Can PSG win the Champions League again?

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The Athletic FC.

Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayo,

PSG dominated club football last season,

finally winning the Champions League as well.

But this year, they've not hit the same height.

So can they step up to defend their European title?

Right, joining us today in the studio,

we've got Tom Williams, we've also got Karl Anker as well,

good to have you with us, Jens.

All right, so ahead of PSG's match against Chelsea

in the last 16 of the Champions League on Wednesday,

we thought we'd talk about their current form.

They lost a Monaco in league last Friday,

meaning their lead has been reduced to just one point.

And of course, Monaco are also the team,

they narrowly beat in the Champions League playoffs as well.

So Tom, this is not the PSG we're used to seeing, is it?

It's not, it hasn't been for a little while,

and I think the expectation in recent weeks

has been that at some point, things would click into place,

and they would become the PSG that we got used to seeing last season,

the one that laid waste to the European elite,

and finally claimed the Champions League,

finally scaled the Everest that the club had been trying to conquer,

ever since the arrival of their Caterione is in 2011.

And as the weeks have gone on, you've started to think,

maybe that just isn't going to happen.

Like I personally have been sitting down to watch PSG

and thinking, surely at some point,

we're going to see some sign that this team is getting close

to what it was last season.

And if anything, it's been the opposite.

The more that time has gone on,

the further away from that level they have got.

And so now you find them approaching this game against Chelsea,

and this tie against Chelsea,

with a sense that if they are going to go through,

it's not going to be playing

the sort of swashbuckling all-action football

that became their trademark last season.

They are just going to have to grind out results

in the hope that that form still returns.

The fact it's the same coach, the fact it's the same player,

the fact it's the same general idea

makes you think that things could click at some point,

but recent evidence does not suggest

that that is about to happen anytime soon.

How the French media treating this?

It was interesting the coverage of the defeat at Monaco,

or the defeat against Monaco,

rather on Friday that you mentioned.

Le Keeps report said,

you know, PSG are on the brink of crisis,

and it is time that we abandon this idea

that they are the same team they were last season.

They are showing week after week

that they are not capable of producing that performance level.

And, you know, we saw that towards the end of the league phase.

I mean, the best football that PSG have produced this season

has tended to be in the Champions League.

In the early weeks of the competition,

they were fantastic in their opening game

against Atalanta, four-neil winners,

won away at Barcelona with a second choice attack,

put seven goals passed by Elevacuson,

and were really flying.

And then they finished the group phase

by taking two points from a possible nine,

drawing away at Attic Bill Bell,

losing away at sporting,

and then drawing it home to Newcastle,

and what would basically, you know,

what felt like a must-win game

if they were to avoid going into the playoff round,

and they weren't capable of raising their level.

And so, I think the feeling in France is that, you know,

we need to perhaps come to terms with the fact

that PSG are just at a different phase in their revolution.

Now, they're not kind of on the launch pad.

They are just sort of muddling around,

desperately trying to find some semblance of form to cling to.

And so, I think most people would still have them as favorites

going into this tie against Chelsea

as the defending champions with all the fantastic players

and the fantastic coach they've got.

But there's very little certainty at PSG at the moment.

Yeah, Carl, not many teams hold on to the Champions League

other than the name Real Madrid, of course.

And you remember the dismantling of Inter Milan

in the Champions League final,

there's a redoing them,

they're doing what they do best, you know,

a kind of a kids from PSG,

scoring late winners as well.

This is a very different outfit.

I rewatched the Spurs match just before this podcast

at PSG Beat Spurs,

but they kind of made a meal of it.

Are you surprised to see the PSG from last season

not really replicating the same kind of swashbuckling

kind of football in the Champions League this season?

A little bit, a little bit, in January.

I'm a friend, Jerry Tackle, who works with PLP.

Well, I was simply watching a PSG game going,

what's going on?

And Jerry, who supports PSG,

offered his points to me

and one thing he made very clear to me was something

I think quite a few of us overlook the club walk up

in that the PSG team that we saw

defeat, not even defeat,

dismantle Inter Milan in that Champions League final.

And the one thing that sticks out to me

about that Champions League final,

yes, the goals, yes, the performance, yes, there's right, do it.

But also, the referee blew exactly on 90 minutes.

He was like, this is done.

It's like a boxing match.

Just like, stop it, stop it.

Done, done.

