Hello,

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Total Soccer Show. My name is Taylor Rockwell. No Daryl Grove today. He'll be back later in the week. But for now, we have another Englishman. I believe last time he was the tallest working man in football. This time maybe he's the warmest working man in football. It's Sam Tai of the BR Football Ranks podcast. Sam, thank you once again for appearing on the

Total Soccer Show. Oh, no problem, buddy. You're right. Oh, my God. It's hot here in England. I mean, it's going to be hot in most places, right? But this is a country that just do not have the facilities to deal with two weeks of good weather. We moan all year that is rubbish, and then we get the good stuff and we moan that it's too hot. So that's just the English weight. You're all

going to have to deal with that.

Yeah, that's where we are. Hey, at least it's not raining. And at least we've got a really, really quite amazing week of football to look forward to. Thanks to the Europa League and the Champions League. First of all, that's just a tremendous transition. Thank you for that. Second of all, yeah, let's talk about this week in football because we do have the Champions League starting Wednesday.

We have a game every day, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

But I want to start with Europa League, which is today. Monday, we've got some games. Is this, like, I think it's the format itself, because we have all these games in a condensed window, already makes it more exciting. But then so often I feel like we get sort of one team that is very clearly the dominant team in the Europa League at this point. Maybe you could make that argument about Manchester United, but it does feel like we've got a lot of good fixtures for the week. Is there one that you're most looking forward to from the various Europa League games? Well, I think the hipster in me is loving inter versus by Labor Cuisin. Of course.'s you know that's to do with uh you know the crown prince king kai havers and his and his loyal soldiers but i mean i like i like most of most of lavercouzen's side that they're extremely interesting they are as we as we talked about and the last time i was on the show they're like one of those teams that if you watch them, the 11 players that you see on the pitch, at least six of them are going to be moving to a very big club near you within the next two years. So it's always good to keep tabs on what those guys are doing. And how versus one of them, Edmund Tapsoba at centerback is another. They're just a lot of fun. And against Inter, you know, Inter looking to basically save their season and, you know, Antonio Conte, that man is on the verge of imploding because he's so angry with everything happening around him and just his entire life that if he actually goes out at this stage in the Europa League, that might actually be him. He just combusts. So that's always worth watching too. Um, well, for Hampton Wanderers and Sevilla, you know, shout out Daryl for the wolves. I mean, I really hope they make it through. Severe are a really, really tough, tough opponent. They're actually a bit wolves-like in how, um, and how rigid and solid that they can be and how difficult they can be to break down. And it's really weird

looking through the team just because there's a load of players that like you've always heard of

and you're like, is he any good? And like, no, he wasn't, but at Severe, yeah, he is. So I remember

Fernando, Matt City is the defensive midfielder. He does an amazing job in midfield for them.

Ever Benega is, I don't know how old into his 30s, looking as good as ever. Lucas Acampos, it took him like six years to, you know, to him to realize his potential, but he's finally doing it. And they've got Regulon on loan from Real Madrid that left back. and he's been linked to Chelsea recently I saw for about 18 million euros,

that would be an absolute steal.

So that's a really good game.

And the little shout is that from what I've seen of Shachter Donesk, there is no reason not to believe that they are not a contender for this tournament. They are not the United, the Inter, the Severe, the Wolves team. They're not that standard because people don't really know

that much about them. But man, what they did to Walsberg was like verging on criminal. They just

took them apart. They are a solid outfit. They should beat Basel. And then we'll see, like,

they're the real dark course here. They have a chance of winning this competition for sure.

Did you say Everbenegga is 30?

He's 32 or something, isn't he? I think he's been 32 for 14 years. I'm pretty sure. But no, I think you're right. I think he's early 30s. Yeah, that's still just blows my mind. I would have thought he was like 45 at this point. If... So, like, sticking with the Wolves, Sevilla, for a moment. You've said it's like a similar style, similar approaches to the game.

Do you like when that happens?

Do you like when that happens? Do you like when you have two teams sort of of a similar inclination going up against each other? Or is there, do you have one particular sort of matchup that you like? If it's a defensive team versus an attacking team or two high-pressing pressing teams. What is the combo that you tend to

want to watch and enjoy? So I think simplifying it, I just, what I want to see is two different

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