Hello and welcome to the double pivot podcast coming to you live from the people's the remaining people's confederated readouts of New York City and Washington DC because of some struggles in our competition in the previous week in the Premier League I am now sub-common Dante Michael Kayley. I'm joined on the line here by common Dante Mike Goodman. How's it going? I'm doing all right The whalers we've got max on the other side of the virtual glass Please now more than ever our egos needed like us download subscribe do all the things that make us happier podcasters I like it with you and I'm happy.
Yes happier. Help us fight beyond we Want to give a quick shout out to Simon at analytic underscore footy for doing the simple math of adding numbers together for us So that I could discover that I am in fact Mike and Kelly is in fact other Mike And today we're gonna do two different ends of the soccer spectrum We're gonna start off with the US men's national team debacle this international break I assume talk a whole bunch about York, England And then we will switch to the sublime soccer at the top of La Liga and talk about the best teams there and how Barcelona Real Madrid and I thought it started maybe with a bonus sprinkling of Villarreal and Sevilla as time allows All right, so let's get to it The US men's national team is not good. No, no I have to say like I'm you know the sort of lead into this and based on our voices and knowing we are we're Americans And so you know, I am a person who supports the US national team and its various gendered flavors This game was hilarious indeed me joy. I can't tell that it was so bad.
It just tipped over into something beautiful the Costa Rica loss Yeah, it was distinctly shot in Freuda E Okay, so let's brief recap a two-one loss to Mexico in which they inexplicably played a back three which didn't work Sort of rescued it by going back to a more basic back four Tying the game up They actually kind of played fine in the second half against Mexico before giving up a late set piece gold or Rafa Marquez losing to one You don't want to lose at home the game was in Columbus not the end of the world Then they go down to Costa Rica where they struggle generally speaking and you know, you're already kind of bargaining with yourself I wrote something for insider where I basically said look you can lose this game and you're still gonna be okay to qualify There's it's a long way down in the hex. So there's a lot of sort of bargaining going on but the performance they put in just I mean the utter lack of any life in this team in a for a loss was um It was pretty shocking Yeah, you can't really identify the thing that went wrong because all of it was so bad I mean there's individual errors there, you know, John Brooks sort of you know reverse deli alley with the nutmeg Those are two of the best defender nutmeg's you're gonna see But like maybe he was he was under pressure because nothing was working in midfield He was constant the center back for constituting force defend one-on-one and that's not a good situation that shows your team It's already breaking even though there would have been fewer big chances if they haven't been quite as the center back Yeah, that's right. Like it's one of those classic situations You know, I'm often reminded of Vincent company is sort of the player that represents this in my brain now from from the memo I believe in Manchester City days where he would so frequently rescue that team in these one-on-one situations But all you notice is the times when he got beat but you're putting pressure on centerbacks to turn losing situations into wins for you in those in those you know situations when the midfield is breaking down like that and You know sometimes they can do that they can bail you out and so it is a failure mistake Whatever on the centerbacks when they don't but they're being put in these very difficult situations Repeatedly because the rest of the team is nothing down and like look, I don't know like you're saying here though I almost it's almost impossible to focus on any one player or one Tactical issue or one specific cause when everything melts down like this I mean, we've seen games like this before from teams right like we've seen They're coach killer games and they're just there games where everything melts down and there's no sort of circuit breaker that trips to Haul the fall Yeah, which I mean obviously you know when everything is wrong That's when you start looking at a higher level than the players And I think as was pointed out It's it's not like the Costa Rica men's national team is full of the kind of quality of players that like you know US development issues are what's the problem is here, you know, and people like to fall back on this right they like to fall back on Well, what could you expect from this group of players which? One, I don't think that's true I actually think that the players are pretty good at this point And I think they're sort of all consistently performing better for their clubs than the national team and two five years into your Ten year with team if the players aren't good enough to beat Costa Rica Like if you should expect them to get shellacked by Costa Rica given where the team was when he took them over five years ago Then that's also a European cleanseman value like the oh, well the players aren't good enough when you hand the program over to Klinsman for five years and say, you know, do what you want to with it Well, that's also a Klinsman responsibility then so I just I don't I Was or have been for a long time a year in Klinsman.
