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Joel and Nige are back to look back at England match against Croatia 

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SPEAKER_01 0:09

Just ten minutes in. It's kicking. It's sick.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Oh no! Nice! Oh no! What's he done? What's he done? Oh no!

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Hey, hey, don't worry about it. He can take it again. Hey, what a game. What an amazing start for England. I was thinking in the day, and loads of people were going, you know what England fans are like? And I put myself in that category as well. And it's uh, you know, you're not coming, I'm not not that it's gonna be nil-nil. Even though I built myself up to it like it was the World Cup final or Champions League final, uh, it'll be nil-nil or might just nick it. It was a really, really, really good game. The Irish fellow I worked with um this morning, and what was the score? I think it was 4-2. He went, we can't be that good because you let two goals in. If you'd have seen that second goal, no, no keepers saving that.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Croatia are a pretty good team. So this, if for us, it's great. I think we get a lot of confidence from this, and I think everybody now is already getting, if they didn't have it already, getting a bit of World Cup fever. People are jumping on the bandwagon already, and it's just gonna be amazing. And you know what as well? In the UK next week, proper heat wave, it's gonna be like 28. These fan parks are just gonna be nuts next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

And if you're down south, I think it's uh Sunday, Monday, like 37 degrees or something like that. Do you know what crazy? Do you know what? I think I'm aboard the peep peep Tuchel train. Um I agreed with the starting lineup. I thought his substitutions were beyond excellence. He's gonna he's gonna win or lose this World Cup on attacking football and making the subs at the right point. There was no questions for you in the starting lineup. He looked at it and you went, yeah, it's about right.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Saka is not a hundred percent fit, and that's the only reason that he didn't start. But Marike took his opportunity and obviously won us that penalty. It was a pretty solid performance from everyone, to be honest with you. We could have had a few more goals. Croatia were great, but you know, Jude Bellingham was awesome. Harry Kane is firing, and you know, it's great when your striker gets a goal at the beginning because it's happened for a lot of the key players in some of the other teams where you know, look at Messi, look at uh but what my point is Harry Kane, it was important for him to get off to a good start because it just means he can play with a bit more freedom moving forward. Whereas Ronaldo, a complete opposite now, everybody's kind of on his back because he's not scored.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

I watched the Portugal game yesterday. Um, a disappointing resort for Portugal. I thought they'd walk over Congo, who've not been in the uh been in the World Cup in 50 odd years or whatever it was, never scored a World Cup goal. I'm a United fan, I'm a Ronaldo fan, but you've got to realise that when you get to that age, I mean he should be doing if Jordan Henderson's doing that role now, this should be the Ronaldo role. Look, I know he comes up and he does he does a bit of magic now and again, and Messi scored the hat trick for Argentina, and that makes Ronaldo want to go and beat it. But yeah, you look at those players, he's taken a lot of those players out. Bruno Fernandez was not no, the Bruno Fernandez at um Man United towards the second half of the season last night. Do you know what was sad though last night in the Croatia game was Luca Modric? It's a World Cup too far, in it, for him.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

He's I mean, he was at fault for the penalty, wasn't he? And he's not he's not the Luca Modric of all to make it.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

No, when he came off as well, he and he he he wasn't happy with himself, and you know, when you get to that elite level, he's gonna be the first person, he's gonna beat himself up. He doesn't need anyone to tell him that you know he's not the Luca Modric of all, but I mean he has been a phenomenal, I mean, absolute world-class talent. When he got into Real Madrid from Tottenham, I thought, you know, they're getting a getting a good ladder here, a decent player, you know, good squad player, you know, at Real Madrid, and he's been there for so long. And anytime you mention Croatia, the first name you go to is uh Luca Modric, or you mention Gail from Coronation Street.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Absolutely. Do you know what, mate? Let's have a little bit of a chat about Jude Bellingham because I think he was absolutely brilliant. I think he took his goal really, really well. Uh, but he bossed the midfield. It was a captain's performance, it was really, really good. I know, you know, I thought he was outstanding.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

