Foreign. Hello and welcome to the Double Tippet, the world's most agreeable soccer Alex podcast. I am Michael Kayle. It's Champions League week.
We had four Champions League quarterfinals matches, first leg matches and they were exciting, they were good. They all had goals in them, had a great time. I joined by my good and we're at top of some games. Subute to music as well or please now stratums happy podcast patreon.com doublepivot discord lots of cool stuff going on in the discord as always.
Great place to watch these games. Like absolutely the best place to watch this. I don't get to do it because I'm like I have a day job involved with watching these games so there's like a limit to the amount of Internet I could be doing. But like when I check in it just seems like an absolutely fantastic experience to be watching the games on the AD in this world.
Where do you want to start? Well, I will get started with Arsenal Railroad. That'll do. And it's a little bit weird.
I think the top line tactical picture of this game was a little bit weird because of two things. It was much more up and down than we expected that we predicted that we talked about. It was not Arsenal strangling this game of possession. We got this wrong.
Yeah, we absolutely got that wrong. And it was a tactical choice by Arsenal not to do that at the same time, even though it felt like it at moments, when you look back over that game, it did not result in Real Madrid getting a lot of chances. It was an up and down game. But Arsenal somehow maintained their defensive strength and their defensive ability in that game and did not concede very much.
What I saw going into this game, and we talked about this on the podcast, was that if Arsenal come out and they've got no choice but a kivior Louis Skelli left side of defense, like maybe you try to squeeze a Ben White in there somehow or you. It gets difficult. None of these are solutions. And so Argento went with the most straightforward thing that he had.
And I said no one wants to see them matched up against Real Madrid's forwards. And then they just weren't. Yeah, Mbappe and Vini came down the left and Rodrygo, his touchback is fascinating. He was for 70 minutes just absolutely tethered to the midfield line.
He was not allowed to get forward. He had one shot from San Pedro. That was his only touch inside the penalty area for most of the match. And so because Real Madrid I think showed up looking to lose 1 nil and go home.
This left Arsenal able to play a more up and down style and not get hurt as much as they could have. And it's not just Rodrigo here, by the way. Mbappe was doing a tremendous amount of dropping in and receiving the ball in possession in a way you do not usually see. Yeah.
And I'm not entirely sure like what the plan was there because I'm a little sure actually. I take that back. So one thing that was happening is defensively, Bellingham and Camavinga were incredibly preoccupied with. Preoccupied with one Odegaard with not letting Odegaard any space between the lines.
And Odegaard would move out towards the touchline. It was Bellingham man marking him. And then when he came very internally, Bellingham would hand him off to Camavinga. And what that meant was that Arsenal lost possession.
Bellian in particular was not an outlet target almost ever. So he's not going to be an outlet target almost ever. And you're not really trying to get them long directly to Vini on the counter. Where are you going with the ball?
And the answer was about it dropping deeper. And it's not that it didn't work exactly, but it's like we've just talked through it, right. Mbappe comes deeper, receives, Rodrigo is not getting forward. So it's Vinnie against two center backs.
Because the other thing that didn't happen, because it doesn't happen with Arsenal is not that neither of the center backs followed Mbappe into midfield. And so you did have some of these scary moments where Mbappe would be able to turn and run at the center backs. But Arsenal is a very good recovery and they recovered. Yep.
And so like, what you're betting there is that Vini won't torture and that's a scary thing to bet. But he really didn't. He didn't have a very good game. He just didn't have a game.
And on top of that, if you've got to defend Vini, it's nice to have William still been doing it. Sure it is. And Kimir himself had a very good game way at the operative end of this spectrum of performance. Stepped up in a huge way for a guy who's been fairly disappointing in his Arsenals spell so far.
So, you know, you got to give crit anywhere is due on that side of the ball. Yeah, exactly. And I think that this, what we're focusing on here goes to what our shared take on this game is, which is real Madrid creating nothing is the more interesting part of it than Arsenal getting three goals for 1.5 xg. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a little bit that's interesting about Arsenal in this way.
One thing is just like you see Odegaard and Saka on the field together and you're like, yeah, we should not discount exactly how good that combo is and how central that combo is to everything that Arsenal does with the ball. And then you look at Arsenal's struggles over this year in attack and you're just like, oh, right, of course. Those two guys together really are a special kind of magic. And you saw flashes of it in this game.