I'm plugging things,

just wrapping it up this wire on a stereo like this is over.

You don't need to do this anymore.

And then it happened again

into a three other matches in PSG,

early in this season.

But also, they had to go to United States,

they had to play in a club walk up.

They went to the final,

they lost to Enza Morescu's Chelsea in the final.

And one thing that Chelsea fans like to remind people

was the gap between the club walk up final

and Chelsea's first match of the Premier League season

was something around 35 days.

They have a very, very short turnaround.

Now Chelsea can two degree stomach

that quick turnaround a bit more

because they have a very, very deep squad.

They have a large amount of players

and I'm not gonna make a joke about that.

Chelsea have a big squad.

So they can rotate a little bit more

than a PSG team that for manager reasons,

Lewis and Ricky doesn't like working with a particularly

a large squad because he wants to have more contact time

with a lot of these players.

So this PSG team came into the new season quite tired.

They had to play the super cup game as well.

So another short turnaround.

And also, there's been two or three against Tom Hotsper,

which I mean, they were,

Tom went to know up and you think,

and this is Tom was frank,

that get a trophy in his first season

and then they go to the penalty success,

I'm excited, excited, excited.

But then it's, while it's the same players,

there are two or three changes.

I think moving on Donna Ruma and bringing on Lucas Turevelia

is a big change because even,

yes, PSG were fantastic in that Champions League run,

but there were two or three matches

and two or three opportunities where,

I want to say Liverpool had a chance.

I want to say Arsenal had a chance.

So Donna Ruma had to do big things.

I've keep saying it.

Donna Ruma, when he's playing at English club,

his disciples get big.

He just finds an extra five percent

and he's just breaking your heart

and he's been doing it since the year of 2020 final,

where Chevalier and Tom, you can correct me here

if I get any players' pronunciation wrong.

My French is quite bad.

Absolutely spotless, so far.

Thank you very much.

Chevalier was picked because he's good with his feet.

I did a piece ahead of the new season about Manchester United

and about the goalkeeper's Manchester United

might need to replace on J.O.N.A.

and in the piece I wrote about Chevalier,

I said, this is a Pep Guardiola goalkeeper

hiding in plain sight.

He's not necessarily someone who can make himself super big

and get you something out of nothing

to make a huge save.

And therefore the team, I think PSG defensively,

has probably lost five percent just by that goalkeeper swap.

I think Marquinius, you know,

father time has caught up with Marquinius as well.

He's not the same center back that he used to be.

So that's another five, 10 percent off their defense too.

Hakemi has been injured and he's gone to Afcon

and he's just not been the same player that he was last season.

This is a player that for the last three or four years

was regarded the best right back in the world

and now there's a conversation

as to other right backs being in there.

So three members of that back five

are not the players they used to be.

Then you add in the injuries to Dan Bele,

there's a duet, but Abba's been on and off.

So you've got a slightly smaller squad

that played a ridiculous amount of football games last season

including the club World Cup.

They all come back for a brand new season,

two or three changes at the back,

two or three players who are a bit older

and or absent and or injured.

And all of a sudden the team that many, many people

were reloading as the one great team in European football

of a sudden is good-ish.

And I think this is something that might continue to happen

in this new expanded format of the Champions League

where there's no parodies and quite the word.

There are fewer times where I'm going,

that is a great team and more times I'm going,

that is a good team with a goal scorer

who might go supernova for 10 minutes.

I think what happened last season for PSG

is that all the planets aligned.

Luis Enrique found this way of playing

and he didn't come across it prior to the start of the season.

We go back to the first part of last season.

PSG were very underwhelming.

They would very frequently dominate matches

but not score the goals,

that their domination of both possession

and territory suggested they should.

And then he starts playing with his Mandambale

as a false nine halfway through December,

things fall into place.

In the second half of that season, no one got injured.

He was able to rotate players freely

because in Liga, there was no real challenge.

They had a big, they went into the year 2025

with a 10 point lead at the top of the table.

And he was able to work with, as Carl says,

a very small squad and even within that,

12 or 13 key players,

by the time we got to the knockout phase

of the Champions League last season,

you knew pretty much exactly which team was going to start.

The only query between games

was is it going to be dizzy,

I do it or is it going to be bloody back cooler?

Every other player was guaranteed to start.