I don't know if the fenders the right word, but I I The double pivot has previously staked out an anti anti Klinsman. Yes, that is correct I think we've been that's that's a yeah, that is where we landed We were anti anti Klinsman also because he was you know He sort of landed at the bottom edge of acceptable of the span of acceptable results And he got those results with the bottom edge of acceptable performance for that range of results, right? Like he wasn't this team wasn't doing well, but they were doing acceptably enough That you could excuse it But when that's where you're coming from and then you have an opening two games of the hex like this You don't have any goodwill or wiggle room when you're Klinsman to say to point to two and say it's only two games Obviously, we're gonna turn it around and I don't really know why Anybody should have faith that Klinsman is going to turn this the program around at this point I would take I would I would give a little more credit to the sort of top-line results that he's gotten You know the US has gotten further in the World Cup than like England The US has you know Made it to the Cup made it to the Copa Sami is the US has the cupa semis are really the only thing He has to hand his hat to hang his hat on since the World Cup and we're now going we're now going on a year and a half Two major tournaments and qualifying, right? There's a lot of subpar results post World Cup to balance against the the Copa result Oh, well, I mean, yes, I would say I mean there have been more problems recently I'm just saying the overall like if you looked at what if you told me when you're gonna cleanse me took over and you gave me the Top-line results of what the US has done in the last five years.
I would have been fine You know, I think that like the problem is how they've looked doing it much more than I think the result He's gotten like it's not like oh, man I want this guy to stay on forever because the US men's national team will never be any good You know, he's done something he's transformed them But they've been a good international team Which is you know what I hope for from the US in terms of what they've achieved But the problem for me is that with behind every one of those I would say I would say more good than acceptable would be sort of my baseline for the US national team is they've been good rather Acceptable in terms of final results, but behind those good results has never been a quality of play that looked to me Like they clearly deserve to get to that order finally get to that semi-final It looked to me like they were always just scraping into that point and ending up with a good result But if you play that term it over several times you wouldn't expect it Yeah, I mean Mike Mike take on Klinsman sort of chronologically was Coming out of the World Cup Klinsman had the right to fail at something before he really should be facing any questions Of course, he then failed spectacularly at the gold top Yes, and then didn't qualify for the Federation's Cup And so at that point he should face questions And then so the question the question then is how much of that is really mitigated by last summer's Cobra run, especially when you stack it up against Further struggles in qualifying before the X, right? it wasn't it was a bumpy road then as well and you sort of stack all that up together and You know and you look at the performances specifically and we now have like you know This was this is a dense time of the calendar for for games that matter for the US You had the downs you sort of have downtime after the World Cup where you have a year where it's mostly friendlies You get to experiment who the heck cares and then you come into the gold top and then things happen very very quickly Especially with the extra cup America, right? You have two international tournaments that count and qualify and so that's a lot of games to sort of look at performances from and there Have not been a lot of even at the Cobra run There just haven't been a lot of good performances to hang your hat on No, and there has not been the sort of meat and there haven't been other pieces You know major development who's like, you know, they haven't been there's not that much to point to in clip You know, we've like Christian Pilsik was developed by Dortmund into a very very good player That's gonna be amazing for the US that doesn't that's not really like a point for Queensland There's not a lot of sort of other points for Queensland to make at this point It's how well is this team playing and it's not great. Yeah, and look they have a lot of pretty good players in the talent pool right now and That's another part of this issue.
I mean You know It's been a long-standing long-running cleanseman joke about how he plays guys out of position and sort of randomly seemingly randomly whether or not It's actually random or whether there's tactical plans that don't come off or You know, whatever is going on behind the scenes You can get away with that when the results are okay But you know that is a thing that very specifically falls on the manager's head when things go badly and it's just I don't know conceptually why they tried to go with the back three against Mexico, but Huge match opening round of qualifying. It clearly thought it and that's I mean That is as direct a specific managerial mistake as you can have like as clear a specific on-field manager I'm a stake as you can find and when you don't have any sort of Credit built up that you get a lot of those decisions right when you get one majorly wrong at an important moment you have to pay attention to that and You know to me Klinsman has gone from he's doing fine He has lots of wiggle room to fail to failing to okay now We have to ask questions about him to now I'm at the point where it's I Have a hard time finding any good reasons for him to continue to manage the team Especially if it's true that there are possible replacements lined up and ready to go should they pull the chair and insert their Media reports that Rosarina has been Sort of felt out about returning to take control of the team and like if that's the case now is the time to do Right now is the time when there's still plenty of time to qualify without without too much drama a long gap until the next qualification match Like now is the time to make a change if you're gonna make a change Yeah, and it's not clear at this point The upside of keeping Klinsman is vanishing. Yeah, you know, right there. You know what exactly do you and there's there's a there's a old Bill James a baseball writer.