You didn't see all of it. You saw flashes, defended them very well. Sokka had some moments where he looked like Sokka. That's right.
It was much more moments than being able to do it for an entire game. That'. But Odard and Saka are overloading that right wing space all the time, constantly. And while that's happening, Declan Rice is running to the penalty spot.
And while that's happening, like a fullback would, Timber would get forward, Parti would get forward to like the top of the box. Like the midfield tactics that Arsenal played here were meant to create overloads on Real Madrid's defense in a way that is pretty unusual for Arsenal. Yeah, I mean, you go back, say three years, it's not that unusual. It was very much Declan Rice doing grounded Jacob.
And I think this makes, tactically, this set of decisions makes a bunch of sense. When you think about it, the weakest point of Real Madrid's Atlantic is the defense right now, which is super banged up. You've got, you know, Alaba playing at left back, which he hasn't played in 40 years because who else is going to play left back? And even with Modric starting, like Luca Modic is 40.
And what you have is a video that's not really progressing the ball for. We talked about this a bunch too. And when you take those two things, it makes sense to play the way Arsenal played and say the gamble is you're not going to be this over the top of the bid. And if you do well, like Saliba's great and the gamble was right, like, it was just the right way to approach the game.
Yeah, I really would like, like to see what Realm show Carlo Ancello this game and be like, okay, what would you do instead? Yeah, yeah, I think that's interesting and I mean, I think it would be way more long balls to Vinnie and lots more freedom for Rodrigo to be a second outlet for that one. I think Rodrigo is The big one. Right.
I mean, I think what you want is to have. You're gonna be like, we're gonna just let all three of those guys release on a counterattack. Because, I mean, like one, I think it's an away game first leg in the Champions League, so you keep it tight. And two, on top of that, you kind of think Arsenal are gonna keep it tight too.
That, that to me is the thing. If you think Arsenal's keeping it tight, you're like, what is the point of taking the risk with Rodrygo? It doesn't get us all that more in attack. Yep.
And maybe as you said, it was like Rodrigo sat match for 70 minutes. Right. And as it turns out, they're chasing the game because you have the Declan Rice moments at that point, but I think it's distinctly possible down the stretch. Rodrigo gets unleashed.
And what you're looking to do is a typical keep it tight for an hour, then catch one blitz. And it's like, it's a reasonable approach. It's a very typical approach. It's a very Carlo approach.
It just was not, as it turned out, the right approach for countering what Arsenal were doing. And obviously there are many, many worlds where Declan rice doesn't hit two, like 11 out of 10 free kicks in a row. I don't know if anyone has ever hit two free kicks in a row that good. Dimitri Pyatt.
Demitri Pyatt had a run for West Ham a few years ago, but literally two in a row. Yeah, I was waiting for someone to try to put together some numbers on. I guess I might have to. Ugh, that's annoying.
That's not all. I think his first one is worth talking about. I think his first one is worth talking about because of how he talked about it. Fm naturally, which is Real Madrid only had a four man wall.
And usually in those circumstances you have a five man wall. So why does Real Madrid have a four man wall? Well, it's because Arsenal are great at freaking set pieces. And what Arsenal are supposed to be doing there, according to Declan Rice was crossing the ball to the back post in like a reverse thing.
That's the plan. And what are Real Madrid doing? Real Madrid are cheating. They are taking a man off the wall so they have an extra man to cover that set piece.
And it is incredibly hard to execute the way Declan Rice did in that moment. That first free kick. The second one is an amazing strike, but you understand what that strike is. It's a very typical shape to that goal.
He decides he tries to score that goal. Like 80% of the time they have a free kick. That's the goal they're trying to score. What, the first one where you go wide around the wall, bring it outside the goal of the inn and have to do it with a tremendous amount of peace, is you just don't see it attempted very much, let alone execute it.
And part of that is that, like, usually there's a wall, so you don't even have the opportunity to try. But I think in a number of ways this game is. I think that some of the other games have been too. When keeping it tight on the road goes wrong, you know, I think that there is.
There's just every strategy, right. Yep. I don't blame teams for keeping a tight. When the talent level is close as it is, more or less Real Madrid, Arsenal, I think you are asking for much more trouble when you have a big talent advantage and you still make the decision to keep it close, keep it tight on the road.
