Hello and welcome to the Double Kevin, the world's most agreeable soccer outlets podcast. I am Michael Kayley. We are back. We are both back from vacation and I am back on a new laptop because I arrived home from vacation and in place of a laptop I had a big thin black paperweight.
So eventually got my laptop back. Mike eventually returned home from vacation. We are here to give you at least one pod this week. It will make up a few of those for our subscribers as time goes on.
But we are tanned and rested, or bear put. We are not particularly rested in Mike is somewhat tan, but we're gonna talk about the Champions League. Mike, how you doing? I'm good.
I'm actually rested and tan. My kids have clearly crossed a specific age at which point they are more manageable based on the lasting vacations. Anyway, the music you've heard online as well as please down subscribe and exactly this podcast [email protected] doublebivot yeah, let's talk some Champions League. I guess we got two semi final matches between really really good teams.
This is where I want to start. Three and a half of the teams left in this tournament are really, really good and I'm just gonna bring this over the intervals side of the radio because I'm going to start with Inter who are the half team here Because Inter at their best are a very good team. The problem is that Inter are incredibly old and probably their peak is also the lowest of the four peaks left. So they have a much narrower range that they need to hit but they're a good team.
Yeah, when we did our preview, we had the four of these knockouts and before the Champions League start, before the league league phase started, we had Inter as one of the second tier competitors and they still are the best team in Serie A this season. They are tied with Napoli who have, you know, been relatively fortunate. These things have gone. There's.
If there were to be a Surie a team in the semi final, it was going to be them. They have believed that they are a team that can win the Champions League, that can win multiple trophies this season, but they've just been a little worse than last year and more they have been a little worse as the season has gone on and as they've been hit by injuries on their old team trying to compete in two competitions. Yeah, I think that that's unquestionably correct. And in particular their midfield has aged and it's kind of a problem.
Yeah, vegetarian, turned 36 recently and they're still expecting him to do Sheldon 8 stuff. Yeah. And I think that. I think we talked about this before the podcast.
I kind of have a theory that Barella being at peak Barella was a little bit of the glue stuff that held the relatively limited athleticism of the rest of the midfield together. And now that Barella has started to be post peak Barella and can't really physically do quite as rangy stuff, he's still very good midfielder, but he's at the age where you would sort of expect him to evolve into the somewhat more elegant kind of eight and the somewhat less all action kind of eight. And he is still tasked with being the all actioniest guy. Yeah.
And then like all of the other problems, Taram has been in and out of the lineup with injury. And if Taram isn't there, someone else has to do a little bit more getting forward, getting the penalty area. Likewise, Dumfries has been out and so you just get worse. And so much of how they do this relies on these wing backs, right?
Yep. They have two true forwards, but they get no box support from this midfield nor are they really supposed to. Like occasionally if for Tessi's playing, he'll be a guy that gets into the box. You don't start for Tessi.
That's crazy though. So like that's your attacking sub idea. Yeah. Which makes sense.
It's an attacking stuff, but it is clearly it's the two forwards and the wing backs. And so when they went to a real injury basis with wingbacks and obviously not be back, it really impacted their ability to create. And what holds all of this together, the glue here is Bastoni, Bisseck, the wide center backs, Pavard who are able to cover ground and protect everyone else. And that has.
It's kind of a. It's an odd system where when interrotate they often rotate the wide center backs because few people have more athletically demanding rules on this team than the wide center backs. And I think what's been going wrong for them recently is that with all of these things getting a little bit worse here and a little bit worse there, a little bit worse here, a little bit worse there, it's just a bit too much for Bastoni, Pavard and Bissak to clean. Right.
And I cuts both of us because it also means that they can't especially Bastonia and to a certain degree to sac contribute an attack. Because when I was just talking about how the midfielders don't get forward into the box almost at all, it's like where do you get an extra body when the other team is sitting and defending? And the answer is those center backs overlap like it is the center backs and the wing backs in the wide areas, which create overlaps to create space at the ball of the box. And if you're asking them to do even more defensively, it becomes even harder for them to do that.