Let's talk about how how managers tend to create their own tend to make themselves obsolete That if there were pro if there are problems when a manager is hired if they're if they're good at the job They'll solve some of those problems that hopefully you will have hired the manager that solves those problems But the manager is and then over time if the manager's even say they've done a good job They still the problems that they've ended up creating exactly problems. They're not able to solve and so, you know Even in the sort of nicest version of what you want to say about your in Klinsman the problem right now of taking a whole bunch of Pretty good American players and turning them into a real functioning football team Does not appear to be the problem that he's set up to solve Yeah, I think that's right and and look and again as you say that's sort of the most charitable interpretation of Klinsman's time Because I still see a team that plays its best when they play the style that Klinsman was brought in specifically to change Right, like I still see a team that plays its best when they're when they're counter attacking when they're controlling space rather than controlling the ball I'm playing in transition rather than a team that sort of is comfortable keeping the ball 58 59 60% of the time and you know Canning teams back and building and creating chances they still don't do that well and and they still have personnel that I would want to be doing that I Don't know. I can envision team. I can envision lineups and setups where they do have the personnel to do that None of those setups are ones that Klinsman is using right like yeah I mean I can envision a pretty proactive 4-2-3-1 type of formation which is built around such a question in and post it and You know either would or out the door, but not both and then you know Maybe Michael Bradley and Perry Kitchin as sort of the double pivot Or I mean because I think that we can pretty clearly see by this point that your main Jones and my family together are not working anymore and you need to find other options I mean I think there are a number of you know Ali Padoy could probably slot in there as well if you wanted a ball control midfielder in that role there were options There were ways you could experiment and find setups that I think could effectively control the ball Klinsman had like 18 months after the World Cup to do that and he hasn't found it and you get a year you get Tournament two tournaments and at some point you just say okay.
This is this is not gonna happen Right. This is just this is simply not gonna happen and if that's not gonna happen. What is the point now? What is the point of your I think that is a very good place to leave that Discussion what is the point of your What is the point of your Yes, problems.
It's human nature to hate problems But why is that after all problems inspire us to mend things bend things make things better? That's why so many people work with IBM on everything from city traffic to ocean plastic new schools to new energy flight delays to food safety smart Loves problems IBM let's put smart to work visit IBM comms slash smart to learn more and I think it's time to move to Other places where they play soccer well and they have managers for good at it. So just well Yes, well, I mean we say they have managers that are good at it. If you've taken a peek at Barcelona Twitter recently There is there is a always considerable debate as to whether or not Lewis and regay does manage well I mean I Barcelona Barcelona fandom is incredibly divided over Lewis and regay, which to me is mind-boggling because I see a very good very competent manager but Let's start with Barcelona since we're here.
They're in second place. They're two points behind Real Madrid But they're not as dominant as they have been the last couple of years something's up, right? Like there's there's something going on Yeah, and for the most part it is I would say it's so Like it's not like this isn't a team that we will expect to be right there at the end in the loud It's like Barcelona is still better than all of that. There aren't I think that up with this one of the things that I think that got overstated early in the season was the amount of parity in La Liga I mean look it's still kind of close through the top five.
It's um Villarilla and Sevilla are still hanging around. I thought it was actually fourth But it still seems pretty clear that there's three really good teams and everybody else Yeah, I'm not meaning to like the story that got sold early on was there was a ton of parry There wasn't like you know one or two teams that were probably good and maybe competing with the big three, right? La Liga based on the numbers I'm looking at here clearly still has a big three. Yeah, I mean that's what I see But it's just they're just not quite as much better than the rest of the league and that's that's a real thing Even if it's not parry I think one thing that was happening was more seeing that these teams were not quite as utterly dominant over the rest of the league and Then turning that into parity.
It's not that but it is something interesting, right? So if we look at Barcelona, I mean they have they're averaging two and a half expected goals of the game which is Massive but that's a huge attacking output. The thing is last year. They were averaging three, which is unheard of So that's a significant drop off even though it's a drop off to like still an amazing level of performance And and as we were sort of starting to get into it's hard to put your finger on I Wrote a bunch about this week.
