President Pavel Nedved and CEO Maurizio Arrivabene are among 15 15 members of Juve who could face a trial for alleged false accounting and irregularities in player transfers with arrest warrants rumored to be prepared former director of sport Paratici who left the club to take over Tottenham in the Premier League last year is also part of this
list because of his involvement from 2018 so this timeline starts around the start of the pandemic basically um Juve said that 23 players agreed to reduce their salary for four months to help the club through the financial crisis that pretty much everyone was going through Juve a bit more than most because they had just signed Cristiano Ronaldo for 116 million and paid him 31 million annually so that left the club absolutely financially screwed prosecutors claim
that all the players only gave up one month of their salary as opposed to the four that Juve said they did because of that um there's basically a misbalance in their books this could lead Juve to face a serious penalty which could include point deduction which they had already faced 16 years ago during the cultural police scandal I thought they were just relegated it was it was like a such a significant point deduction that had got them relegated I believe I remember 70 points
deduction yeah I remember Milan had gotten like minus 15 points and Inter had won the league because the two teams above them one of them got relegated and the other one got a 15 point deduction yeah that was for fixing matches indirectly through yellow cards accumulated in matches other than you guys yeah this this is uh on the other hand a classic case of a misbalance in books you're invoicing something you're reporting something else you're hiding another thing and in this case
they were hiding that the the money that they were sending to their players so they didn't meet the financial regularities and they were pretending to meet the financial regularities so that is a big case the entire board decided to resign over that the likes of fucking Agnelli and Nedved resigned for Juve just as as soon as things started looking good for Juve this season yeah man um terrible timing for them they had just picked up momentum they hadn't conceded a goal
in ages they had they were on a winning streak you know their players were just coming back from injury and now they have to deal with this drama bro how is this going to develop it's it's not looking good man and i know that we've seen um in certain times where we thought penalties should have been harsher than they were for certain things even that Juve had done but this time i think it's worse yeah this is actually very very serious legal blood exactly arrest warrants are
rumored to be prepared now rumored to exactly they are prepared now the the thing is Juve had been investigated a couple of years ago maybe two years ago and due to some inflated prices that was the accusation this had to do with the Audero deal to San Pedro yes the Storaro deal to Genoa the Arthur and Pianich swap involving 70 million like Arthur and Pianich said not even 70 million combined brother let alone fucking individually but anyway um the problem is those accusations
were dropped formally because the FA couldn't actually prove the value of a player exactly because it's subjective and it depends on the market exactly but yeah that's where Juve find themselves now it's a bit more serious than that it is actually you know screwing with finances and that's obviously something we all know um any football league is very strict with their regulations you need to keep in line with and yeah you are suffering
because of that and i'm excited to see what's gonna come of it a point deduction allegation let's see perhaps nothing perhaps the individuals get charged um this is interesting as well you have I have opened a formal investigation into you over the potential financial fair play breaches and the club licensing breaches as well um La Liga have pushed for this to happen yeah even though they have Barcelona who in my opinion is even more blatant than yes yes agree whatever so yeah
we'll see we'll see about you and we'll see how they react coming into the season after this yeah good luck to you good luck to you Del Piero is rumored as well to be apparently closer than ever to taking on a role at Juventus he put a whole post on instagram post saying that in a time like this it's the most important time to support Juventus when they're demonstrating blatant corruption that's when you should applaud for Juventus the hardest all right well done bravo
Del Piero well done that here legend he had stayed with you when they were down in seria and it's true though the fans do need to come together these times can be divisive they can be hard but remember this isn't the problem of the club this is the problem of the individuals who are running the club at the end of the day exactly exactly i'd be interested to see what happens with Anieli and Ferrari Ferrari did something as well i know you don't give a shit
but Anieli owns Ferrari and what happened nothing so far nothing nothing but Ferrari i thought someone stepped down from ferrari that was mattia benotto okay he's the ceo he looks after the entire operation basically he used to be a mechanic for michael schumacher and he got promoted to to that role cool um i'm bored that's such a good story michael schumacher is a mechanic he wants seven world titles yeah i'm bored let's get to the world cup brother yes this is what this episode