And it becomes even easier for you to be able to bunker against interact, not to be able to break it down. Now that is not going to be a question in the Champions League semi finals against Barcelona. There will be no bunker top here. Exactly.
And the if you happen this weekend to watch Inter against Roma, which should be fun, you could get an opportunity to see what it looks like when Inter are attacking a defensive attack that he's just talking about Roma bunkering the whole match. There's going to be a lot of Inter on the ball and attacking Roma. And the way that they get themselves into spaces, the way they produce overlaps, the way they produce overloads, is not as, like I was saying with the midfielders, it is with center backs and wing backs and forwards overlapping one another. You get like multiple overlaps running.
That's fascinating and weird and beautiful to see. And it probably won't be how intertwined you have to see at all. No, that is correct. Inter are going to have to counterattack.
There's kind of no way around this against Barcelona, even though Barcelona without wrapping the dusty seems likely at this point. And so maybe we should start there on the other side. Start with like a question mark. Here is Ravelloski had a good season.
How integral to Barcelona do we think Lewandowski is? Yeah, so Lewandowski has a hamstring injury. He is, he is out for the first match. By all accounts, he's probably up for the second half.
They're probably just being generous about it. But Lewandowski has managed to. He's 36, he's going to turn 37 soon. And he's managed to turn himself into a pure penalty box finisher.
And he barely touches the ball outside the penalty area. He barely does any passing, except maybe to receive a pass in the penalty area and pass it on. And he has maintained those weird center forward athleticism skills to be exceptionally productive. And it's just clearly going to be a downgrade to the attack to play faron.
Yeah, it's interesting to me because you are entirely correct that Lewsky very rarely touches the ball outside the peltier, but he spends a lot of time coming towards the ball as the wingers go beyond him and there is this idea that he's doing sort of a Harry Keane esque job, which it's just the lie by the fact he does just the ball. But if you watch his positioning, he is attempting to move center backs with and like generally successfully. And it's an interesting question to think about what that what Fernand Torres in that role looks like a lot because I think in effect what happens is he's able to touch the ball more because they're back expecting less. And I think especially with intercept up with three center backs, I would expect one, but not two center backs to contest balls off the fairboards.
And then you're going to have two center backs, perhaps the wide two center backs, to be honest. Who are. We are guarded and you know, tasked with guarding the space in behind, which is different than how most teams operate. Yeah.
And Theron generally like the thing that he's best at, the thing that makes him a good soccer player, is that he likes to run in behind between the two center backs. And certainly that is a pass that Lamine can play. Right. But it's a different structure.
I'm interested to watch the Copa del Rey final. They're going to have to show what they look like playing against one of the best teams they're going to face with this front three and how different it is. Like the thing you do get is Ferronica FRAS4 and left it off. He does, yes.
And that helps. I mean that clearly helps. And then he's gonna. If you constructed a system right, what you would construct is a system in which Barrantorres is peeling to one side or the other to create overlaps with that attacking winger for the winner crashing from the other side.
But conceptually that is how you would use these talents. Especially if you've got Daniel Ola coming back and healthy, who's going to be playing as the 10ish guy who can get into the get into the box if those spaces are abandoned by Fertor. So intentional. Whereas Daniel's been good when healthy, but with Lewandowski in front of him, his ability to be a 910 gets a little bit handcuffed.
There's a way that all of these pieces work and fit together, but it's a very just so exact story for hasn't played that way. And then because Gavi has been struggling to get himself back to full fitness, they he I doubt he will start. If Gavi is ready to go, that's a big, big plus for them. But instead it has Mostly been Frankie De Jong and Pedri and with, you know, Fernie Lopez or now likely Danielmo and like there's a lot of ball progression there, but that is so lightweight.
Yeah. And I just sort of wonder when thinking about Inter's midfield and their midfield, like who plays defense now? Realistically speaking, Inters want to attack through those late wing midfields. They want to attack down the flex where they will also have plenty of opportunity to do so.