So two of the skates is having an off year so far The problem is is when you try to capture what midfielders do. There's no sort of easy way to define what's going on He's slightly less involved, but we're talking like three passes from a guy who plays 70 passes a game, right? It's it's it's marginal. It's there.
It's absolutely there, but it's marginal And it's in line with Barcelona as a whole who interestingly still have like exactly the same percentage of passes per game But games that they're playing in have less overall passes. So so stuff is Just not quite right But I mean the question is like what does that mean practically for like the performances on the field? Yeah, because what was what? Well, this Enrique has has done at Barcelona, which I think is fast and last year was really quite beautiful was to Change the sort of point at which Barcelona really tried to play football that not that the team was still obviously still had possession They still were playing a recognizably Barcelona style football But they were striking much more quickly and they were looking for interchanges between their forwards as a key point in their play a little bit more than interchange between their midfielders And so they had this this this change of focus and this year as the there's been sort of issues with getting all of the Forewards on the field and the midfielders have not been quite as sharp and doing the slightly new set of things are supposed to do Things seem to come off just a little bit off, right?
I think one of the things that I want to key in on here is What they did so well was get the ball into the forwards more quickly when defenses were unsettled So those forwards were getting the ball and running at slightly unsettled mispositioned defenses And my sense is is that this year those defenses are much more settled when the ball gets rushed up those times when the ball gets rushed up the field And what I'm kind of seeing is I'm kind of seeing an expansion of the the the Atletico Madrid defensive game plan against Barcelona Which is incredibly predicated on taking away the skates So when you watch those two teams play what Atletico does is they put both of their forwards between the defenders and the sketch So that he can't get the ball and so then and then they force Barcelona to circulate it out wide and move it back into the skates After playing a number of passes should they want to do that? And if they do then succeed at that both forwards then drop behind behind the ball behind the skates to again Then cut off his passing lanes further up the field and what I see is more teams actively trying to do that Which shouldn't necessarily be a problem for Barcelona, right? Because when you're a great team, you always have some sort of counter move, right? It's fine if they want to take away the skates will you know PK steps up into midfield with the ball Well, he gets hurt or Andres and he has to drops back as a secondary playmaker from deep Andres and he has to serve so to me what I see is those secondary chains those those those those counter punches that Barcelona had To keep teams from coming selling out to take away the skates and to still be able to get the ball forward quickly against Unsettled defenses to the front three those are the things that are kind of lacking right now And those are the things that are throwing them off-kilter Yeah, I think there's some problems, right?
Yeah, like on a very in a very real way You know, I mean and this is the thing about the the dynamics of La Liga Which is that champagne problems matter because there are three, you know, there are three team There are three great teams in this league. Yeah, you know, Manchester City have a lot of champagne problems But you know, however you want to look at it If Manchester City just had the set of problems that Barcelona have instead of the problems that they have they'd be probably walking the league in the premier Right or like you look at Juventus, Juventus could have significantly more problems than Barcelona doesn't give enters are gonna win You know, Syria, right? Yeah, like the margins for error in La Liga between those three teams are pretty darn tiny And so they do like you know Or so we'll get healthy and that'll help but they do need to sort of figure out a way to How are we gonna approach the game if if this gets taken if team sell out to take out this guess, right? If this gets can't play those specific passes into the front three that really get the front three rolling I think they will like I actually like I have a I think the degree to which this team has transformed under the v6 is really underrated I think there's often a tendency that you think of him as just having come in and like kept the ship going When he really drastically reworked stuff to fit Suarez You know to get the most out of Suarez and Neymar Integrate them into a front three with Messi and it did change a bunch about how they played And so I have faith in him to to sort of you know It's the little kings that are working their way into the system But it's kind of the first time in a few years where I look around and say oh no They actually have stuff they need to fix as opposed to just like the ball needs to go back to that Yeah, teams are the one the ones that I had for them is that teams are getting through them with very direct attacks About once per game they're conceding a shot from a direct attack, which is like incredibly well I have is 80% of the actionally attacking move is direct onto goal So the team is picking up the ball just going and that about once per game a little bit more Which is the in the top couple in La Liga more than more than religion much more than I let it out You know these are things that you know with when that when your defensive midfield isn't working the way it should These are things that happen to you sometimes.
