The Football Weekend
by Jack Holmes & KICKOFF PRESS
Sharp conversations with the big names and great minds of the world's game. Every week, a special guest joins host Jack Holmes to preview the biggest match of the coming weekend. It might be the Superclásico or the North London Derby, the Champions League final or a Premier League title-decider. This show is about the history of a rivalry, a behind-the-scenes look at a club and its culture, or just some thoughtful commentary before the ball gets rolling. You'll also find classic clips featuring some great moments from podcasts past. If you're enjoying The Football Weekend, please leave us a rating and review! It will help spread the good word. <p style='col
Episodes
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David Goldblatt Sees the World Cup Future
It’s the international break, a chance to take a deep breath before the club season's crescendo and the massive summer of World Cup 2026. It's also a good time to take stock of the international game, its governance, and the social context in which the United States will host the tournament. Or...
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ESPN's Jon Champion on FA Cup glories and a peculiar Manchester derby
The Football Weekend is on tour this week with a first stop in Paris, France after a harrowing red-eye flight sat in front of the most formidable snorer in human history. More on that in this week’s episode — a quick one for a number of reasons, not least your host’s fitness levels. I initially...
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The FA Cup Third Round is magic
We all spend a lot of time lamenting the cynical side of the modern game, but if there’s an antidote, it’s the weekend ahead of us. The FA Cup Third Round Proper is one for the romantics: the smallest clubs in the land can share a pitch with the biggest, and both sides can live a different…
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The Paris rebel club
New year, new weekend, and we’re off in an unconventional direction. The big match of the coming days for our purposes is in Paris, but it ain’t PSG. RED STAR PARIS travel to face TROYES on Saturday for a meeting of second against first in France’s Ligue 2. It’s a perfect opportunity to have a…
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The Battle of Lisbon: Mourinho, Eusébio, Sporting and Benfica
David Novo from Lisbon's Record newspaper joins to help us preview the Dérbi de Lisboa, as Benfica host Sporting CP in a battle for bragging rights in the Portuguese capital. Along with Porto — which hails from the town of the same name further north — they make up the Big Three clubs in this...
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Brad Friedel: The American who lived Türkiye's most explosive football feud
Brad Friedel played his college ball at UCLA and had a stint at Liverpool before a longer and seriously fruitful one at Blackburn Rovers. He also stopped shots for Aston Villa and for Tottenham Hotspur, where in his final season he ran into a guy named Mauricio Pochettino. The goalkeeper, who was...
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The Road to World Cup 2026, Vol. 3: Jonathan Wilson's Histories
The World Cup is a sporting competition between national football teams to determine the best of them. But it’s always been a vessel for so much more, not least the ambitions of political leaders ranging from the mildly ethical to the downright evil. Host countries want to tell a story about...
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El Clásico blasts off the title race in La Liga
There’s a big game down in Italy on Saturday, but there’s only one headliner for this weekend. It’s El Clásico, Real Madrid vs FC Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabéu, the biggest game in club football outside the late stages of the Champions League. This one is box office each and every time, even...
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Derek Rae + Stewart Robson on Der Klassiker 🇩🇪 — and doing the commentary for EA Sports FC!
Club football is back and so is Germany’s biggest game. It’s BAYERN MUNICH vs BORUSSIA DORTMUND in Der Klassiker. The Bavarian hosts have returned to their formidable best with 11 wins from 11 matches across all competitions this season. Bayern have scored 25 goals in six Bundesliga matches, with...
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The Road to World Cup 2026, Vol. 2: African Qualifying
It’s the second international break of the young club season, so we’re continuing our tour around the continents to see who’s doing what in World Cup qualifying. This week we head over to the Confederation of African Football to see who’s on their way to North America next summer, plus: How the...
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Nobody's too happy at the world's sunniest football derby!
Monaco and Nice are not the biggest clubs in the South of France — that’s Marseille — but they maintain a testy feud that carries the cultural differences between the two towns. The Principality of Monaco is fiercely independent from France but plays in Ligue 1 alongside Nice, a gorgeous but...
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Three great La Liga stories ahead of the Madrid derby!
It’s the Madrid derby this Saturday as Atlético host Real Madrid at the Metropolitano, and ahead of the big game we’re getting into some La Liga history. There’s a thrilling story of how two Racing Santander players defied Generalissimo Franco’s fascist regime, a look at the man largely in…
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Arsenal host Man City. Are they both in the title race?