It's not so much that I think the team should never keep it tight on the road. Like, I get what Anjali was doing here. Like, it didn't work because the color ball went goal and Arthur threw a bit of curveball. But I get what he was doing.
The thing is that I think it's important to understand what the risks are that are inherent in that strategy. And sometimes the risks are they hit two great free kicks. I mean, like, realistically, the risks. The other risks were like, Arsenal could have been up a goal before those free kicks too.
I mean, they were somewhat better than Real Madrid all in creating chances. They were a lot better at, like, taking possession to Madrid. And then they created some. And I don't know.
I don't think that in his heart of. Arsenal was particularly worried about going down a goal. But obviously when you go down one goal, you go down two and then late. The way that they struggled to get the ball off of ourselves.
Yes. Was evidence of why we thought they were going to approach the game that way to beat him. Yep. And so the second leg, I think, you know, for the most part, doesn't matter what anyone does, because three goal leads walnut never caught.
I can give a couple of examples. The way it becomes more possible is if Arsenal don't make Real Madrid work to get the ball. Yeah. And my guess is that they will sum enough.
And my guess is that if they don't make Real Madrid work at the ball and just bunker, they'll probably be really good at that. And that'll work too. But they should make Real Madrid have to work at the ball during the ball. And they're terrible at working at the ball.
Right. I mean Arsenal, Arsenal are a rarely elite defensive team because they have to. Right? Because they are elite at defending with the ball and elite at defending without the ball.
And vanishingly few teams are elite at both. But you should not neuter one of the two things you are elite at when you are playing a game of people. Like it didn't happen in this game. Rimape was in behind once and just like scuffed his shot.
You don't want to give those guys lots of opportunities to make plays against you. Right. I mean, we haven't really talked about the fact that in the first half when it was 00 are showing two bad mistakes. And that was how Real Madrid got their best chances of the game.
Once Arsenal didn't make mistakes, Real Madrid didn't create fringe even with Arsenal being somewhat at risk. All right, so if we continue chronologically, we've got Inter against Spyro Munich, the giant fraud. Spyro Munich see Inter. Inter go to Bayern, they win 21 ties, not over.
But Inter in great shape. Obviously the better team. What I tell you, I'm looking at the XG here. I'm sorry, the what?
The expected goals. What are those? If you go over the chances that both Bayern Munich and Inter Milan created in the match and you estimate based on the whole sample of shots taken in other matches, the chances that Pepay and Munich created are more likely to lead to two or maybe even three goals. Whereas the chances that Inter created more likely lead to one goal.
So I'm more invested in actual goal score as opposed to expected goal score. I mean with expected goal score, thank you very much. That and God knows how many Dallas this point you got on somewhat intercourse Bayern and scored two goals. Gorgeous goals.
Obviously the better team Bayern obvious Frost because they could even turn their expected goals into goals. Like just choking in the biggest moments. Clearly into the better team. Just giant Frost.
Well, there we go. That became such a huge defense in the first half. And that goes in the game is entirely different. Yeah.
The story of this game was that Inter were not able to contain Bayern when Byron were able to get into the final third, which they'll do pretty easily. And Bayern were not able to control the game with possession because they couldn't really press Inter. Right. But realistically, because Inter really don't like or didn't try to keep the ball because on the rev for slightly match they played into Bayern's hands in a lot of ways.
And that Inter did not fully exploit Bayern's inability to get well. And I also think that, like Agosto and Darmian just are not nearly good enough to match up against Bayern's wings. Yeah, I mean, 100% true. But like, that is why you might consider trying to keep the ball with defensive.
So it will be interesting. Like, the game was fun to watch. The game did not have, like tactics. It had very little going on tactically, which it was sort of one thing and we saw that one thing.
And you don't expect a lot tactically from companies. Bayern Munich, I kind of would have wanted a little bit more from Inter, but, like, you don't expect a lot tactically from Inter. The thing that they do is tactically more advanced than the thing that Bayern do. But Inter always do the same thing.
Yeah, they can, like, they can scale it up and down. They've got a couple of different sliders they can push up and down. Basically they've got a best Audi slider. Like how often is best Audi running forward is kind of the thing.
But they do have. Yeah. So I would not undersell the chances that Bayern can smash them. Nah, they're fraud's benefit.