And PSG produced spectacular,

but quite complicated football,

a very intense, very minutely coordinated press

without the ball,

that involves every single player on the pitch,

positional interchanging,

that involves every player on the pitch.

And because he was able to rest players

in domestic games,

and because none of his players were injured,

it meant that he could work with that very small group of players

week after week after week,

and ended up producing this, you know,

extremely well-drilled kind of football.

And this season, because of the injuries,

but also because of the domestic challenge

from Lars in Liga,

which I know we're going to go on to talk about,

he can't rotate, the players aren't fit.

And so everything that was working last season

is no longer working this season.

And that very,

that very finely calibrated style of football

is just currently beyond them.

And I think, you know,

those are all key factors in explaining why that is.

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Well, let's move on to the Chelsea match on Wednesday

because we did mention they'll be playing Chelsea

in the Champions League Liam Rossini

has a decent record versus PSG.

We know that from his time at Strasbourg.

So one win, one draw and one loss.

Now, how have previous meetings gone with this two sides?

Because I'd like to think Rossini is coming into this.

There I say it with a much bigger squad car

and feeling possibly a little bit more confident

than he probably would under Strasbourg in legal.

Yes, but also we spoke to him

and the way that explained about taking on PSG.

He was like, well, go for it.

Yeah, I think in football,

it's one of those sports where you can play really, really well

and you don't always win and you can play really well

and you can lose the way I gauge my team is always

on performance and in terms of our performance and our bravery

and the players engagement infuse as a man energy.

As a manager, you can't ask for any more.

So even if we'd lost the game,

the way that the players conducted themselves

in the way that I wanted us to play.

Now, I was so proud.

I was one of the proudest moments of my career

but hopefully there's many more to come as well.

These are the games you want to manage.

These are the games you want to be a football player

and that was Liam's entire approach.

He talked about his history playing for Hall,

playing for Brighton and playing for

some of the smaller teams that when they finally got to go to

to Anfield or when they got to Old Trafford

and he'd explained his own frustration

about playing the bigger teams and not really touching the ball

because everyone sort of,

the game plan was about sitting in deep and I was like,

oh, well, this is the pinnacle in my career

and I've just stood there looking up,

watching balls just go over in my head

because we're playing a long ball.

I believe when we spoke to him,

Strasbourg had just drawn three-three with PSG

after being two goals up at the start

and Strasbourg pressed very, very high

which you can do that when you're the Strasbourg coach

because you've got very, very young players

but also I think you can do that more against this PSG team

because, as Tom has explained,

the very, very precise footballing machine

has been disrupted into her three phases.

Fabian Rousse does not look the same player in 2026

that he was in 2025.

There's been an entry to Jal Nevers

who, I mean, that kid is scary good.

Special, isn't he?

If Pep Guardiola signs Jal Nevers were all in trouble

and I mean that as the greatest compliment,

Jal Nevers is five foot nine-ish

and he's ability to predict where the ball is going to land

when it's been up in the air

is the only player I've seen with that sort of size

who's that good in predicting the flight of a ball

is in Galicante, like he's brilliant.

Vittinia, sometimes Vittinia's a nine out of 10,

sometimes he's a seven out of 10

but Vittinia can't do everything.

He's exceptionally the first phase,

Fabian Rousse and Jal Nevers takes things in the second phase

and this is it, in that PSG have a lot of good players

but they may turn into great players

because their weaknesses are hidden very often

by the other football players next to him.

It's very good squad building

when everyone is fit and everyone's fit

and everyone's fit and everyone's doing well.

When they're not, that's the interesting bit

and the fact that Leon is a little bit more competitive now

and the fact that you've got a manager in the Emersonio

who has already, I'm not gonna say profit too,

profit maybe isn't the word when it's a 3-3 draw

but has dented PSG in the past.

I think is...

I think there's a psychological edge here.

I think there's not going to be no fear

when he's going through his training routines

and when he's doing things on the whiteboard.

I also think increasingly now

when we are watching Champions League football

or Europa League football,

the physicality of the Premier League now

is coming to the fore.

In that, I mean, Tottenham Hotspur are in a relegation battle

and yet they were finished the league phase fourth

because even the smaller fishes in the Premier League

are able to hurt and run with an intensity

that a lot of teams outside of,

in Europe's other top five leagues,

cannot quite manage.

So if you're a Chelsea player,

if you're more like this,

say it all, go at them.