is for guys yes sir shall we run through quickly the players who are currently featuring at the world cup who play in seria on sedef yeah i won't say quickly because it's the entire premise of this episode but yeah we can we can run through them let's do it bro so first of all there are three teams in seria who do not have a single player featuring in this world cup who are these three teams brother okay so it could either be two things it could either be teams that have
mostly italian players in their team or the newly or the newly promoted teams i would say they monza are a mix of both yeah monza are one of them monza don't have a single player featuring in the world cup which means by the way they're training as a unit right now and you know full team doing full drills they might be good after the break now i want to say obviously cremones and and and letcher are easy choices but i also feel that empoli don't have many so one of them's
gotta go and i don't know which one but cremonez they have obviously the center back what's umtiti isn't at the world cup he wasn't he's with letcher oh sorry sorry i meant letcher um i would have to say the other team is letcher yes so there's monza there's letcher and then probably i said them yes there those are the three teams that do not have any cremones or what aphanadrian they have aphanadrian indeed and they've got vasquez
playing for mexico ah vasquez okay now there are three teams from the ceiba who have players featuring in the ceiba who are they oh from ceiba i couldn't tell you i was just listening to our podcast to our last episode in the car and i heard matias bring one up an australian gentleman yes sir um i forgot his name oh oh i know one of them is glick yes one of them is glick glick plays for benevento of course it's benevento barry and brescia barry have chedira of morocco while
brescia have karachic of austria karachic i knew he had an itch in his name yes sir so let's go so atalanta have one two three four players featuring for them in the world cup um i hope i do not have to count them out loud manually so yes atalanta have pasalic melee darun and coupe miners at the world cup and pasalic of course representing croatia mailer representing denmark darun and coupe miners representing the netherlands balania have got arbiter representing switzerland and
skorupski representing poland even though he does not start kremener of course as we discussed have vasquez who plays with mexico and afanadrian who plays with gana fiorantina have zurkovski featuring for poland melinkovic and jovich for serbia amrabat for morocco and of course nico gonzalez originally had been called up by argentina but was withdrawn by the end of it did not end up going and due to injury but it had been addressed by italiano that he was mentally unavailable
exactly as well inter have brosevich had onana have lukaku at the world cup of course um unlimitedly they're representing actually brosevich of course is representing croatia onana is representing cameroon lukaku is representing belgium devry and dumfries with the netherlands lautaro martinez and korea representing argentina juventus have danilo and alexandro as well as bremer representing brazil mckenny for the usa rabio for france schezny and milik for poland kostich and vlaović for
serbia paredes and dimaria for argentina juventus are actually the team that have the most players featuring at the world cup in this area just worldwide yes sir let's see how many of these guys take under the table deals lots of you have milinkovic salvage featuring for serbia and vecino or vecino rather featuring for uruguay milan have simone kier with demmark dest at the usa teo hernandez and jirou for france decay talara for belgium leao for portugal and balotora for
senegal nopoly have got anguissa representing cameroon zelinski with poland olivera uruguay kim jaymin with south korea and chucky lozano representing mexico roma have samovski representing poland vinya representing uruguay rui patricio for portugal debala for argentina by salernetana have piantec representing poland dia representing senegal and bron representing tunisia sam doria have beresinski with poland jurečić with serbia and sabiri with morocco sasualo only have erlich
at the world cup he's representing croatia spezia have ampadu with wales cubier with poland terino have quite a few as well they've got vlasic with croatia ricardo rodriguez with switzerland lukec radonjic and vanja milinkovic salvage with serbia udeneza have a bossa with cameroon and verona have rustic with australia hongla with cameroon and lazovic and ilic with serbia now of course i need to address also the seriaberg players we're we're we've already discussed the
benevento of glick with poland barry have cedira with morocco and breccia have karajic with australia now brother let's start off by discussing the most successful outings from these guys from this extensive group and list of players let's start off with france who have theo hernandez rabio and olivier giroux they all played brilliantly to be honest they probably all started because other people were out injured yeah that's it i mean all of them yeah all of them literally
there's pogba i guess we have started instead of rabio probably benzema instead of giroux and of course theo hernandez brother instead of him he got injured that's why he came apparently as a left back there was much better it's daft in my opinion how can he not start theo hernandez you know giroux okay i get it you start benzema fine fine fair enough even rabio at the moment is hard to bench i think he would have started anyway maybe there has what two assists man yeah he's been he's been
super he really changed the game against australia when he came on and he's been superb throughout and giroux of course has been old reliable you know it's so funny to see like it's been 25 minutes and olivier giroux has only had one touch or three touches wait man just wait yeah great give him a ball in the box come on but yeah anyway enough about that we praise this guy way too much rabio of course has continued his zinedine rabio form yeah and he carried that into the world cup