It's the Merseyside derby this weekend, and we get into that feud a bit with this week's guest. After all, Stephen Warnock came up through the Liverpool academy and has been to Anfield and Goodison Park umpteen times (and to Everton's brand new Hill Dickson Stadium once). But that’s not the…
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The Road to World Cup 2026, Vol. 1: North & South America
The 2026 World Cup in North America is less than a year away, and while the club season has now kicked off in earnest, we'll have a number of international breaks before the big show. Each one is an opportunity to take stock of the various national teams across (nearly) every continent and see...
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The Old Firm: Violence, Sectarianism — and Money
The violence, the sectarianism, the proxy war linked to The Troubles in Northern Ireland and what it means to be Scottish — all of it is tied up in the Old Firm, Celtic vs Rangers, Glasgow’s white-hot derby. A particularly ugly Scottish Cup final at Hampden Park even saw alcohol banned from...
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Arseblog joins to preview Liverpool vs Arsenal in a title clash at Anfield
Here's a proper Big Match Preview, and it’s a big guest to help us do it. Andrew Mangan is the proprietor at Arseblog, the preeminent fan chronicle of Arsenal Football Club, and he joins us to look at the true doozy ahead this weekend. The Gunners will head north to Anfield on Sunday to face...
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Clive Tyldesley: What makes a great commentator?
Liverpool will travel to St. James’ Park to round out Matchweek Two in the Premier League, and in another time it might merely be a rematch of last season’s League Cup final, or just a meeting of two major institutions of English football who’ve never particularly liked each other. But this one…
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Robbie Earle's Wimbledon "Crazy Gang" Initiation
When Robbie Earle left Port Vale for Wimbledon in 1991, he knew he was joining a cast of characters. John Fashanu, Vinnie Jones, Jason Euelle, Andy Clarke, Efan Ekoku and many more major personalities came together to make the ‘90s Dons one of the more charismatic sides in Premier League history....
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It's Not the Tourists Ruining Anfield, It's the Ticket Resellers!
“Anfield is not the same anymore,” commentary legend Clive Tyldesley wrote on Substack in March, because “our relationship with our football heroes has changed…It’s now up to them to give us something to get excited about.” But when I asked Liverpool fan and prodigious observer of the game…
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Lionel Messi's Body Is Not Human
During Copa América last summer, Alexis Guerreros of The Cooligans podcast and Morning Footy on CBS Sports Golazo came by the Weekend to preview the Round of 16, and the standup comedian made a sharp point about Lionel Messi’s “elasticity” and his stunning physical resilience after all the kicks...
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What Is England's Greatest Football Stadium?
At the end of the 2023/24 season, Jon Champion joined the show just before calling the FA Cup final for ESPN. He’s also a Premier League commentator for NBC, and he’s been to all kinds of grounds across England and beyond over his decades in the game. So what are his favorite stadiums? Champion…
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Stu Holden: Americans at Big European Clubs Must Do More
On the eve of Copa América last summer, former U.S. Men’s National Team midfielder Stu Holden came by the show to preview a competition that he would soon crisscross the country covering for FOX Sports. The tournament did not go well for the USA, and then-head coach Gregg Berhalter lost his job…
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"Go, Go USA!" Ian Darke on His Call for Landon Donovan's 2010 World Cup goal
World Cup 2010 in South Africa, Group C. The United States Men’s National Team is headed for an early exit, unable to secure the points needed to escape a group shared with England, Slovenia, and Algeria. The clock is ticking down on an abysmal game of football in which the Americans did little…
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Forest Are the Future of the Premier League
Carl Anka’s Premier League time machine... The Athletic staff writer covers Manchester United and joined the podcast ahead of the derby with Man City in April, but we also surveyed the wider landscape of England’s top flight. Carl is one of today’s great tactical minds, and he explored how...
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Stephen Warnock Lived the Dream as a Liverpool Fan
Born in Ormskirk, England, 20 minutes north of Liverpool, it was always Stephen Warnock’s dream to pull on the red shirt at Anfield. He joined the Liverpool Football Club academy and worked his way up the ranks until he broke into the first team. Having stood on the Kop singing, “You’ll Never…
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Kasey Keller's Millwall Adventures
Welcome to The Football Weekend Classics series, where we’ll be sharing some of the best moments from the podcast all summer long. First up: Kasey Keller’s Millwall stories. The goalkeeper from Olympia, Washington played for the U.S. Men’s National Team at four World Cups, but he was also one of...