Let's be honest, what I would think Inter's plan would be is that they want to have a pass or two, like to settle the ball against the press. Yes. And then any of those three midfielders get on the ball and aren't being pressed and someone's running back. Like I would expect that somewhat less than the way that they tend to really depend on the wide overloads for buildup.
I kind of think it's going to bypass that. And certainly if Naprize is fit, he will be making these runs. Maybe demarco will be if he's starting. So I'll have wingbacks making those runs in behind as well.
But like, I think they're just trying to feed Liparo and if he's fit, Taram. And again, like I keep saying, if he's fit, like if Dumfries is making those runs, it's a lot better than if Agusto is making those runs. Yes, yes, Taram is doing that. That's so much more dangerous than it's been any.
And like, we just don't know. I like this idea against Barca if it's everyone at their best for Inter, but I don't know how likely that is. Like, I think we are set up for a 75 when neither of these teams are their best. But like Barcelona's just better.
Barcelona's attack is just so incredibly good. And as you're saying, if Ferran could just do a fair amount of running the channel on the right side so that Lavigne can be on the ball and be fighting. Raphinha coming in like that's probably just gonna score a couple of goals. This attack is just so spectacular.
It is the best attack in world football. I also sidebar Lamin, we've raved about him as a player. He is culturally the next. It's fascinating.
Yeah, I will again, totally anecdotally speaking, for my vacation, Lamin jerseys were everywhere in a way that I have not seen early Holland any of these next generations of talents. And I think some of it is just the star making potential of Barcelona, specifically, like Vinny, you would think Brazilian, huge star goes to Real Madrid. It's not on the same level as just like a culturally like these kits, him being a star. It's everywhere kind of all of a sudden over the, I would say last few months.
It's probably been the last six months since Euros, right? Which is now what's happened. But like, it's probably been since Euros, but like over the course of the season, man, he has just taken off. Yeah.
You can check our last podcast on Barcelona for full Lenin Mal takes. But there's something about the way that his game resembles Messi's game. Very young Messi's game. Yeah, that I think.
I think there's something. It's tapp in the like, larger collective psyche. He doesn't have that dribble five guys and take a shot in the middle of the penalty area thing yet. But like, I'm just saying.
Yeah, it's crazy. So Barcelona are favored, but I can easily see how Inter could. Inter pull off the upset. It's an upset, but it's not a shocking upset.
It's sort of how I would have it in my head, especially if Inter do happen to be fit in time. Yeah. Okay. Other side of the bracket.
Other side of the bracket. So what's kind of funny about this is that Inter are in a scudetto chase and so they've got to play a strong side against Roma. Barcelona have a Copa del Rey final. So, like that's kind of a big deal.
And they're both going to have to play their best teams. Arsenal and psg, they can plan their weekend around whatever gets their players ready for this match. The best, without a doubt. And this is like a classic immovable object versus unstoppable force game.
You have a team in Arsenal that is elite at defending with and without the ball. And you have psg, which alongside Barcelona are the most lethal attacking force in the world right now. Who are unlike Barcelona, who could be healthy. And on PSG's side, at least you have a team that doesn't have enough gear.
Like they can't be kg. If they're kg, they lose. Like they have. There is no gear besides go all out and try to sword rivals.
There just is. Nor should they be with their first lap. But they can. The thing that makes PSG different from Barcelona here is that psg, for the most part are not vulnerable when they go all out.
They are built to have protections when they go all out, which are based on two things. One, they're probably the best counterpressing team in the entire world. It's just weird. But yes.
And credit to Luis Enrique for the amount of work he's getting out of his forwards. And the fullbacks and the midfield are very, very good counter pressing personnel. But the fact that it's working with these forwards is really a testament to Luis Enrique. And then they have a bunch of plea makers on defense.