Yeah, and you know I think a lot of it stems from not having quite as much control, right? It stems from oops gets having to move around more to find the ball So you're slightly more out of position if the ball gets turned over You know it stems from not being able to break down a defense So a player can leak out a little bit quicker and sort of get into the attack all of those sort of knock on effects We're not just having the same degree of control over a game that you're used to having But do we think I mean Right now, I don't know that they're the best team in La Liga on current form But I think they're the best team in La Liga come season's end I still think Barcelona are gonna win the league if I was forced to pick right now Yeah, I feel like you know, I feel like this is the team where if they started playing At the same basic level they played last year just suddenly starting this weekend. There's nothing surprising about that. Yeah, that's true Like I mean, I think I mean there's a chance we're just overreacting to the double injury of PK and Niesa, right?
There's a chance that it's just like that's a lot to overcome even for this team All right, but having having said that we think that they're gonna win Moiga Are we underestimating reality? I mean reality have it lost yet. They're two points ahead of Barcelona They have the best goal difference in the league, right? They scored 31.
They've only conceded 10 Why don't people think reality is better? I have a theory on this, but I'm curious as to what you think and I think it's funny because Everyone thought really why didn't people think reality was better is the question for asking before the champion's league final. Yeah, they were like This is this is not a new thing, right? It's a kind of consistent question over over time where it's like Rehamadred are kind of always one of the best teams in the world and people kind of always think there's something wrong with Rehamadred.
Yeah, Rehamadred are great in a weird way. Yeah And that weird way has a lot to do with their forwards. Look, I mean, so I had a big La Liga writing week I did one piece on Barcelona and one piece on Rehamadred. Rehamadred are insane, like they just got insane volume Like they're shooting over 20 times a game.
Nobody shoots over 20 times a game. It just doesn't happen They also like create a lot of really good shots, right? Like they take way more shots from outside the boss They're anybody else. They take way more headers than anybody else.
They cross the ball a ton for a good team Like they're the kind of attacks that you see from mediocre teams except that it's like Darith Bail crossing the ball for genre knowledge, so it's like And they just they just do it so much more than anybody else So so it seems like when you're watching them You're not watching a great team right because there aren't those memorable Barcelona S moments where they slice somebody open and there's a great Chance and you don't necessarily notice the fact that they created like I have more mediocre chances than anybody else does And so like when one of those goes in you just sort of roll your eyes at like a defender missing his assignment at the back Post or whatever, but it's like well, that's happening because they're making them make their you know hit their assignments like dramatically more than anybody else in the world Opposition teams have to spend so much sort of game planning effort just to get bodies on all of those attackers Right that like this and that to be watching reality is is the big thing It's just like it's very very very hard to counter tack around Madrid because you have to leak somebody out who would otherwise do the second person Right and and this this also plays into their build-up, which is like not particularly sophisticated It's basically like get one of them get them midfield with a ball and then maybe they'll play the ball But one of the forwards and then the forward shoots like there's not like a lot of Working through defenses because that's not how it happens It's just the gravity of all those attacking players forces other teams back and they're happy to play up and down and take the first Media shot that they can get and then do it yet They are creating a lot of big chances the percentage of their shots are being chances are not that high right exactly these play they are you know It's yeah, one of those things you the Expected goals that's always kind of funny because there's just so many shots that like the goals end up coming up looking like not great Chances and then you get people like oh come on that was a better chance It seemed like no they just do that 20 times like they're kind of a great team for expected goals that way. Yeah, no That's exactly right Okay, so doing it this way though Does it pose a different set of problems of challenges? Match up challenges against good teams versus bad teams And one of the things that often gets said about them is they run up the score against bad teams and struggle against good teams I don't know that that's true more than any other teams, but I do wonder if sort of doing it this way stylistically If it leaves them more vulnerable Two teams that can sort of go toe to toe with them. It's an interesting question And obviously it's one of those questions that end up with a very small end in the end because like the number of teams that can go toe to toe with Real Madrid in the world is like you know for kind of on one hand and maybe you get the second hand depending on how how generous you want to be So, you know, we're not you know What they do is going to work generally against Villarreal who's the 50 best team in La Liga It's going to work against good teams in the Champions League The thing I am the thing I wonder about and then they didn't and then they got that they got a very very fortunate draw After the Champions League up until the final.