I mean. All right, so yeah, that's the most dramatic second leg by a wide margin because the games that happened on Wednesday were pretty decisive. Yeah. Where do we want to start?
I'm going to start with PSGS ability because Quotie will at the same moment the exact same as ability at the end of that first half, which was that it was an extremely unaian rehab. And it goes into the half one one. And it goes into the half one one with the shot cap being 15 2. But like PSG is like 9 to 0.6 in expected goals.
And this is exactly what you expect. They were really. PSG were really not able to get good chances in that first half. And they get there, they go down one onto a counterattack again, a very unanimous counterattack.
And they get back into it because Desert Duo just does a ridiculous goal. Right. If you look at the shot map for psg, it really remains true, basically until Luno mentions goal at the very end. There is a.
You can draw a semicircle out from goal and there's no shots in that area. The shots come all into a packed set defense. Right. Like they've.
The possession is 75, 25. Like this is just. We are surrendering basically possession, but the team is able to try to leak out and press a few times. And the first half they do that A few times.
And one of The Times John McGinn bents the ball and like, Acetilla, like, really to their tactical credit, all of the players recognize what that moment was. You'll see this happen a lot when teams are playing a really bunkered strategy that they get a turnover, but the players don't really react because they're thinking, we got a bunker, we gotta bunker, we gotta bunker. And that's what they've been doing for a half hour at this point. They've barely done anything with the ball, but they all recognized.
So they actually had an overlap on that left side. And that overlap is what enables Roger to get free on the right. And like that is. That speaks well of Emery and the players in a really peculiar way because it shows that they recognize, they all recognize what their tactics were.
And I find it a really interesting example of what tactics are. Yeah, recognizing a system and doing something very unusual at the right moment in a coordinated way, all together, all recognizing the same thing at the same time. Like, that shows you the way that tactics are something that out there are instilled by coaching staff, but that need to be executed by players making tactical recognitions on the pitch. Yeah, I think that makes sense.
But this also just sort of shows the limitations of unaise tactics. Now, I am not sure that you could take out the Bill's Town play in a different way and get a better result, right? Yeah, man. I mean, like, not only that, they blew it on that one last opportunity.
Like if. If that game is, it ends two, one and you're going. You can't get it tight enough on the road and you're going home. You're gonna play a slightly more aggressive version of the same style.
Like, I assume that was what the plan was. You'd rather get a result, but if you lose by one, that's fine. And the whole match up until stoppage time, no one had busted through them. And it's an overlapping one by a full underlapping run by a fullback with a center back dropping it in, center forward dropping into midfield to pick the pass.
And like, that screws Aston Villa up there tired. It's not a great game for the Aston Villa right backs. That does it. But, like, it's a tough thing to do.
It's not a great game for the SNL right backs. It's so tough when you gotta do that for 90 minutes that side. And like, the second goal is like, Kvara does like just an unbelievable job of like torching a guy and then still, like slamming A very low expectation shot into the back of the net, off the bottom of the crossbar. Come on.
But I think. I think, you know, if we had Arsenal wrong, we had this one exactly right, which is that Aston Villa under Unai Emery can play Emery to the max and are probably still not quite good enough. Now on your perfect day, it works out and it almost. It really almost did.
If, like, in typical Emery fashion, it felt really bad. And the stats by the end were pretty lopsided, although, again, in large part because of that last goal. But they almost got out of there with, like a heartbeat. Now, I don't know, that's gonna be really tough.
And the other thing is just how good PSG were, because they did get that one chance leaking out through again and the players reacted to it and all went really well. That was not the only time they tried to do that. They tried to do that in the second half as well. And PSG shut them down.
The PSG press was spectacular. The counter press shut down Emery ball. Except that one moment, the counter presses are really aggressive and nobody really counter presses like this anymore, where you get your midfielders way off the field so that the midfielders and forwards are closing down on the ball when you lose it. And you're just sort of like gambling on your center backs being rangy and gambling on the recovery speed of your fullbacks.
And if there's any set of defenders that you want to make that gamble with, PSG's set of defenders are perfectly constructed for that. Now, do I have worries against a really good team? Absolutely. I do.
Like, you know, I think in a potential final against Barcelona, second, Barcelona are built to rip that apart in a lot of ways. It's also, I mean, Arsenal are a very tough team to counter press. Yes, no. But Arsenal, that will attack them at speed when they beat the counter press.