And I'm sure,

and I'm sure one of the Chelsea coaches

is telling him words to that effect,

well, far more complicated instructions

and just go at them.

But yeah, I'm really, really interested

to see how Premier League combativeness works

against a PSG team that can be very, very good

using possession as a defensive tool as well.

Yeah.

Man, Karl talks about going at them at your own peril

because we've also seen PSG this season

absolutely obliterate teams.

You look at the Marseille 5'0 in league.

Ah, you look at that leal game with Dembele

doing what Dembele does.

You know, that chip.

Dembele.

Oh, Chimney's long way.

Pulls back.

Dembele, what's it all?

That is super.

That graceful drag back and then chip over the keeper.

You know, this is still a stack team.

You spoke about Vittinia there.

You know, the Tottenham game.

Vittinia's first career hat trick against Tottenham,

rescuing his team from a possible defeat,

you know, against Tottenham Hotspur.

This is still a stack team.

Let's not forget them.

Yeah, it's the exact same team as last season on paper

with the one difference being in goal, as Karl said,

and clearly replacing last season's outstanding goalkeeper,

Jean-Louis Jadona Ruma, the current holder

of the Ash in Trophy with Lucas Chivalier,

who then lost his place to his Russian understudy,

Matt Vesafanov, who's basically a goalkeeper

with a similar profile to Dona Ruma,

but multiple levels below him has not been a success.

But it is all the same players, and we have seen glimpses,

and that's one of the great frustrations with PSG,

is that you do see these glimpses,

and Dembele's form since the start of the years

been one of the few bright spots,

because he has had multiple injury problems.

It was a hamstring problem in the first part of the season.

Since Christmas, it's been carfish shoes.

It was the carfish shoe that forced him off

in the first leg of the playoff round tie against Monaco.

He came on for last half an hour against Monaco on Friday,

looked relatively sharp.

But there again, is it, would it be a risk to start him,

given that there is now that vulnerability?

But he has shown with that fantastic brace against Leo,

that impossibly delicate laugh-foot-chip brace

that he scored against Marseille as well.

And they need that, because you watch PSG attack

when he isn't on the pitch,

and they looked to him even when he isn't there.

They used to him dropping in and dragging centre-backs

around and creating space for the wide players

to attack in the central midfield as to attack.

And that doesn't happen when he's not there.

It's been interesting that in the last few weeks,

Lewis and Ricke has been trying Bradley Barcola

as a false-knighting.

Very much not his natural position,

but he's scored three in three in Liga

and has shown some signs that he might occasionally be

a serviceable, understudy to D'Ambelli in that role.

But yeah, it's not quite the same thing.

So talent-wise, there can be no disputing

how good this PSG team is.

But I think the fundamental issue is that physically,

they are not capable, or they do not seem

capable of playing the kind of very high-octane,

that smothering football that they did last season,

and that's with and without the ball.

And as you say, when you get a team that attacks them

as naively as Mercedes,

that team can find themselves in big trouble,

but if you get a team who do it a bit more intelligently,

a Monaco have done that very well in recent weeks.

Obviously, the winning league on,

but even in the two matches of the playoff round,

when both teams had 11 men on the pitch,

Monaco actually won that tie,

which shows how much PSG struggled to bait them down,

and how Monaco were able to exploit some of the weaknesses

in PSG's play when they did have the ball.

So yeah, on paper, there can be no contesting the talent,

but the sad reality for PSG is that it's been several weeks now

where what you see on paper hasn't quite translated

to what you see out on the pitch.

Let's move our attention to League on briefly, Carl.

I think since 2012, PSG have pretty much won League on,

I think only Leal and also Monaco,

only other teams that have won it.

I mean, Carlo Ancelotti finally bringing League on

back to PSG under his reign.

I mean, for the product,

and I know PSG could still go ahead and win this

for the product though, if Ron's win this,

this is great, this is wonderful.

The mighty PSG can be toppled.

Yes, yes, look,

German Renato Sanchez.

Yes, Renato Sanchez.

Renato Sanchez, young player of the tournament at Euro 2016,

Atben Fieker goes to Bayern Munich,

gets loads of injuries to Bayern Munich,

has an unsuccessful Loan sport, Swansea ends up at Leal.

It's part of that Leal League on winning side,

and now every time someone goes,

oh, Renato Sanchez didn't do much,

I'm like, ah, ah,

one of French League titles for someone that wasn't PSG.