I completely agree. Now, I've mentioned before, I don't know the lad, never met the lad, but I've told you, might have told on the podcast actually about what he's done for certain people since he's been at Madrid and the lads back in Birmingham, what he's what he's done and everything. And to me, that that makes him a top-class fella. When you read and you hear all this thing about the ego's out of control and he didn't have a great season last season and whatever, he's a he's class. Many people were saying that Thomas Tuchel may have played some mind games with him. Rogers was playing in that position, and and just to get him riled up a little bit in the how much do you want it sort of thing. I thought he was, yeah, I thought he was excellent and got his goal yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yeah, do you know what as well? Obviously, I know Harry Kane is the captain, but we have got some leaders in this team. If you look at the backbone of the team, John Stone's at the back, Bellingham and Rice in the middle, and then Kane up top, this squad can do something, this World Cup. I don't want to get too carried away. It's only one game, but Croatia are a good team. Yeah, yeah. And I also thought that the substitutions that he made, when it was 3-2, you could have Gareth Southgate would have probably, instead of bringing on attacking players, he would have probably brought us, you know, packed out the defence, maybe brought another defensive midfielder on and tried to hold on to that one goal lead. And I love the substitutions. I thought it was absolutely brilliant, and it's so much better. Uh, you know, uh when you go 42 up there with that, I just thought it was a a masterclass from uh from Thomas Tuchel.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

I can 100% agree. Yeah. Declan Rice. Why is he not playing for Man United? What a player! A little concern that he came off when he was limping. ITV said I can't remember who said it on ITV, but the best corner taker in world football is and he is you know if that that that header from Harry Kane was just phenomenal, wasn't it? It's he's he's so good. He's learned that at Arsenal, he's become a better player going from West Ham to Arsenal, and when they paid the hundred and what million for him, I was like, really? I mean he's a he's a good player, but he was great last night. I think Man United might have to be sitting down with Marcus Rashford and going, right, so Marcus, it was always good that we go our separate ways now, but quick change of plan here, because plans change, pal. Do you fancy moving back to Withenshaw? We'll get you a nice little council flat and you can come here and we'll pay you.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Barcelona are daft for not taking him on that money. I know it's obviously the wages. He was great yesterday, he took his chance, he came on. Um, and this is the other thing. If it's not quite working out, I mean I thought Gordon was okay, but if it's not working out, those are the substitutions that we would have seen in like the 80th or the 85th minute. And he's doing it at uh I think it was about the 70th minute that he made the change and brought Rashford on.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

But these nice, these are the these are the changes that previous managers would have done. You said in the 80th odd minute, when we're 1-0 down and then you put all your attacking. Yeah. I mean, that's why I used to love watching, especially Real Madrid and uh Barcelona, you score five, we'll score six, mate. Yeah, and you had a little bit of a little bit of you had a little bit of that city as well. You know, I'm not a fan of certain Jose football because it is score and part of the bus, isn't it? I would much prefer, I think every football fan would. You want to win, but if you see your team win 6-5 or 6-4 as opposed to oh, it was a 1-0. Look, fair play to um Scotland who were top of the group and winning the World Cup, aren't they? They better than Brazil, let's be honest with you now. But that that was just a it was a 1-0 game and it was not a great goal. You come away from that, if you're Scottish, absolutely yamoured and thinking it's brilliant, and you'll take a win, you'll take a win. But bear in mind football is an entertainment sport, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yeah, absolutely. And for the first uh first time in a long time, I genuinely feel that the other countries will be fearing England. Nobody will want to play this team. Uh, we are a real, real threat in this tournament, and I'm I'm just dead excited. It's brilliant, Joel. Dead, honestly, absolutely over the moon with that yesterday. I thought it was brilliant. And uh, you know, for me, that is the hardest game in the group. If we can win the next game, then perhaps he can give some of the other players a bit of a run out, keep everybody fresh uh for for the uh you know the knockout stages. I'm not scared of Spain. The Spain that I've seen so far, I think we beat them.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

And who is signing the Cape Verde keeper? Uh somebody's got to sign him. Somebody's got imagine he's 40 years old. You know, somewhere like Rexman probably sign him as a backup keeper, wouldn't they? If he has another worldie in his next game, he'll get the McDonald's ads or the Burger King ads or KFC or something like that, or Coke, or whatever it is, Coca-Cola, should I say? He'll get he'll get he'll get all of these, uh he'll get all of these adverts and and fair place to the lads, you know, from one performance. Look, they might get absolutely dick next time. Eight million followers he's got now. I mean he's like 2,000.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