Yes, and then The thing about them is about what teams to go toe to them the thing that I thought was interesting in the Champions League final Was how hard it was for them to go Madrid to deal with them with them when they sat back? Yeah, I mean this is this is when you sit back against this team They don't have to break you down right they just have to keep pile driving and eventually one goes in And so we should probably hit on the fact that I let it go but are hosted in reality this weekend I would just sort of why we decided this would get to talk about La Liga Yeah, so I mean Real Madrid once you're sitting back against them They're just sort of irresistible and you know in a way that is less pretty to watch than Barcelona who are irresistible because eventually They're gonna cut you open whereas Real Madrid are irresistible because eventually one of those things is just gonna find back in it Is it sustainable over a season to be this far out of whack volume wise? I mean is it sustainable like is it possible to just stay over 20 shots a game all season long? Like is that feasible?
It's never it hasn't happened. I was looking earlier. It hasn't happened in the big four leagues At least in 2010 2011, which is as far back as I could go You expect I would say a certain amount of regression to the mean You know no one you know no one is as good as their best numbers basically, but Watching Real Madrid doesn't seem like they're doing something super weird. Yeah, that's that's my impression as well That it's they don't seem like they're at the far end of what they can do Right it doesn't seem like there's stuff going on when I watch those games that I'm like Oh, no, that it has to stop But I do wonder if that's like sort of the same trick that makes them look not great right like it's very hard for the brain to process Those extra three to five shots that they get over everybody else And so I'm not sure if my brain would process them not getting it and if you can really sort of tell us I'm watching it what's happening to get them from 17 to 20.
Mm-hmm. I don't know I mean, I think to me that's the interesting question going forward for their season because I mean I think in a very real way I think that the difference between 17 and 20 shots a game might be the difference between you know We're talking about how fine the margins and what we are That's the difference potentially between person second place Yeah, and they have been That they have the other thing I would say about this team is that they've been adding in some amount of new talent to the squad in a way that is a little bit a little bit unusual for Real Madrid the use of use of a senseo out of Off of his loan it there's been there's a little bit of injury stuff, too Yeah, and they continue to have injury stuffs on cruises out Marata. I heard this international break All the most time beginning season, so there's there's there's reasons to believe that the performance can improve probably Or at least be more consistent, but at the same time the other thing is when we're talking about their numbers this year They've had a pretty easy schedule so far. Um, they've they drew against Villarreal But but no, but none of the other really teams have they faced yet and that's about to change Next six games the starting this weekend They go to the Calderon to let go Madrid and they also go go to Barcelona and are away against Sevilla It's a pretty hellacious stretch for that and I think we'll have a much better idea Not necessarily because we'll have a better sort of understanding of their their sort of performance level But just because how many points they come out of this stretch with will be a pretty big dictator of exactly how long they're gonna You know how real they are as a contender to win La Liga against Barcelona and sort of You know, if you believe the Barcelona might snap back into their top form for the second half of the season Then you would have to think that Real Madrid need to build up a little bit of a cushion now And so if they you know if they finish that 16th stretch and you're basically halfway point this season and they're even with Barcelona I would be worried about their long-term chances if they built up a three-four point lead I think we have a real battle on our hands between those two teams on stretch Although I might suggest that there is a 13 in La Liga that is still not out of that race and is you know Could win this weekend and make that table look pretty interesting.
Yes. It is time to talk about at let go Madrid What do you like about them? They're at let it come Madrid, but they score lots of goals now Yes, I've let it go Madrid 2.0 now with more goals Okay, so I guess there's a very specific thing that they've done practically right to do this Historically, they've played for basically four center midfielders Behind two forwards. Okay, we'll play on the left So by the middle of last season It's sort of taken over playing on the right with Tiago and Gabi in the middle and it was I mean They were they were called left middle field or right middle but they were really four center midfielders And they played very compactly This year pretty consistently coke has moved into the middle and they're playing Carrasco right They're starting carrasco in addition as a winger in addition to the two forwards and it makes a big difference You know, it's like all of a sudden you have a real an additional real attacking winger and you have coke creating from central positions And you're a really dangerous attacking team all of a sudden Yep, and and they've and I think that um and gamiro has been a Really quality issue to that forward line.