And so like when you think about Barcelona, right, the defensive backstop is a certainly highlight. Like they're not looking to make plays to win the ball back. They're looking to catch you offside and if they can't catch you offside, hope to continue until everybody gets back on defense like that. That's their goal, right.
And they want to terrify you so you don't leak anyone out because if you fail, you're suddenly facing their Forwards running, yeah, 100% and BSG, they might counter press you to win the ball back. And if they can't win the ball back, they want their center back to plays to win the ball back. Sometimes they're, I mean center backs and one of the two fullbacks, like it's usually it's like three guys somehow but barely, but it is usually like three guys. Yeah, they're going to be committing forward and like that's how counter pressing systems work.
This is what football used to be. Yeah, very much so. You didn't used to have to keep five guys back. You could have three guys back if you want a couple of them to be really, really good individual one on one defenders.
But you'd push forward, you'd make the other team cough the ball up and you'd create off of that press. And PSG can either create off the press or create against a set defense as good as just about anybody else in the world. And Arsenal can beat a press to maintain possession or set up a set defense and stifle you better than anybody else in the world. Like it's a perfect matchup of strengths against strengths.
I think one thing that I want to highlight on Arsenal side is that there's been a lot of talk about okay, we got Saka back and Sokka and Odegaard playing together and you know, the attack all of a sudden looks functional. And I think that's true. Although Sokka is clearly not at peak Sokka form. I don't want to speculate that he's not very physically, that he's probably fine physically.
He takes a while come back. It did beat Superstar four when you've been out for five months. But Odegaard and Sokka being on the field together means that they are very good at keeping the ball in the attacking third in a way that's somewhat stuttered without them. Their defensive possession came much deeper on the field without Saka and Odegaard in that.
There was a lot of like passing it in the middle third, keeping it in the middle third, having very little to do. And that matters actually. I mean that matters for defensive possession. Keeping the ball in the attacking third, it is significantly better as a defensive tool than if you're passing vulnerable mistakes.
And I suspect we're going to see a lot of that. We're going to see a lot of the ball being recycled deep in PSG's territory on Arsenal's right. We've seen PSG against Liverpool in the second leg, play against a team that really took it to them, beat their press, forced them to defend sitting back and then spring forward. And they were definitely vulnerable in part A and crazy dangerous in part B.
Look, I mean, I think test can look at that and say, well, okay, how do I get part A without part B? I don't think Liverpool's a very, very good team. It couldn't answer that question. I don't really think Arsenal will be able to answer that question either.
The secondary question is like originally what Liverpool did was like, we're not going to do part A. We're going to prioritize defending and keeping them from being dangerous. And they just utterly failed. Totally failed.
And I think Arsenal are a better defensive team than Liverpool, but by the numbers it's not, it's not an extreme difference. Liverpool have been a very, very good defensive team. Now what I might say is that Liverpool's defensive abilities are a little more based on individuals making plays where Arsenal have Saliba, Gabriel. Sorry, Gabriel.
Arsenal good. But have Saliba who's every bit the individual defender of Henriki's. I think it's probably going to go better for Arsenal because they are so good structure. Yeah, they are.
I think one issue that Liverpool had is they just don't play this way and Arsenal regularly play this way. Now this first leg is going to be Arsenal at home and we've seen Arteta now a couple of times come out notably more aggressive than was expected and in particular at home legs. So it may not be as much of a defensive shell, but I don't know. I think that Arsenal's ability to be a bunch of different things is a real asset.
100%. What has happened to me is I would have had a much Better grasp of what I thought Arsenal were going to do before I watched the Arsenal, Real Madrid magic hell, right? Because they structurally set up to allow that game to go up and down and trust themselves deep in their own final third to not give up chances. And it worked like a lot.
And I think PSG are much better right now than Real Madrid are at using their attacking talent cohesively. And I don't know whether Arteta is going to look at the Real Madrid badge and think, I'm going to do that again, or he's going to look at the PSG and say, I'm not going to try and get lucky twice. Right. Like, I don't know, you can make arguments for both approaches.