It's just it's a fairy tale story, and that's why the World Cup is so special, innit? It was great. Oh man, I'm I'm I'm excited. I don't I did I I always get like this when we but but it just feels different, and it was great. And the reason, again, just to go over it again, making those positive substitutions at the right time, it's just it's great to see, and we've not had it for years under Southgate.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of negativity towards Southgate. I think what what he did really, really well was get the players together, drop any of the egos, and just get them as a as a proper team. But the football wasn't that exciting in the same way as people had him at quite a short price favourite to get the Man United job, but I'm going, oh god, yeah, I couldn't have Southgate there. Not because he's a bad manager, you know, and and he's obviously really liked, he's brilliant with the media, one of the best you'll see with the media and gives his time and everything, all of that. But the football's a little bit dull for me. That's just my opinion. So, you know, Thomas Tuchel's going in there, and if he keeps this up, then fantastic. I mean, at one point at half time, it was like in the old days, you would have said, Oh, two-two, we'll take a draw. You know, you know, we'll take a draw in this. It's Croatia, we'll take a draw. None of that. I think it was a second goal for Croatia. I mentioned it, it was it was brilliant. Pickford nearly got to it, but it was brilliant. I wouldn't be going back there and lashing anybody. I thought the team performance was great. I thought, you know, Harry Kane leads that team so well. Jude Bellingham is absolute shoe-in for next England captain, if not Declan Rice. I couldn't, I honestly, I I I feel really bad. I wouldn't say any negatives. And I even tweeted out last night. Do you know what my man of the match was last night? Go on. I thought the referee was brilliant. You know when you get to World Cups or Euros, you know, even Champions League, you get some of those that are a bit card happy or don't really translate the rules. I thought the referee was brilliant last night. He let it flow. I just was there even a yellow card last night. I can't even remember seeing a yellow card.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

I can't remember anyone getting it getting a book in. Do you know what as well? One thing I'll say, and I love this. Every time I say Thomas Tuchel, I just think it's a great name to say, and I also feel I feel like he sounds like a character out of a out of uh a nursery rhyme.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Peppa Pig is meeting Thomas Tuchel. Thomas Tuchel saves the day. No, I always think it sounds like uh an adult movie. Thomas Tuchel. An adult movie star, you know. I were playing this in the office this morning, right? Okay. At the prime for England, who would you play up front? Would it be Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney, or Michael Owen?

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Ooh, tough one. Harry Kane, I think. I mean, I I remember Wayne Rooney's first World Cup, and it was unbelievable. When he first broke onto the scene and that first World Cup that he had with England, Gaza, do you know what I mean? Up there like that. It was a player who could dribble, who could take people on, who was just a strong, uh completely different type of player to Harry Kane. But when you need goals in a tournament like this, I don't think there's any better striker than Harry Kane.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

It's a weird one to say because he conceded four goals. But that Croatian keeper, if he's making a show reel, forget the goals that went in, and some of them were great goals, right? And obviously, Penn as well. If those goals had gone in, and Jed Spencer came on, he could have scored as well. There was save after save after save after save. So he's getting a lot of credit. He's no mug that lad in goal.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Both teams could have had a few more goals. It was it was quite open at one point, to be honest with you. And like we said, it's just entertaining football. Yeah, I think Croatia will qualify. I think they'll come second in the group. You know, I don't think they are a bad team, although they are an ageing team. They've not got the strength in depth that England have got either. The substitutions, they're not game changers. England, you they've they've got a lot of options on the bench.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah, and a lot of attacking options, which is great. John Stone's did alright as well. You've not you've not really mentioned Johnny Stones, who's been injured for most of the season, played his last game for Pep at Man City. Uh was taken off just towards the end, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yeah, he he was solid, absolutely solid. 87 minutes. So, you know, he was I thought he was I thought he was pretty good. Uh I thought O'Reilly, uh, you know, it's his first tournament. I think he was good. Reese James was good. I thought Elliot Anderson was good. He played a great threw ball for one of the goals. Uh yeah, brilliant. Loved it.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Uh so just before we go, let's go back to uh the Man City Exodus. Uh, anybody else leaving your club today? Or uh or shall we say, anybody else going to Real Madrid today from Manchester City? Jose's got his shopping list out, had he? And he's just he's just going for it. So that it's confirmed today that um well yesterday it was Bernardo Silva is confirmed. Uh Canate has gone. And what about Diaz?

SPEAKER_00 13:45

There's like an £80 million that's being chucked around for Diaz. Um I you know, I I mean I'd definitely keep him. I think he's a brilliant centre half, but we've got quite a few. Uh I mean, you know, but it wasn't long ago that we had a few injuries, and all of a sudden you recall in Max from Bloody Watford. So it's it's nuts, really. But I think signing Mark Gay has been absolutely fantastic. Obviously, John Stones leaves as well. I thought Ake would go in the summer anyway. Um, so I don't know. If we do get rid of Diaz, I'd be very sorry to see him go, to be honest with you. I didn't have him down as someone who was going to leave for club this summer, although a couple of mates mentioned that they thought he would. Yeah. Uh and then obviously there's the Rodri situation. He's off as well. I I don't think Rodri will go. I'm sure he'll stay at City. I hope he's here next year.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

And also, uh, your president of um Real Madrid still convincing everybody that Erlin Haaland will be a player for Real Madrid at the start of next season.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Well, we'll see, won't we?