He is yes, the runs he makes are they fit very well With reson that the two of them are both of them running at defensive lines is Much more terrifying than a let go Madrid's attack has been in recent years Well, yeah, I mean before this year they were depending last season they were depending on Fernando Torres and Fernando Torres is actually a really nice story in that he had sort of Become useful again But Fernando Torres being a nice story and being useful He's not the same thing as different canaro actually being like, you know, good Right, like yeah, so we have significant attacking upgrades and they haven't um They have an impact that let us defense at all the defense hasn't I mean the defense is still that this sort of Unpouchable monster. Yeah, they've conceded four big chances all season. Yeah It's it's I don't know we should point out there. They're in fourth right now.
They're behind the reality of 21 points. There's six points off the Beyond Madrid Um a lot of that goes down to the fact that they drew the first two games of the season in some really weird ways And they've been quite good ever since On form, I think you could probably make the case that I'd like a majority of the best the best team in the world right now Because they took that one weakness which was that It was just so hard for them to score goals um And they fixed it. They've sort of You know the thing about them was it was never that they couldn't score goals But it was always that tactically they didn't commit to trying to really score goals until they had to Um, they could always go to karaska, right? They could always go for three three and open it up just that slight bit and be a Dangerous attacking team, but they chose not to they chose to be very compact and trusted in sort of scraping by and bullying through a goal anyway Um, which worked but made everything very very hard Uh, and this year there's been you know an active choice not to do that Um It seems to be a real tweak made in light of having lost two chances like finals Yeah, it does seem that way and you know, you could see it in the off their off season acquisitions Uh, which is not only gomero, but um, uh, by ton as another winner as well.
Um Where they just beefed up the attack where they said we're gonna need to you know, this is this is the window, right? It seems a very clear that that they are Clearide about the fact that this is their window Um to to to to be great and they have seized it. Um, yeah, it's pretty cool Right. I feel like it's going to be a little sad when most likely they you know, a little bit of ad luck keeps them from either Winning the champions league or a legal title because they did everything right?
Yeah, I mean that's you know from from a team building perspective from sort of a tactical perspective They've they've done the thing to maximize it. Um The question is only we like champions links champions like especially they're really freaking flooky and who knows and What we guys it's such a grueling league for those top three teams. Um, you know, you start looking at it now That's 11 games in and there's six points back and You know, you look at this them hosting ramajur this weekend. You start to think oh, if they don't win on saturday Uh, it's these things get close to a must win You just have a couple of drop points because for some reason in two or games on this season you can't finish right.
Um, and so it's just like You know, it's hard. There are certainly worlds where they draw this weekend and win the league anyway Like it can happen But it gets real long real fast if they don't get three points on saturday That said, I I don't see why they can't get three points against ramajur. Um, the question for me is as we talked about a little bit How pro how long can they defend proactively? They're good at defending proactively, right?
They're good at pressing Um, they're really really good at shepherding the ball to one side of the field and then attacking the ball Um And we are not great at playing through sort of progressive defenses That doesn't mean the game is gonna play out that way, right? Like, you know, weird stuff happens all the time in single games Um, but it's it's a it's a riveting matchup for this weekend. Yep. No, and it'll be it'll be fun to watch how um, how realm and dread try to What sort of changes they make from they are just bad are you to death?
No, I am not utterly convinced that they Are set up to make changes. Um, no You know, I think there are still sort of Lingerings ended in zadon questions as a manager as to sort of How much harry red nap is in him? Like how much of what zadon does is get the players sort of all moving on the same page But then just basically we have them roll the ball out and go run around a bunch And when you do that with you know that attacking core players, you can have great results. Um, but I wonder to what degree there's sort of A tactical sophistication behind it if there is We'll get to see them run around a bit On Saturday and see It'll be it'll be fun to have a good football back after a international break, which is full of Football, comma, other yeah other football.
Um All right, uh, since I am I am currently mike, uh, you get to go first I assume whatever kept you saying this week how to work overtime really did really did. Um, yeah I I I have been you know my old dark night of the soil could say that maybe Um, in my own case of it. I I I am I'll talk more about this on uh on the twitters. Um what I want to do and thinking and like You know, not right now and not right here and not Um until I have a good handle on it But I'm definitely going to be finding ways to think about and talk about politics within I think you know, I'm talking about soccer and it made me more more proactive about that.