Like, I would really like to see Arsenal go for it. I would be just really interested because I thought that one of the two of the two big reasons it worked were two weaknesses that Real Madrid have that PSG does not. The first is that Real Madrid simply do not counter press at all. They can close you down, they can chase the ball, but they don't have a structured counter press.
And so Arsenal were able. Either they could go up and down or if they wanted to, they could slow down, pass around. They'd have a lot of the ball and they tried to go up and down, but they always had that in their back pocket and that makes it a lot easier to play this way. And PSG are not going to make that easy.
And then the other thing is that Real Madrid just want to attack down the left. Yeah, Kivior and probably Kivior, probably lewiskelli are going to have to defend whichever winners they put out there. Is it going to be, you know, Dembele likes to move over the right. Quicha will probably be okay.
Like, anyone can play over there. They're all so good. Like, they do all of these things. There are games where Kichi just stays all the way, chalk on his boots on the left for the entire 90 minutes.
There are games where he'd never been in there, where he's going to be. I think a lot of what happens is if Due starts in the front three, he just starts on the right and Juju starts on the left. But if Due A is an eight or if you're just doing Barcolo, which is, I think they're, you know, two serum which are absolutely best. Eleven, it's Kicha di Belli and Barcolo as the front three, then they move all over because Barcola and Kicha are both prefer to be left wings when in Doubt and in either case Hakimi on the right.
So he will be over and or underlapping the entire time. One of the few fullbacks who can go is like one of the best in the world is just a straight overlap and one of the best in the world stepping into midfield. And Evan, this is not Arsenal at their best. Mourinho is probably out, but anyway Marino is out there for places with Trossard, which I don't think is a big downgrade.
The problem is either Marino or Trossard at striker and so they don't have as much shot getting ability at the top and they are probably going to be overmatched and fighting their best to hang on on the left side of their defense. And those two things I think clearly make PSG the favorite in this matchup. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right.
Not a big favorite though. It would not be particularly surprising if, you know, we haven't seen Saka at his best over 90 or 180 if that just happened. And there are absolutely like, if Arsenal can consistently break through PSG's counter press, if they are just better at doing this than Liverpool were in their home leg, which is possible, like they could put PSG under a lot of pressure in situations PSG don't want to be in. I think if Arsenal win, Arsenal are going to have like a 62% possession in a game that is less than 2012 shots.
Like that's, that's what I really think now I have a hard time seeing Arsenal coming through if they're leaning on defending without the ball a lot. Good as they are. But I think if they are able to just keep the ball, recycle it on the right, try to make, you know, try to create really good chances as Odegaard scoops it over for Saka. You know, do their limited counter press to make it very hard for PSG to spring out.
And then Saliba makes two or three plays. That's sort of the path I see Arsenal winning. And then you know, PSG get like seven shots and two of them are really scary, but only seven shots. Like something like that is what I think Arsenal's path to success is.
Yeah, like it's so easy to imagine this game being close enough that Baldo's goal is the determinant of the outcome. Yeah, absolutely right. Like it's easy to sort of imagine PSG take 25 crappy shots but like one of them deflects off body does it. I have PSG favored here.
I think a little bit less than I have Barcelona favored in the other match. Yeah, I think, I think, I think, I guess maybe I don't have a more bullet bullish on enter, but I would say pretty clearly, you know, Barcelona, even with Aldo and Dusty are solid favorites and PSG are small favorites. I wonder to what degree. I was on vacation and so I didn't watch the second leg of PSG Aston Villa.
So the PSG and my head are just. The PSG is crushing everybody. But it's going to be a problem for PSG if they're trying to defend the league without the ball. It will be, but like, they're playing the second leg at home and I think that also matters.
I'm excited about these games. About PSG is like, if you're at a point where it's like your biggest problem is that you don't defend leagues well enough, like, and you're like, perspectively, that's like a big problem. Against Arsenal and Champions League semi final, you're in a pretty good spot. All right, well, we will be back with more podcasts.
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