SPEAKER_01 14:47

We'll see. The strong rumours this morning are still looking at Victor Oshman again. But there's got to be something wrong with him because he is an absolute goal machine, he's a goal threat, but he's you don't see his name linked massively to massive clubs, and I just I just think that there's there's gotta be a bit of Paul Pogber about him or a Balotelli. So yeah, somebody it's weird.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

I I've seen quite a few United fans um that are starting to get pretty angry with the transfer situation because they pretty much convinced the supporters that Elliot Anderson was a done deal and that he was coming to United, didn't they? Everybody, you know, everyone was really confident, it was super confident. It certainly looks at this minute in time that he's coming to Man City. I think that's gonna be a great signing for for us. I also think that Samenyo and Gay are probably two of the players that we would have signed in the summer, but because they came available when they did, you know, we we we ended up getting them in the transfer window uh at Christmas. But yeah, I don't know, the winter transfer window. It's just a weird one, mate, at the minute. I think there's gonna be quite a few uh coming in and leaving City, but yeah, I know a lot of people are getting pretty frustrated at United. Uh you know, they're going for these big, massive names, and then all of a sudden the reality is you signed in someone who's not really gonna change things.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Well, thanks very much. Uh I got up this morning, really happy. I got the I'm looking for a bridge. Uh look, um, I was looking at some of the stats, and there's a lot of people around the world listening to this show, which is which is which is phenomenal, which is great. I know this is the World Cup. Uh normally we do this is the season. We did it last season. Uh Nigel is a uh is a that's a United fan, he's a secret United fan. Nigge is a city fan. It's a massive city fan. And I'm a United fan. Uh and we start that before the season starts. And um I've got to give a shout to me, Mrs. Lily, who's been building the studio uh for about six weeks now, so we can do fully in vision, but she's doing it proper changing room style. She's um she's not cutting any corners, other builders in for ages, uh, you know, lights, camera, action, the whole lot is happening. So we'll be in full vision for next season uh and the build-up to it and everything. And um it'll all look great. And she says, every time I hear this podcast, all you do, you talk about you building the studio and you you and you've done all squared.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah, thanks very much. Yeah, yeah. No, honestly, it is gonna be ace. I can't wait for to get in our new arm next year. It's gonna be brilliant, mate. Really, really good. But yeah, hopefully people are enjoying this over the World Cup. So we our next game is against Ghana uh on Tuesday, 23rd, next Tuesday. That's our next game. That's a nine o'clock kickoff, and I'm looking forward to that. They obviously won their opening game 1-0 as well, uh, after the England game, didn't they? So uh they got off to a winning start against Panama.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

I'm really excited for Scotland and Brazil. Is that that is that uh is it 11 o'clock? Is it is it Wednesday? When is it? Is it Wednesday?

SPEAKER_00 17:38

My mate, um I I watched the England game with him last night uh and uh he stuck around for a little bit. He's going uh to the Brazil game in America. He can't wait. He's going to Miami, he's taking his son, he's like it's a once-in-a-lifetime, it's cost him an absolute fortune. Uh, but yeah, he's he's got he's got a ticket for the game as well, a couple of tickets, uh, and he's just absolutely delighted to be there. I mean, yeah, can you imagine if Scotland somehow managed to turn over Brazil? Uh you it'd just be absolutely insane. I really hope they qualify. Uh but yeah, that game is gonna be insane. He goes, I think he said he was got he had to stay in London on Saturday and then he was he was flying on Sunday and getting there for a few days before the game, soaking up the atmosphere of the World Cup in Miami. Can you imagine, Joel?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Do you know what? That game should have cards written all over it, shouldn't it? I mean, there's there's gonna there's gonna be the dive-in from the Brazilians and there's gonna be the um a lot of Scottish football tackles, which which I love. That they won't know what they've hit. Because it's easy, it's easy for them to predict playing against uh Spain, France, England, Colombia, whatever, you know what they're all about. This Scotland team, they haven't got the bestest players in the world, but let's be honest about it, they've they're all heart, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. So yeah, that's that's the day after us, isn't it? Wednesday, the 24th of June. That's the uh Scotland-Brazil game. Uh, and that's gonna be an 11 pm kickoff, but definitely staying up for that. It's gonna be some game.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

And the news is still that Thomas Partey, formerly of Arsenal, who did a runner quite quickly, still can't get into Canada to play for Ghana. So uh that's it this morning. The appeal has been turned down. So we'll be having a beer with a referee um at Border Control.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Right, listen, thanks so much for listening. Please share it with your mates, give us a follow, uh, and we'll uh we'll be back soon.