England v France: how good are the Three Lions?
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2022
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Host Adam Leventhal is joined by Jack Pitt-Brooke to look ahead to England’s huge quarter-final against France as the draw opens up for Gareth’s Southgate side.
One of the clear favourites to win the World Cup, Brazil, are out after their defeat to Croatia on penalties. A win against the reigning world champions would see England go into a semi-final against Morocco or Portugal, while Argentina scraped through on penalties against the Netherlands.
They discuss Kyle Walker vs Kylian Mbappe, and if that duel really matters.
And the panel pay tribute to American sports journalist Grant Wahl, who sadly passed away in Doha last night.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic. |
| 0:04.8 | On Saturday night at the Albright Stadium, England take on France in what is arguably the biggest test that Gareth Southgate has faced as manager. |
| 0:14.5 | Despite a World Cup semi-final and a Euros final, there is a lingering sense that we still don't know quite how good this England team is. |
| 0:23.8 | Well, we will find out today. I'm Adam Leventhal. Welcome to the Athletic Football Podcast. |
| 0:46.1 | We play France. we are a fantastic team, and we're aware of all of their attacking players, |
| 0:48.9 | and we're aware of the quality of the whole squad. All right, go, go, go, Kilian! |
| 0:51.7 | Oh, la, la, Lola, L'A, 75th. So I'm going to So I'm joined this morning at the |
| 1:08.0 | Sookwarkiv which is not the Sukwak, which is not the Sukwakif that we normally |
| 1:14.6 | see before us. We have rainy ground, cloudy sky, cool temperatures. It all feels very English, |
| 1:24.6 | doesn't it, Jack? Advantage England? Well, I don't know. |
| 1:28.5 | It feels like that, doesn't it? |
| 1:29.3 | When we arrived in Qatar, what, three in a bit of weeks ago, it was really bakingly hot. |
| 1:35.9 | And now it's just, I mean, look, it's not like English temperatures this time of year, |
| 1:40.0 | but it is kind of recognisably English weather. |
| 1:42.5 | So I wonder if this is an early moral victory for the England team perhaps. |
| 1:48.0 | Just before we started recording, I balked at something that you said. |
| 1:53.9 | And we mentioned it there in the intro, that this is the biggest game |
| 1:57.3 | that England have faced under Gareth Southgate. You think this is bigger than the |
| 2:04.1 | Euro's final? Bigger than the World Cup semifinal? Yeah, I think this is the biggest game |
| 2:09.8 | England have had, I can say at the very least, since the quarterfinal against Brazil in 2002. |
| 2:16.7 | It's, I think it's bigger than semi-final against Croatia in 2018 because I think England went to the 2018 World Cup with a bit of a... I mean, that game felt like a bit of a free hit. Like, England went to the 2018 World Cup, and their goal was win a knockout game. Then they won two, and then they lost the Croatia, but they didn't have expectations of winning the World Cup. Even in the Euros, I mean, the final against Italy at Wembley was a huge game, |
| 2:38.4 | but it was still a Euro's rather than a World Cup. |
... |
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