and he has been instrumental for france and midfield yeah especially in the first game man he said himself even got himself a goal he did yeah he looked incredible next up shall we discuss schezney schezney has saved two penalties one of them on messi especially fucking incredible save it's the same old confidence schezney shrugging off you know no problem no problem he said to the argentina players as they were taunting him while messi was stepping up to take the penalty and he
went on to save it we've seen him trash talk players before and he often comes out on top doesn't he yes no he's a he's a monster from the spot he's a fucking monster it doesn't matter what round of form he's going through he's always magnificent from the spot that's true and i don't know psychologically he has it down he's a professional psychological player i'm just looking at him you wouldn't think the guy's a shithouse you know what i mean then you watch that video back when he was
so so it happened again he's a shithouse you know he loves it he's brilliant he's got the mentality um amrabat bro for me running the show for morocco honest in the middle they're through morocco we know yes so are poland by the way yeah amrabat kept up the momentum from the league he broke down play brilliantly he also influenced the transitional play fantastically it's it's like you're watching him at fiorentino literally yes he plays in the same way same old amrabat like i
i would say that he's one of the best in his position if not you know in it i don't think in italy man i don't think there's a player who's both as capable as breaking down play and you know keeping the play ticking as well as he is ben nasser is fucking brilliant and probably yes technically ben nasser is better than amrabat but then amrabat has a physicality that ben nasser makes up for with his aggression but you know it's not quite the same i mean when you're that big
and that athletic at the same time it's a massive asset for anything yeah i mean physically he's morbid for it what i prefer about ben nasser is is the manner in which he can get around yeah and the shift how he shifts exactly he's faster in the transition than amrabat with with ben nasser you concentrate a little bit more on the output yeah and then amrabat you concentrate a bit more on breaking down play i like them both it depends on what system the team plays in though now that
was a bark they probably didn't even hear it sabiri scored a free kick sabiri scored a fantastic free kick yeah sabir you have a fluke with the goalkeeper to be honest he went near post he caught him off guard he fucked him up that was brilliant by sabiri man we've seen that sabiri can create things out of nothing we've seen that he has moments of brilliance he has an interesting ceiling this guy i imagine him playing with a with a good seiya team in the future yeah man he he's
definitely got something very very special man very special the way he can hit a ball and and his intelligence when it comes to that he's brilliant i think his ceiling is very high yeah and morocco have been brilliant of course their defensive record was was very good and these guys proving to be instrumental for the side medhi benatia was not there interesting no weird seeing morocco without the the moroccan gunman now bro was not starting due to the massive respect portugal have
for ronaldo he came off the bench he switched up the gears and he scored a few minutes in he came to the second game but not was not as successful um the rumor is that ronaldo won't be starting the next portugal game apparently didn't even show up the training or something i saw something about him we'll see what's going on with him apparently got a massive offer from a team in saudi arabia al nasser al nasser yeah he's gonna be making something like 175 million a year bro i
saw 500 million in two years there have been many figures thrown around the smaller the paper typically the higher the figure that's the way these things go um but yes so maybe that has something to do with it but yes if those rumors are true um leão will indeed be starting for portugal in their next and i think i mean we know how leão operates to give leão a full game at some point he's gonna do one of the things that he does like he impresses he gets you on the edge
of your seat that's why he attracts so much attention overseas reese james is saying he's one of the toughest opponents exactly it's and it's crazy to see because if you come on and you score right after on the first match you'd think you'd be given more time in the second match if that's what you can do in five let's see what you can do in 15 you know what i mean well it certainly hasn't been the case because his playtime is still not what it should be i think
he should start yeah personally or at least come on in the fucking 60th if you're not gonna start for sure of course he should definitely start um vanja milinkovic salvage bro is a caged giant serbia must keep him in chains in the dressing room man like to stop him from just clubbing everywhere he truly is a fantastic and formidable site man he is six foot eight fucking agile you know pulls off incredible saves he's been really good man he's been solid
commands the area hoofs balls upfield and switches up play he's been a top player he's really improved yeah the last few seasons for sure for sure one thing we're seeing is he's using his size to his advantage better like it seems like you know when donna roma used to stand between the sticks during a penalty he's kind of taken that like he's making himself big he's really utilizing that height and and to command his area as well he's a beast in the entire box we saw him