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The Champions League Final (Feat. Rob Green)
The Champions League final is upon us, the thrilling crescendo of the club football season. With no major tournament on the horizon this summer — and no, the Club World Cup does not count — this is the last big match for a while. There’s an announcement along those lines towards the end of this...
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The Championship Playoff Final (Feat. Nick Barnes)
If you watched the Netflix docuseries Sunderland ‘Til I Die, you saw a famous old English club that looked like dying. Two straight relegations for the Black Cats put these giants of the Northeast in a precarious position, and the man often tasked with guiding the viewer through all this tumult…
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The FA Cup Final (Feat. Jon Champion)
The FA Cup final is no longer the capstone to the English football season, the last match on the calendar with a weekend all its own. This one will have to share real estate with the Premier League, the promotion playoffs in the Football League, and of course everything going on beyond the shores...
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El Clásico (Feat. Dan Hilton)
It’s a game that needs no introduction, but there’s plenty of narrative coming into this one. BARCELONA just lost the greatest cup tie of all time to Inter Milan in a Champions League semifinal. REAL MADRID are enduring a horror season by their standards, culminating with a Copa del Rey final...
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The Basque Derby (Feat. Christopher Evans)
The Basque region is in northern Spain — well, a bit of it’s French — but most folks there just wish they were their own thing. It’s home to a distinct language, culture, and football tradition, the last of those most prominently represented in two teams from two different cities: ATHLETIC CLUB…
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Ranieri's Roma Renaissance (Feat. Alasdair Mackenzie)
It was crushing defeat in the Coppa Italia this week for Internazionale, and to next-door neighbors A.C. Milan no less. With that semifinal exit, the treble that Inter were loudly pursuing this season has evaporated. Now there are merely two competitions they’re in a good position to win: the...
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Der Klassiker (Feat. Markus Fjørtoft)
It’s the German clásico, Der Klassiker, though BORUSSIA DORTMUND are not having a classic season. After a recent uptick in form, they’re still eighth and just trying to get a ticket — any ticket — to Europe next season. Come to think of it, that 4-0 thrashing from Barcelona in the Champions…
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The Manchester Derby (Feat. Carl Anka)
It’s the Manchester derby, UNITED against CITY, but it’s certainly a strange one. Both of these clubs are in a bad way, though that means something different to each of them. City have fallen from champion grace but are still battling for a Champions League place. United, on the other hand, are...
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The Gran Derbi (Feat. Colin Millar)
The international break is over, and club football returns with the Gran Derbi: REAL BETIS vs SEVILLA. This is one of the most vibrant rivalry matches in world football, Spain's greatest local spat, a true expression of Seville's colorful culture: the freewheeling social scene fueled by…
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The League Cup Final (Feat. Laurence McKenna)
There's a Super Sunday on the horizon, with tasty matches back-to-back all day long. Arsenal-Chelsea, title clashes in Italy and Spain. As always, you can get the lowdown on all the matches worth your time this coming weekend at TheFootballWeekend.com. But there’s one headliner here, because...
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MAN UTD vs ARSENAL (Feat. Morayo Bamidele)
MANCHESTER UNITED vs ARSENAL is the essential Premier League rivalry for fans of a certain age. These two clubs battled for titles season after season in the early 2000s in what some might call the league’s greatest era. Then Arsène Wenger lost his magic touch, Sir Alex Ferguson won the war, and...
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The Scudetto Match 🇮🇹 (Feat. Nima Tavallaey)
After a frankly disastrous title defense last term, NAPOLI steamed back into contention over the first half of this season under their brilliant and tempestuous new boss, Antonio Conte. But after a bizarre January transfer window where they sold key attacker Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to PSG and…
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MAN CITY vs LIVERPOOL (Feat. Andy Jones)
This was once the match in the Premier League, the perennial title bout, but MANCHESTER CITY have veered perilously off-course this season. LIVERPOOL have cruised to the top of the table, but they’ve started coughing up points in recent weeks and Arsenal have become more than just a speck in the...