Yep. I think part of what's happening here is eight years ago, there would have been a lot of teams that were constructed to pick apart this PSG counter press. Are there now? I don't really think so.
And the KHG counter breath is also, like, all three forwards work really hard. And are all of them good at pressing this line? Diabelli is not great, but he works hard. I think one of the sort of underrated factors about PSG's, like, vault into, like, maybe the best team in the world is you get to move d' Elbellian's side now where he has less pressing responsibilities.
And in fact, what that does is it makes your transitions better because you're pressing better instead of worse because he's the target man. Exactly. And he is instead of whose line Dali being not enough to be presser for a winger. He's pretty good for a center forward.
And Zhao Neves is just everywhere in this thing. Yeah. A little guy who just charge around and take the ball like he is. He's again a throwback to the kinds of midfielders that you had in those counter pressing sides of eight years ago.
He's a very David Silver presser. He's not David's player on the ball, but he is a very Silva esque counter presser. And Bettina then in the system also becomes a throwback because he's a. He's a.
You know, Fernandinho was the guy at the base of counter pressing systems. He wasn't big, he was rangy. So he could be at the point of attack to break it up. Now a lot of your DMs have to be bigger because a lot of the conversation is duels in the air as teams go long or as they chaos max through you.
But Vitinha is playing at the base where he has to be rangy. And again, I think all of this is exploitable. Right. But teams are not built to exploit it at the moment.
Yeah. And then the other thing with Vitinia that was like pure throwback football stuff was once they got on the ball and they started pushing up, Witinha split the center backs every single time. And Aston Villa were not prepared to get on him on the picking passes. So that again and again, again they're playing at the edge of the penal carry because the team put a pass in to get them to that spot.
This is just what they do. It is the center back splits super wide. Both fullbacks go up the field, although occasionally, not even occasionally, Mendes. Mendes is flexible.
Sometimes he'll be infield. Inside though the winger with Kvara or Marco starts, Marco being the wide ally and sometimes Mendes will be the wide alley while the other winger is somewhere. Yeah. So it's a really good system.
It's like 60% throwback, 60% kind of new, 40% kind of new. But it is, it has the benefit of being in a meta where teams are just not equipped to hit its weaknesses. Yep. And on top of that, it has the benefit of playing three fantastic ISO winners at the same time.
Sure enough, like, how do you defend that? Somehow in an era where everybody wants an ISO winner, they have four. They have four of them. They start three, three of them are forward and get to.
And sometimes they get all four on the fill with two A's and eight. It's crazy. Yeah. Like in this context, like, are azophila only conceding 1.9 xg to a PSG team with this stupid talent that played really well.
Like, it was a good Villa performance. Just sucks, man. Yep, pretty much. So having some PSG's phrases, praises here.
They're not the best team in competition. I don't pick Barcelona. May just be great. So Barcelona are.
They're not dominating the La Liga table by as much as they're dominating the La Liga XG table. Yeah, but like, we're now through a whole bunch of games in La Liga and Champions League where they can just rack up more XG than their opponents better than anyone else in the world. I do think there's a thing where they're running well, which means they're winning 40 instead of 4 2. Yeah.
And it does feel bad when you're a 42 when your team that beats good teams, 4 2. Because, like, the conventional wisdom is like, well, eventually you're gonna run into a defense that will let you score and if you can't, defend your trouble. But like, I am here to posit, like, what if they don't? Dortmund had a bunch of chances and on top of having like 1.5 xg, gerasd just whiffed a couple of times and they lingered offside for no reason a couple of times.
Obviously, Leonardosaur for no reason is what Barcelona tries to succeed you into doing. But it's also like, worrisome because we've seen like, the Benfica match what happens when teams are clinical about keeping that offside line. And I think that this performance from Barcelona, as great as it was, and as much as I'm saying this looks like the best team in the world, it's also a performance that zero goals conceded does not describe this game well. And really does not describe the projection of future games well.
Yeah, look, I just spent 10 minutes when I was talking about bad actions are not equipped to hit PS2 sequences. That's not true of this martial art team. Exactly. It's just like this team is susceptible to being chaos maxed.
This team is susceptible to very traditional over the top play. It's just that they're so good in attack, it may not matter. And they are so good. Right.