for argentina he stood in the middle of the box during one of the during one of the corners messy went for a goal and if you have never seen it google vanja milinkovic salvage free kick okay the guy has taken free kicks for torino in the past and there's one of them where he struck the post almost fucking scoring thunders free kick it's crazy to see he's such a cool player yeah and we've seen him take penalties and penalties shootouts as well he's an entertaining one man
so those were the top performers in my opinion honorable mentions a few players have scored dia has scored for cameroon granted it was a gift to him there was a defensive area but um i liked dia i i think his movement has been good and if senegal actually play him the ball more yeah um he would be more successful no he's been good as well it's not just obviously the output he plays well with the team you know what i mean exactly sergiem linkovic salvage scored for serbia but has been
deployed out wide as a left winger and that does not in my opinion suit him very well this stoic of which whatever the fuck his name is the manager i'm sorry i'm sure he knows the team better than i do but the lineup that he plays for example really doesn't utilize the player that the players that he has their full potential like not starting vlovich is another one and there are these fucking rumors going around that he's fucking the sub goalkeepers woman yeah and apparently he's being
punished by not starting it's crazy man crazy mitrovich is starting ahead of him mitrovich has to be fair quite a few goals in the camera yeah so yeah but they have love do you believe the rumor i put a poll recently was quite 50 50 for the majority of time i'm not sure because these things obviously happen in football it happens even out of football he might have done it i don't know but that's not the reason as to why he's starting the game or not starting the game i would say
look i don't think he did it but there's an expression no where there's smoke there's fire and there's a hell of a lot of smoke baby yeah um we've seen lozano with mexico he was quite ferocious wasn't he he asserted himself a lot he was very active i think he would have hoped that he had a slightly more successful camp mexico it took a while to to turn it up to be honest in the last game they looked amazingly in saudi arabia
yeah and the fact the commentator was saying like where has this mexico side been and it's true and they played you do it they looked like they could they could do it yeah i i mean when you're in that bad position that you're in in the last game like your best side comes out you know what i mean i think the best way to judge the team's capabilities is over the three matches so i really don't think mexico did enough but obviously they were fired up in the last one and they wanted to
get the result bron has been reliable with tunisia they were unfortunate not to qualify after beating france's reserve team um padu looked his usual hustling self with whales he always impresses me on padu um ricardo rodriguez was his usual leader self at um of course switzerland um i was not impressed by switzerland whatsoever this world cup bro i thought they turned up to most games with a defensive approach and that is unforgivable you have to go for it in a world cup game and i
think when you look at the success smaller teams than switzerland have had i think switzerland will be kicking themselves for taking that approach for sure man karacic was dependable for australia um breccia's man made it through to the round of 16 he's the 26 year old fullback of course bro australia uh that was like the sucker rules baby the least one i was expecting man the least one i was expecting but they once again look like a unit man they look good man defensively they're sound
they look as a good team they have absolute like like really not many players i would say stand out a bunch of a league players and a bunch of scottish premier league players like mui in the middle ah exactly exactly they're a fun side to watch man i'm really impressed by the international teams because i always thought that like ah these guys don't train much together so it's not on the same level as um as club football because clubs football they go through longer periods training
with each other but it's it's like they play together all the time some of these teams the smaller teams was like you'd rather be playing in the world cup for australia than playing in the a league you know what i mean so they really that that's what they look forward to all the time i just think that it's such a high stakes stage that like they try their very best and they're hyper away every second there's no there's no time to get distracted and you need to execute every move
perfectly you're punished if you fuck up um yeah and i think that that you know makes them play more safely and more focused uh-huh and it is true they they do perform well together bro some of these teams have been quite intricate however many fans have been saying that um this has been a low quality world cup low quality world cup maybe if we're talking about leaky defenses like probably if you look at the fact that costa rica yeah like the the biggest teams are losing to the
smallest teams maybe that's the point they're trying to make everyone's on a level playing field no one really stands out but uh everyone everyone stands a chance exactly i don't think it's it's low quality at all i think even the likes of of england i was discussing with my colleagues today i was telling them what a versatile team england have man they have so many direct replacements for everyone and they have weapons everywhere like imagine deserby was