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Germany's Biggest Game (Feat. Nik Wildhagen)
BAYER LEVERKUSEN are no longer invincible. In fact, they’re eight points behind perennial powers BAYERN MUNICH in the Bundesliga table. The Werkself need victory when Bayern come to the BayArena on Saturday if they want to keep the title race a race, and there are a few points in their favor…
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The Madrid Derby (Feat. Graham Hunter)
It’s first against second in La Liga, as REAL MADRID lead ATLÉTICO MADRID by just a point at the top of the table. Barcelona have fallen away somewhat from their hot start under new boss Hansi Flick, and now Spain’s capital quarrel may answer quite a few questions around who will be crowned...
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The "Stay Humble" Derby (Feat. Tom Canton)
It’s a title clash—well, it was the last two seasons. ARSENAL and MANCHESTER CITY duked it out for the Premier League crown from 2022 to 2024, but now the Citizens have gone off a cliff and the North Londoners have had their struggles, too. Injuries have played a role for both, while poor...
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EVERTON vs TOTTENHAM (Feat. Rodger Armstrong)
It may not be the very biggest game across world football this weekend, but consider one important factor: I’ll be there. Yes, The Football Weekend will venture to Goodison Park on Sunday as EVERTON host TOTTENHAM in the Premier League. It’s been a strange few years for the home side, no doubt...
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The FA Cup Third Round Proper 🏆
The glamour tie of the FA Cup Third Round is ARSENAL against MANCHESTER UNITED on Sunday, but this stage is all about the clubs who tend to get less ink. The beauty of the world’s oldest cup competition is that it offers TAMWORTH FOOTBALL CLUB from the National League, England’s fifth tier, the...
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BARÇA vs ATLÉTI (Feat. Ian Darke)
This is occasionally—OK, almost never—called El Otro Clásico. It’s a bit of a nod to the fact that these two clubs, BARCELONA and ATLÉTICO MADRID, have a shared enemy that they each hate more than their opponent here. Barça’s beef with Real Madrid is the Clásico, Atléti’s feud with their…
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The Manchester Derby (Feat. Adam Monk)
Have you seen the news? Manchester City are losing football matches. A lot of them. They lost to Juventus in the Champions League on Wednesday, their seventh defeat in 10 matches across all competitions. They lost to Bournemouth, Sporting Lisbon, Brighton, Tottenham (twice), Liverpool. They’ve…
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The Merseyside Derby (Feat. Stephen Warnock)
EVERTON host LIVERPOOL at Goodison Park for one of the great old rivalries of English football. Liverpool are flying coming into this one—or at least they were. Top of the league (and the new Champions League table), they did have a blip in midweek with the draw at Newcastle. Everton are reeling…
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A.C. MILAN vs JUVENTUS (Feat. Alasdair Mackenzie)
A.C. MILAN host JUVENTUS at the San Siro on Saturday for a big-fish encounter in Serie A, though these two are currently sixth and seventh in the league table. Milan in particular need a result to ensure they're not left behind by a Top Six pack that's tightly packed: just two points separate…
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MAN UNITED vs CHELSEA (Feat. Usmaan Akhtar)
MANCHESTER UNITED host CHELSEA in a vintage Barclays encounter that happens to be the first Premier League match since Erik ten Hag's dismissal as United manager. The Dutchman is the latest casualty of the club's disorder and decline since Sir Alex Ferguson's departure a decade ago, but how much…
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El Clásico (Feat. Paco Polit)
Arsenal-Liverpool, the Derby d’Italia, Le Classique…it’s a serious Football Weekend. But all that takes a back seat to the big one: El Clásico, REAL MADRID vs BARCELONA, the premier grudge match in world football. Nobody does technical quality and steaming spite quite like these two, and the...
About this show
Sharp conversations with the big names and great minds of the world's game.
Every week, a special guest joins host Jack Holmes to preview the biggest match of the coming weekend. It might be the Superclásico or the North London Derby, the Champions League final or a Premier League title-decider. This show is about the history of a rivalry, a behind-the-scenes look at a club and its culture, or just some thoughtful commentary before the ball gets rolling.
You'll also find classic clips featuring some great moments from podcasts past.
If you're enjoying The Football Weekend, please leave us a rating and review! It will help spread the good word.
<p style='col
Hosted by
Jack Holmes & KICKOFF PRESS