He then eventually went to PSG and didn't quite work out,

and they went to Rome, etc, etc, etc.

But I am now farce becoming of the opinion that,

if you can win the French League title for someone

that isn't PSG, that is a heavier medal.

So French football is in a really interesting position

in that the broadcast deal,

and the most recent broadcast that I want to say

lost to a three have been terrible,

and they have, the French League has been quite honest

about how the recent days have been terrible

and trying to package up a new sort of subscription style

package for anyone interested.

And we've got the wonderful Alex Barker

at the Atadek who's a huge proponent

and a huge fan of French football,

and he's constantly telling all of us

about how cheap it is to watch all the French League games

and how he wanted to be doing this as well.

So you've got that, and increasingly for leagues,

if your broadcast deal is terrible,

you're just gonna suffer.

You're gonna find it really, really hard to get people

to watch your games in addition to the matches

they're already gonna watch.

Domestically, it's a lot harder to get hold

of the flow and narratives of your league

outside of Champions League games.

So I mean, the majority of the time I'm watching PSG,

I want to say 95% of the time I'm watching PSG,

it is a Champions League match.

So I'm only watching them X amount of times.

And also there's a problem of the Premier League

is just an all-encompassing, devouring beast

in that when I actually nightplayed Leon

in the Europa League last season,

I had the great joy of talking to a scout

for a Premier League club, and they were based in France.

And they explain it to me in that the French League

makes good players all the time.

The French League finds it increasingly hard

to produce good teams, because the moment,

two or three good players emerge at someone

that isn't PSG, a Premier League club goes,

oh, thanks mate, I love that, boom, boom, boom.

And you get cherry picked.

So if there is ever a season where the stars align,

where PSG is having a down period

and another club is having a good period

and perhaps they've got a good academy class

or perhaps they've got a good coach

or perhaps one of their strikers goes supernova

and you can get a winning run.

Absolutely, fantastic, good for the product

because it gets more eyeballs on there.

And if you've got, now the French League

is slightly improving their broadcast deals,

it is now easier to tune in.

I want to watch Monaco this season

because they got Paul Pogba and Anne Souffatty

and two or three other players.

And I went, well, I want to see how this works out.

So I paid a sort of trial subscription for you

and I've been watching Monaco games three or three times, right?

Loans.

But sadly not much of Paul Pogba.

Yes, yes.

Unfortunately not, I'm not going to see much of Paul Pogba.

But this, I think this is the thing now in that,

increasingly in the not, if you're not the Premier League,

leagues are now having to think very, very smartly

about how do we get the quote unquote casual viewer

or the, I'm going to watch you once in a month viewer.

And the French, the French League

have now got a streaming service and online offering

that makes it very, very straightforward.

And if you can do that, that means in times like this,

where there is a genuine competitor to the PSG,

you can get more eyeballs onto your product.

And then hopefully those eyeballs can stick,

providing those competitors can stay together.

I remember speaking to Jose Fonte after, again,

after Leo won the league.

He was a Leo, yeah.

He was a Leo and he used to play for Southampton.

So when I was a Southampton reporter,

I had a conversation with him two or three times.

And when he won the league, I sort of sent my message

after the victory thinking, well, you know,

he's just going to league title.

He's not going to want to respond to me.

And he eventually did.

And I was just chuffed a bit and he explained

what it meant to him to be a French League champion.

Yeah, you can really, really see how much it means

to win a league title when you're not at PSG.

And also, quite frankly, if you're a manager at PSG

and you don't win the league, I'm looking at you

with sideways eyes going, you want me?

So like, Pochettino didn't win in his first season.

A Carlo Ancelotti did not win in his first season.

And Tom, you can correct me here.

I believe Ancelotti came in midway through

in his first season.

He did, and PSG came in and he had like a sign now.

He came in at Christmas time.

And I'm pretty sure PSG had like a six plus points lead

at the top.

And they didn't win it.

So you do need a unique alchemy for PSG

to not get it done.

But when it does happen, it's absolutely worth watching

every single week or at least in high level.

I'm not sure if they were that far clear,

but you're right.

It was nevertheless a fairly enormous surprise,

particularly given they lost the league to Montpellier.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm looking at these about Montpellier

that I read the other day.