england's coach literally they would win every trophy like literally the euros the world cup all england it'll come home team it'll come home if deserby was the england manager it'll come home and then and then there's there's the likes of brazil argentina france have looked really good together as well spain looked really good but now they just fucking lost to japan so that's what we're talking about you know what i mean exactly when it comes to terrible outings bro i have a
few players over here i think melinkovic with serbia has been terrible and he's been a high ability on the back when it comes to the defensive line man he's often keeping people on side and then raising his hand like you know offside like you're keeping him on brought back he plays in italy in italy with fiorantina with italianos fiorantina but yeah he's looked a little bit lethargic and one step behind quite frankly and serbia in general have not looked very good bro i
was expecting more from them it's a bit of a shame i think even we'll see how they do in their last game it's interesting because when you look at the 2018 world cup they also had a fantastic team on paper a really really good team remember a colleague of mine i used to work at a restaurant and a colleague and serbian his name was vukasin and he was telling me bro we have one of the best teams there and i'm like i know i believe you but they were terrible and they got knocked out in the
in the groups and then after that in the qualifiers for the 2022 world cup they topped portugal yeah in the group they were the best team there and then they turn up to the actress it's almost like they're scared of the big stage it's true i mean there's a lot of pressure i mean you have a whole nation watching you newspapers go berserk with expectations it's it's not easy otherwise and i think it might have a few hotheads in it not not hotheads maybe some egos yes i would
say because again these are star players man every single one of them but all of them want to be the big player of serbia you know what i mean yeah that's true that's a very good point thank you oh nana played one game and got sent home here the tactical disagreement with the manager he insisted on being deployed as a ball player i.e a sweeper keeper aliu sisse disagreed with him of course and sent him home apparently you know onana was really adamant yeah i don't think it was just like
hey i want to be a sweeper keeper fuck off go home get the fuck out i really don't think that was the case i think onana was rebelling and like i won't play if you're not going to deploy me at a sweeper keeper i'm a sweeper keeper i want to be a sweeper keeper have you ever heard of simone enzog you know i'll wait to the game go swap someone else go keeper i'm tired of keeper i want to play i mean you're in the world you're in the world copier manager is telling you listen
focus on the box focus on the box he's the boss exactly you have to do what the boss says man exactly the boss was in your situation he played in the world cup with senegal exactly lao taro bro he was hearty harshly done by offside calls during the first game for us you know but still has failed to score i was expecting him to have kind of a breakout at this world cup yeah i thought he'd be when you look at the talent around him feeding him and him being such a great finisher
yeah i was expecting more from him does this go to the conversation we have all the time about him maybe he's only really good enough to up front or maybe he's simply not used to the being the this old man up front with with inter he's always been deployed with a second striker exactly yeah it's true that's um that's fair enough he alongside a target man a big guy up front he performs very well exactly which is why we saw him do so well with look up a couple of seasons ago as you
mentioned um vlovic shag the goalkeeper's wife and has built his injuries for that reason um the most latest the most recent one for us was uh lukaku's disaster clause for belgium their most recent game their last game of the world cup bro what did you make of that lukaku performance it's one of the worst striking performances ever seen because you have four chances that are all deemed bad misses i guess the one where the ball was counted into his shin i guess you can say he didn't have time
to react and he's a big stocky striker so he wouldn't expect them to score that but the other three oh my god the header absolutely open goal just just to put it in he had one it was a a long ball a long cross whipped in perfectly past the goalkeeper past all the defenders he's there and he chests it into the goalkeeper instead of being agile and mobile enough to volley it and he saw it coming from a mile away like man yeah it was a horrendous display but to be fair to
lukaku this was his first game back properly in like seven months you know he's rusty he's shaking off the rust and he was featuring for chelsea he came back for entry scored he got injured again he's far from fully fit of course and i think mentally he's he's not close to being optimal at all no but exactly you could see all that man yeah you could see all of it in him and the belgium's golden generation had a lot of pressure to perform this was their last dance there was the brouhain
who publicly came out and said like we're we're getting old man we're tired are you are you kidding me in croatia are old and tired as well but they're still fucking killing it a stupid comment to make what belgium don't play well now for the same reason that they didn't play well back when they were all physically in their prime yeah except they're a bit worse now because yes they're a little bit older right i see that i see that the fact that they still rely on