Because what Dortmund set out to do in this game, I think, you know, we talked about how Enzo Moresco would be the manager who would watch Barcelona beat these guys. Dortmund Tried to engage in the mid block and then when they won, the ball passed through. And what happened was when they then lost the ball to the Barcelona counter press, they got murdered. Yeah, and that's the problem.
Like if you are not exceptionally good on the ball against that sort of like kind of iffy Barcelona counter press, if that counter press works, it becomes the single most terrifying thing to look football right now. And in Barcelona's defense here, they didn't go with good counterparts. Pressing Mitchell. They didn't start Gabby who's like still iffy on injuries.
Yeah. If they can get Gavi fit. Yeah. Gavi Pedri.
Frankie De Jong is scary as a trick. You know, Pedri and Frankie De Jong behind whoever they want to put in a 10 in a given game. Here is her lovers less scary as a midfield unit. And I think you should have said that when they succeeded, there was always someone on the ball with a really good range of passing, usually Pedri, but someone else with a really good range of passing too.
And Lamine leaking out as the primary option and Rafinha bleeding out as the secondary option. You can't defend that. No. And like neither of those winners, like have a weakness, you know, I mean, you know, we talked casually about Arsenal being able to recover against Real Madrid with the times when he broke out and really doesn't really have a weakness.
But Rodrigo did break out. When you're dealing with two guys, why on either side who don't have a weakness, like, what are you supposed to take away? Can we talk about Levine's passing? Oh my God.
It's not fair. I think that someone needs to look into this. It's not right that Barcelona have developed another teenager with impossibly great technique and vision as a teenager. It's insane.
I'm left footed, right wing. I don't think it should be allowed. I think someone should look into this. The Lamini Mall ball, which I think is just absolutely already iconic.
The cross with his left foot, the early cross with his left foot is unguarded. It's not fair because like not having to run across the back. Cross the outside of his left foot around the back. It's just the transition cross.
The defender is on the man, but there's room if you can kind of loop it around them and the keeper can't get to that spot. And like when you're watching games, you can see that pass. Yeah, but. And that's really exciting when someone tries it and Lamine somehow does it perfectly every time with the wrong Foot, the quote, unquote, wrong foot.
Like, it is the pass that you watch counterattacks and you watch wingers turn down a lot because it is so hard to convert. He just does it all the time, the right times. And then because he can do that, he can do everything else too. You try to take away that pass, he runs by you.
You're afraid of that pass. Like he gets somebody else with a through ball. In the end, the pass is set up. A third Barcelona goal, which is just a straight through ball, but it's a straight through ball through a defender with another defender marking the runner.
And it's unstoppable. His ability to both hit the outside around the back pass and then to cut in and pick out runners beating their side trap is like. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous.
And then like, he's also the great goal touring it is. Mind. I've never seen something like. I just haven't.
I'm not quite like, old enough. I haven't quite been in the business long enough to have watched Messi, as a profess. As me being a professional, watch Messi come into his powers. Yep.
But it feels like something equally happened. It is just. I've never seen something like this. Right.
The one thing that's missing is getting lots of shots in the middle of the panel theory. But he's freaking 17. He could just start. If he started doing that in two years, he started doing that in 2027, he'd be like, you know, the ceiling here is.
This is the first player I've seen come through with like, with that kind of unregnizable ceiling. Yeah. I mean, look, we've been doing this as Mbappe brought out. We've been doing this as Holland broke out.
And those would be the two young stars in the past seven or eight years. Neither of them was this at this age. Not close. Not close.
Mbappe was still a year away from breaking out for half a season on Mako at this age. And when he broke out rapophysis on Monaco, he was an exceptionally fast, clinical wide forward. Yep. Like, he knew what it was and he was the best version of it.
I think what is interesting is that with Mbappe, like, well, if he's gonna become a world historic player, he's gonna do lots of other stuff besides the scoring goals, which is there. And he like that halfway there, basically. I think he's. And like, you know, I don't know.
He's still young. Yeah. You get him in a system where he is more open to holding shape and passing to Vinny. Like, it could come right.
I mean, I just think the thing is that I think lots of people think the ship has sailed on getting him to want to do that stuff. But if it's a story of what does the individual person, Killian and Poppy out of his life, that could just change any moment. You know, Luminium all has the passing and the everything and the running and the carrying and the dribbling. And he's got a good shot on him while he's playing.