Montpellier led by Olivier Giroud.

Giroud, you know, and referred to in this piece

that I read as, you know, France is less the city

in terms of the probability of that title win.

And talk to me about, along the possibility of them

winning league time.

I don't think they've won the top tier since the 90s,

I imagine, like 1998.

1998, I mean, come on.

This would be amazing considering the riches

that exist at PSG and the plethora of talent

that they have at their disposal.

There are so many levels to this.

I could literally talk about, about Lance for,

and this is your time to have this day.

First of all, the fact that any club other than PSG

might win Liga is remarkable.

But the fact that it's Lance,

this very traditional club from the North of France

with this fantastic boxy English style stadium

that has been sold out for something like 81 Liga

and Home Games in a row.

This club that has had to sell so many of its best players

in recent years, you go back to January last year

and Abdukadeh, Kusanat of going to Manchester City,

Kevin Dancer going to Tottenham.

They lost their starting goalkeeper,

Boris Sombra, went around at the same time.

There's just been this constant churn.

And then here we are this season

with a new head coach in PSG.

He was sacked at Leon and in a manner

that a lot of people both at Leon and elsewhere

felt was very unfair.

And with this really interesting,

Hodgepodge collection of players,

players whose careers were drifting players,

who looked like they reached a dead end,

who've just been picked up

and put into this fantastically coached team,

playing very uncomplicated, quite direct

but extremely effective football, flying wingbacks,

Floyd Antauva, who came in from Udinese last summer,

playing just of Odson Eduard,

whose career looked like it had completely come off the rails

in England.

And these players just kind of picked up,

seemingly from nowhere,

who've now proven themselves as being

among the very best players in Liga.

And it is a classic case of halves and have nots.

They are, I mean, Leo winning the title in 2021

was remarkable and comparable to this.

Monaco likewise, albeit Monaco,

have always had money behind them.

But this is a proper underdog story.

And so it's, yeah, it's the halves and the have nots.

And there was a feeling up until, I'd say,

even last weekend,

that lawns chance have probably been in gone

in that prior to last weekend,

they were four points behind PSG.

They'd lost unexpectedly at home to Monaco,

having been too near up.

They'd played well,

but then drawn away, it's Hazborg and PSG had won.

And you're like, okay, we know the drill.

PSG just going to move through the gears,

lawns are going to encounter turbulence

and then this dream sadly will die.

But then PSG lose at home to Monaco,

lawns, brushersides,

mets who are the bottom club in Liga

and suddenly the title race is back on.

And if you look at lawns running,

they've got nine fixes remaining.

Most of them are winnable.

There are some key games.

There's a trip to Leo in the WDNR,

which is always a game that matters

a huge amount in that part of the world.

It is a route as well, of course.

And then the following weekend,

we kind of 12th and 13th of April,

I think it is lawns at home to PSG.

I think the whole for everyone who follows French football

is that they are still within touching distance

at that point.

Because if lawns go into that game knowing that if they win,

they'll go top

or they'll put distance between themselves and PSG,

then it will be fully on.

And yeah, if anyone hasn't yet had a chance

to watch lawns this season,

I'd strongly recommend it.

It is the most fantastic feel-good story.

Stadiums always fall, super noisy, super colorful.

They play really exciting football.

There are so many little subplots and storylines

and hopefully for the good of French football,

it will be great if they can push PSG all the way

at the very least.

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You're listening to the Athletic FC podcast with Iawakima Leroy.

All right, let's move on to the Champions League once more,

Carl, because this week Liverpool versus Galatasaray

kicks off on Tuesday.

You know, a lot of pressure on this game

considering the league form of Liverpool,

big one for Anna Slot.

Absolutely.

Big one, as we are now increasingly heading towards

a summer of managerial merry-go-round,

and Anna Slot now not only needs to get some momentum together

to make sure Liverpool qualify for next season's Champions League,

but also needs to show some sort of convincing style of play,

some convincing style of attack and open play

to suggest that he should be the man next season.

One thing that unfortunately,

an unfortunate, unforeseen complication

on the Slot's Liverpool career,

is the fact that Javier Lanzo is available now.

And I think we're all sort of like, oh, hang on.

Wasn't you meant to be at Real Madrid for ages?

So Javier Lanzo's left, but also Javier Lanzo

left for reasons that he convincingly say,

it's not my fault, that's more to do with Real Madrid

being Real Madrid.