vertongen and and alder wild at the back is what eden and thorgens still in your team after what eden has been through recently sure you bring him to the world cup but maybe don't start him yeah don't start strikers everywhere they're playing mertens carrasco lucaku thorgan hazard eden hazard all these players so attacking might relax that's true relax and yes the person in charge has plenty of time to relax as martinez has been sacked by belgium so no no he wasn't
he wasn't sacked he he decided before the world cup that he was gonna leave he's been at the end though serious spotlight you read it here he decided before the world cup i'm gonna leave belgium after this is my last good i mean he wasn't too sad in my opinion he wasted an entire generation of footballing talent i'm sorry it's true what the fuck get sacked yeah bro i mean now you look at belgium's team and that's true none of them none of
none of them are in their prime vizel is still there kurt was in his prime what was the best guy ever been madonna and the bruin is still the bruin yeah but i didn't see anything from him oh i mean he played all those balls to the cockle bro fair enough yeah um cdk as well had a bit of a mare but of course that was expected um you know there's a lot of pressure on the kid right now i liked sergio in your desk bro with the usa he was instrumental going for it and their offensive
play but he's a key part of it and come on usa the grave you made it man you made it through no i'm glad i'm happy for the us of a and i'm happy for a desk as well he does see more himself with them obviously the guy is still adapting to not your normal league man a very tactical league where you have to be very very disciplined with every step that you make and he has some more freedom with the u.s and and he's good on the ball man he's good at attacking he's strong man he can
get back quick as well he looks good solid looks very good and the usa look very good too they have players who all play in europe they're a great team and they have players from villaria they've players from chelsea milan they have uventos they have players from every arsenal yeah it's just funny to see bro that when whenever england play all right like england played the usa they played this talented usating england are so overrated that the odds are always mental i played a usa or draw
in a group stage match and the odds were 2.5 usa or draw i put 30 euro on it i want i would not have pleased that i'm not gonna die what are you talking about bro the england are really good at like lurking outside the area and then no one plays it to cain i guess cain leaves the box and then creates something because cain is a fantastic player like he's a great playmaker as well and he creates everything for them and and to be honest i do think that they're a bunch of
100 million euro men who i personally wouldn't pay 100 million euro for maybe i wouldn't pay 100 million euro for most of their players bro but the fact of the matter in my opinion they have such a talented group of players and so many of them the fact that you have to choose between players like foden grilish rashford sancho two of them or one of them starts and the others are bench but they're all having a tough time but then like rashford comes in and he does that for example we
know grilish is capable of coming in and doing something cain is capable of doing something and and then you look at the midfield have calvin phillips on the bench for example they have very very talented group of players i love their goalkeeper pickford is a shit house and uh shesney from wish i think they're a very talented bunch i think it says a lot about usa that they manage to hold them of course i mean they're a talented bunch the usa are also a talented bunch
yes i think i think as in world separate them i think i think england and will progress obviously way further than you and then the us hadn't heard that one in a while we are back with the question segment for this episode we kind of miss i miss the question segment i miss it too but you know the episodes are long enough the way they are like i don't want to make them too long yeah i do miss it though we should do it
every now and then why not yes let's let's engage so thank you very much those who have sent in your questions we're going to be going through them to drop us a question for future episodes you can follow us on seo spotlight on instagram or twitter and follow our tiktok as well our tiktok is pretty pretty good pretty nifty our first hot take comes from luca at acm legend 22 on twitter ravella would start for this current uv aside had they not loaned him out
i mean interesting because without injuries yeah it's pretty stacked over there yes but with injuries you would have started within within with injuries it'd be consistent right now consistently in the team yeah and he's very very good he could do them a fucking service yeah yeah i think we even though we're speaking about our tops and flops we rated him pretty highly man he's been having a great season really good at making this team everyone's a newbie he's a newbie himself
and he's making the entire team gel himself from midfield he's doing great um he's developing very nicely too he also asks simone bastoni is the best bastoni in the league he didn't ask it he said it actually simona bastoni is the best bastoni in the league what do you think you know what bro yes i think i think if you had to look at who influences his side more who is more pivotal to his team simona bastoni is more pivotal to specia than than alessandro bastoni is to winter who is