Like, the interesting thing here is that because of the way the system is built, he's not supposed to get to center of penalty that much. Rafini is supposed to. That's good. He's excellent at it.
And Vlamine is so dangerous as a creator. But, like, what if that's just a system thing right now? Yeah, that's the serious level. What if it's not even that the skill isn't there, like, it's just the system.
I just really. I legitimately really wonder what Lumina becomes when Rogaski leaves, because that front line's gonna get recalibrated in some way. And I remain terrified every time I talk about him. Like, he started playing professional soccer at 16 at a high level.
And if he's got a body that can withstand that, that's amazing. But it's scary. You know it is. And then, like, Messi's 35, still doing this.
Cristiano Ronaldo's 38 and not quite still doing this anymore. To be a world historic player, you're talking about with the top five players in history, the top 10 players in history, you have to do this for 20 years. You have to do it for 20 years. You know, if Lamin's legs start to go at the age when Wayne Rudy's legs started to go, you are not going to get into that category, you know, and like, Rudy burst out of the scene at 17.
The things that kept Rudy from having a career that we talk about that, like, were just like, contingent on what kind of person he became. And also just like good fortune and physical and stuff that has to do with how your physical body is constructed, that no one really knows about a body until it's gone through the Rangers of professional football career. The thing about Messi is that Messi's peak was higher than anyone I've seen, but it wasn't that much higher. It was somewhat higher.
The problem is he just stayed at that level for what, 14 years? 21 to 35. Yeah, 21 to 34. Yeah.
But yeah, and that's impossible. That's why I still, as amazed as I am by Lamine, I still just think that I'm probably gonna die thinking that he was the goat. Because 14 years at that level is impossible. No one does it.
Yeah, I agree with that. It's just hard. You have to be such a unicorn in so many ways and get lucky. That's just what it comes down to.
But the leading thing is that he does appear to be a unicorn. He is certainly a unicorn in the collection of the set of skills and execution that he has at this age. The next questions are, where does refinement take you in terms of what the. The final set of skills are?
1, 2. How does your body hold up? 3. Then if you go 2 for 2 or I guess it's 3 for 3 because we're already 1 for 1.
Act like unicorn stats. If you go 3 for 3, do you age in a way that keeps you at your peak? Because that's what Messi did. That.
That's four for four. Messi was great at three different positions over his career. And like you can already see that Imal has the skills to possibly do that. But that thing is so different executing that thing.
I mean like until they were 31 and 29, Ronaldo and Messi were neck and neck. And then Messi had the 30s that Ronaldo didn't have because Messi aged in a way that Ronaldo did not. And like just far abstracted, like this is the conversation you're having about where Leminal is right now. That's.
That's just. It is. Yeah. So yeah, so we'll be talking about what we expect to come from the semi finals later.
We'll be seeing. Is there anything watching in the final four matches next week? Not really. I mean like jokes aside, like Bayern, I suppose the problem is that now like if Bayern lose Partleth has the injuries, if Bayern pull through and win, do you really think that Eric Dyer defensive line is going to hold against Barcelona?
It just seems. It just doesn't seem possible hardly at this point. Yeah. Even if they weren't frauds.
I don't like this this injury wrapped Byron team against Barcelona at all. Mostly we're just sort of at like they are what we thought they were caliber if everything holds. I sort of think the start, the story of like Arsenal's epic defense, like entering boss stage increasingly is like a fun story and a fun way to look at the Champions League. But I don't think we're learning very much from these second leg games really.
This is the center path that prevalence said we're going to do it. It just feels like the question is Arsenal as like the like underdog trying to defeat the two behemoths with the one strategy that they've got? I think a lot of play is tough to have because I do think that like across the board, the particular like when you have a dynamic that is like these are like juggernaut attacking teams that want to attack. Like how the other team counter punches is like a tactical like process you can break down.
I think that's like what I'm supposed to be able to look at. Absolutely. I think that we've done more than enough to jinx all the teams that have big leads. No interesting like here.
So can you imagine the terror on Arsenal spaces if they had to resist the bill of the set people. Oh God. Horse. Horse.
Don't. Don't speak that evil to the world. Who wants to watch that game?