So big game for Liverpool.

They played Galatasaray earlier in the league phase, I believe,

where Victor Oshman just gave him absolute hell

because that's what Victor Oshman does.

There's no harm, no foul.

He's just one of the best strikers in the world.

And then going to Galatasaray,

never leave people an easy place to go.

This is the quote-unquote early Champions League game kickoff

on, it is tonight?

Yeah.

As we're recording it.

I don't know, I days anymore.

You can tell I'm a reporter for a club

that's not in the Champions League anymore.

So it's the quote-unquote early game.

Just one game a week for you, Carl.

Sorry.

It's the quote-unquote early game.

And I'm interested to see if that's

going to play into Liverpool's favor or not,

in that playing at Galatasaray,

playing in Istanbul slightly earlier in the day,

that doesn't quite play into the welcome

to hell into a dating atmosphere.

And indeed Liverpool are,

well, they're acquainted with that sort of atmosphere, too.

So very, very interested in there.

I think the fact that Andrew Robinson played on Friday

against all Hampton Wondrous was interesting.

I wouldn't be surprised if you played again or started again

today just to give him that a little bit of veteran

now and to keep two or three players online

or like switched on for the first 20 minutes,

be really, really interesting today.

I'm also going to be really interested to see

how Ryan Gravenberg plays there, too,

because I think he's a supremely talented football player.

He's just signed a brand new six-year contract there,

but he needs to be a little bit more defensively resilient,

particularly in these trickier circumstances,

because if he vacates the space too much,

there's going to be a very angry person

flooding into the space and Liverpool could be vulnerable.

We need to talk about Atlético and Madrid vs. Spurs,

Atlético, obviously, doing what

Atlético do in La Liga, but Spurs,

are at a point where they are eyeing relegation

or at least that zone, isn't that strange

in terms of when we talk about the riches available

to certain clubs and Premier League clubs in particular.

You're looking at a team facing relegation

and you're looking at a team in a decent position in La Liga.

Yeah, it's maddened.

Again, I think it speaks to the enormous firepower

of the Premier League that you could have all

the Premier League clubs still in contention in the Champions League.

And that includes one of the most feeble Tottenham

Hotspur teams, I think any of us can remember seeing.

I mean, yes, they had a relatively

clement draw in the league phase,

but they nevertheless produced convincing performances.

They beat decent teams.

And I think the qualified in fourth place, didn't they?

Which is, I mean, didn't make the play absolutely remarkable.

And I mean, they were able to successfully switch

between domestic difficulties and continental assignments

during the league phase.

Are they still capable of doing that?

And we saw how that group of players,

albeit with a different coach,

were able to compartmentalize what they were doing domestically

and what they were doing very badly domestically last season.

And European objectives in the way that they slid down

towards a finishing position of 17th in the Premier League.

At the same time as they were grinding their way towards glory

in the Europa League, will they prove capable

of doing the same thing again?

I mean, I've had to go are a sort of very interesting phase

in their in their evolution under Diego Simeone,

in that they are quite un-Simeone-like,

in the sense that they're quite an attacking team these days.

They score an awful lot of goals.

It's just the Vatimodo Lugman's probably helped that as well.

Absolutely.

You know, put four unanswered goals past Barcelona

in the semifers leg of their Copadel race semi-final.

That's the second leg of the Copadel race semi-final.

Second leg of that.

I mean, yeah, they were cleaning on in the second leg.

This is this is true.

But it's, I mean, yeah, we know what to expect from Tottenham

in domestic football is generally just quite bad.

But when it comes to London football, I've no idea.

It would feel like simultaneously extremely Tottenham,

if they were to go out having lost 10-0 on aggregate.

But also if they were to somehow to go through.

And be athletic, yeah, it's very spicy.

So Simeone uses pretty much press conference

to say Tottenham had the favorites for that.

And I'm putting on the face going, is this,

is this game's mission?

Are you doing the dark arts or do you genuinely believe

Tottenham are the favorites?

And Tom's absolutely right.

The financial wealth of the Premier League

means Tottenham Hospital now are the ninth

richest football club in World Football.

They have the seventh highest wage bill in the Premier League.

This is why they've had these back-to-back

bottom half finishes for Tottenham are so strange.

This is shocking on the performance for the amount of money spent

and yet because of the wealth of the Premier League.