Um, but I don't have a handle on that at all yet Um, what I do have a handle on is the main thing I've done for my sanity is uh hanging out with my son And um, the thing that he is super into right now are trains And what this has meant is that um for a little while we walk we look we look we look we know About parenting and television my take has always been that that television is no substitute for parenting But it's a great substitute for not parenting and sometimes you want to be not parenting Um and and so we found these youtube videos, um of Sam calls them is uh, please can we watch the daddy and his son playing with trains? And it's a guy is he buys toys He does like quasi toy reviews, but mostly it's just videos of him and his son playing with the toys You know model trains of various sorts. Um, and he's australian And so then sam we will watch a video and then we'll go back and sam want to play with his own trains We'll be playing with them, but sam has learned all of this like bizarre australian terminology So whenever the trains are They're not gonna track the other trains. It's called a stack up So I had no idea and further he's like developed because he has no idea that like he's hearing an accent He's just hearing works.
So the the trains are about to range like daddy daddy the zosta strikes Today, they were um You tried diesel training. Oh, this looks very nasty indeed So the whole thing has been um, absolutely delightful. I spent much of today Playing with trains and making stack ups and having diesel and emily. He's very into Thomas They're all in the Thomas Having diesel and emily and all of them And Gordon and there are so many names in Thomas the tank engine and Thomas the tank that Thomas stories are so bad That's all the reason I found that YouTube is because Thomas is terrible, but he loves it And so that is what I have been doing with my little australian son.
How about you uh, how about they? Ah, well, um, we had a nice weekend Oh, my wife and I a nice weekend away planned We try to take advantage of international breaks when there's less soccer on weekends and more during the weeks to sort of Take those times when our our not working days line up with each other and um, you know, we sort of escaped for a little a little baby moon um And we went to uh Rural ish Pennsylvania to go see some frankloin right houses. Um, the the super famous one is is falling water Um, and then in the area, there's also a second house called kentakana. Um, I am not an architecture person.
My wife is a little bit She has some sort of some background in it. I have zero. I you know But you don't really need an architecture architecture background to appreciate falling water at all. It's like look It's a house coming out of the hillside that also looks like water falling and it has water falling through and around it And it's incredibly unique and you sort of understand immediately when you take the tour of this place and when you see it like Oh, yeah, this is this is something.
This is unique and original and this is why we're here Um But I actually wanted to talk about the the the smaller one uh kentakana kentakana is it was uh Commissioned by people who had were friends with the people that own falling water and wanted a house of their own basically the Higgins and the the wife Bernadine Hagen really comes across as like the star of the story of this house because It was built when frankloyd right was in his 80s and he designed it site on scene They sent him like topographical maps that he sort of constructed the house and set back the plans and talked to the contractors or whatever You know without you know shut up on site once halfway through construction. Um But there are these moments where like They made changes or they wanted to make changes to his designs and it's things like um You didn't put any room for linen closets anywhere in this house And like the Bernadine Hagen and Mrs. Hagen being like, I need linen closets What do you think this is? Uh and in in frankloyd right having to make adjustments to his grand design in his house to make sure there were linen closets or The the dining alco had to be bumped out to feet an additional two feet because when he initially designed it uh, there was very little room for dining table and She said what am I what am I supposed to do with this and frankloyd right was like well?
There's only the two of you. What do you need more space for and she's like that's not how life works Like this is this is our this is like our country house in retreat. There's gonna be more people here frankloyd right famous architect who builds things for people all the time Um and so it was you know there were a number of adjustments like that adjustments like um You know the glass panel has to be behind the wooden inlays because i'm not cleaning all of that Like i'm not going into the wooden inlays to clean them out to clean the glass out I need a panel of glass behind it to make my life easier And so it was very interesting to sort of take the tour of this house and and and listen to the story of this house's creation and the sort of functional use of the house that frankloyd right late in his career at this point still was just um fairly oblivious to um And I mean the house was very it's a very cool house and and I would talk more about the architecture if I felt I had any sort of uh ability to sort of convey what it was like But the use of space is very cool and the way it's built into that can talk now is built into it Not like a little hilltop um not on it but into it uh you know and Sort of in the same way that falling water is built into a hillside And they're both incredibly unique and distinctive and well worth the time to take a trip for that little bit of americana So that was what I did this this weekend to uh remain a little bit sane and sort of take a step back from the world Well, that sounds good. Yep.
So we hope you've enjoyed this podcast Yes, uh, we will we will be uh back next week and we will keep giving you soccer to keep yourself happy and distracted in the world Because that is what we do we do we're entertainers