the better player on paper alessandro bastoni was the highest seeding alessandro bastoni but simona bastoni of course is very fun to watch yeah i think i think if you were to look at both of them i think alessandro devoted to that center back position and as a center back he's the better player yes yeah um however simone is very instrumental he's very versatile like you're saying he's very fun to watch as well on certain days especially this season so far i have every
reason to believe that simona bastoni is the best bastoni in the league but i think overall you have you just have to give it to alessandro the versatility point is a good one insta flin 325 on instagram flingerman our friend has asked us who will win the best derby the best derby being the netherlands against the united states of america that's such a good game man that's they're quite similar um i i i would say the u.s yeah same i i don't like the
tactical setup of the netherlands at all i don't like what louis van ghal has been doing with them they're very defensive he doesn't make the most out of their offensive players he's got memphis the pie up there you know like like he's barely utilizing him they've got dumfries who's been forced to defend hasn't looked that good to be honest i haven't enjoyed watching them just like i haven't enjoyed watching switzerland poland and all these these other teams the u.s on the other
hand is a team that i've been enjoying watching quite a bit and i think they might have what it takes man if they go out and play that fucking fun to watch football that they do and the dutch are just very conservative and not exciting and not explosive going forward i think the u.s might actually get something done here yeah the netherlands probably appear to be more street smart so we'll see if the usa will be naive since they don't have much experience on this stage i have been
impressed by the netherlands cody gackpollo he has looked very very good yeah i think he's the only player definitely the only player this this world cup so far um to score in every single fixture to score in all three fixtures three fixtures of the group stage has he scored in all three i think he scored two three holy shit that's crazy our boy pablo pablo dot dns asks who are your favorites that you hope will go far in the world cup i have been saying this since day
one for me it's argentina when argentina lost to saudi arabia i said argentina for me argentina won this world cup i like them as a unit i like them as a collective i think they all want to give it the messy literally not in the sexual way i think that um they have the fans behind them i i think it's it's such a special team yes current argentina i think they'll go all the way i i agree i think argentina will go all the way still i'm remaining loyal to my original opinion and now
the path is looking decent for them it is it is it's looking okay um however that being said i'm really enjoying morocco and when when it comes to a more fun rather than prediction i'm really really rooting for morocco yeah i would like an underdog i have to be honest as well morocco serbia would be a nice one imagine imagine as in like i'm rooting overall for serbia but the story of morocco is brilliant yeah same um i would have to say i would like more smaller nations to
win in this time but i do think argentina will our boy czesko czesko underscore 11 on instagram the roma fan he asks have you guys ever kissed and made eye contact for 20 seconds plus after a meal on go bro we do it even if milan don't score exactly we do it at kickoff at the first water break halftime second water break then the final whistle exactly because we don't even look at the screen it's like when you go to the cinema with a girl when you're 17 like yeah and you can't open your
eyes while you're doing that no no you have to feel it in the moment exactly although sometimes i do open my eyes to look at you so my guy never caught you fuck you jesco i love the fuck what the fuck is that question bro come on man ask us about the roman how wank they are why tammy abraham or bellotti aren't fucking scored brilliant question i enjoyed it thank you bro and thank you very much for listening to this episode of say
a spotlight guys once again you can follow us on our socials at say a spotlight do reach out please remember to bother matthew if he does not release an episode hashtag please matt make a trend i'll do it i promise i'll definitely come up with one um hopefully two yep guys remember to rate us five stars as well wherever you're listening um you guys are the best for continuing to follow us we saw our spotify wrap today and we were overwhelmed by the amount of listeners that we're
gathering the support that we're getting overall is amazing man 45 people on spotify have have us as their number one most listened to podcast please if that's you reach out we'd like to know who you are exactly already know who some of you are but please do reach out yeah 125 or some people have us in the in their top 10 man that was actually crazy to see like thank you very much guys it's quite overwhelming considering as well that we started just a year and a half 170 have us in
the top 10 jesus 127 in the top five yeah wow 40 countries people listen from 40 countries so shout out to the usa shout out to australia shout out to europe shout out to all of you guys all of you and uk yeah thank you guys we'll see you well i will see you next week let's bid jake a safe journey to africa have a safe journey jake and leave it up to me guys thank you for listening i'll see you next week this time for africa