Because the amount, the comparative amount of wages

they can spend, right?

Connor Gallagher has gone from athletic home

in Dredge to Tottenham.

And Connor Gallagher Gallagher now is Tottenham's,

well, apparently Tottenham's highest-paid player.

I'd be really interested to get him in the mix zone,

get him talking about how these two clubs compare right now.

And Tom's absolutely right about how's

just athletic home in Dredge team just aren't very Simeone

in that when you think about their two triumphs in La Liga,

the centerbacks, just the way they looked,

it's night and day to their current centerback pairing,

in that they're not as stocky.

I'm sorry, I can't say that in a more intelligent way.

They're a really, really fun team

to watch this athletic home team.

And I would like them to win a trophy, one more trophy

for my constant ongoing argument that Simeone

is one of the best managers of the 21st century.

I don't know if Simeone Chad was like her.

Right, still plenty more actually to look out for

in the Champions League Newcastle versus Barcelona,

Atlanta versus Bayern, Liverpool's in versus Arsenal,

obviously Bordeaux Glimps,

still doing what Bordeaux Glimps do versus sporting

and Real Madrid versus Manchester City once again

in the Champions League.

All right, Jens, it's probably a tough one to call right now,

but Tom, if you got to win the Champions League,

I might just put my hat out to Bayern on this one.

Yeah, I was going to say Bayern as well.

All right, yeah, partly because I think there is,

I can't think of many more pleasing forward lines

in the recent history of European football

than Michael Alesa, Jamal Mosella, Louis Diaz

and Harry Kane, I think it would be a wonderful thing

for that team to become European champions.

When they beat PSG before Christmas,

despite having Louis Diaz sent off,

made way through the game.

I remember thinking, and okay, this was at a time

when we didn't realise quite how far off

the levels of last season PSG were,

but that was very impressive.

I think they're the team that have probably impressed me

the most in the Champions League so far.

So yeah, I think if I had to pick one, I'd go for Bayern.

Yeah, I was salivating at that front line car.

Incredible, Michael Alesa has formed this season,

has been exceptional.

It's ridiculous you got to possibly win the Champions League.

I am steadily preparing myself

for Arsenal to win the Champions League.

Okay.

You look at that bracket,

and I think this is another thing that the Champions League now

in that the bracket and the knockout bracket means

just as much as how good you are.

And Arsenal have a very, very, very favourable route

to the final.

I text one of my friends saying,

if Arsenal don't make the Champions League final minimum,

I think that would be class as a disappointment.

You're pulling your face now,

because you're annoyed that you weren't that friend I text.

No, I think Arsenal, I think Arsenal's squad building

is best equipped for this new era of football.

I think the league phase and its current construction

and the fact that the brackets are up in a certain way,

and if you finish a certain place in the league phase,

you can have a more favourable draw.

Again, it's less about being great and more about,

do you have, are you good and do you have depth

in your squad in a way that you perhaps didn't have

to consider in the 2000s or the 90s,

where I was born in 1991.

So I was born in the era of 442,

and top teams having four strikers.

Whereas now it is now a piece that you need six centrebacks

to get through a campaign,

and the way MacArthur can compose things

is that you couldn't have an injury to Califurie,

or have Califurie go off with some sort of complaint,

and then you can bring on a player as good as in Cappé.

I think that's really, really good.

The fact they rested deckling rice

and some of the mendi is really, really important,

and if they can have more matches where they can do that,

and they don't have to play 90 minutes running up and down,

they should get things done.

Yep, okay.

I do have some question marks over how they're going

to score goals in open play,

because Jacarise hasn't been the football player

that we thought he might be,

but if Arsenal don't get to those,

it gets to the final, I'd be surprised,

and if they don't get to the semi-final,

someone else on that side of bracket

would have had to go supernova to get it done.

So I think Arsenal and the Premier League,

and I'm slowly preparing myself

where Arsenal to win the Champions League too,

have fun, I'm not going to be in North London where it happens.

Still well-clear, most groups.

Anyway, let's see if they're just thoroughly enjoyed that.

Karl, Tom, appreciate your time,

and also thank you guys for joining us as well.

We'll catch you soon.

You've been listening to the Athletic FC podcast.

The producers with Guy Clark, Mike Stavrou, and Joe Beale,

with editing by Paul Eiliff and Nick Thompson.

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