I'm sorry, you can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like.

Is gas going to have a crack? He is, you know. Oh, he's there! Brilliant! He's round the goalkeeper! He's done it! Absolutely incredible!

He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was eyewit without a shadow of and out giving him lip.

Oh, I say, it's amazing.

It does it tame and tame and tame again.

Frank of the music, charge a glass.

This nation is going to dance all night.

What actually is international level?

Has there ever been a successful wind-up about someone's call-up to the national team? Who would make the quintessential England B line-up in 2020? And what's the most

held at Loftus Road on a Tuesday night international-friendly imaginable? Brought to your ears

by The Athletic. This is football cliches. Access to the Athletic is just one pound a month.

Go to theathletic.com forward slash clichés pod to sign up. That's theathletic.com forward slash clichés pod. Joining me, first of all, he's made his return. It's Charlie Eccleshare. How are you? Yes, good. How are you? Yeah, not too bad. Nice to have you back. news this week that England are looking for new opponents after New Zealand have pulled out the November friendly.

It strikes as all very Sunday league this, where you're trying to scrabble around for a replacement opposition.

Yeah, and this ties into presumably our other guest this week, Michael Cox, his theory of just playing teams from a similar geographical area.

So this is only what, Australia, Samoa, Fiji, that theory of just playing teams from a similar geographical area. So this is only what, Australia,

Samoa, Fiji, that sort of thing. Yeah, we're definitely, definitely going to get stuck into that with one eye on Euro 2020. But yes, thanks for you introducing my second guest. Rethink,

re-skill, reboot, he's not interested. He's making shit loads out of tactics. It's Michael Cox. Thanks for that. All right? Yeah, that's very kind. Yeah, I'm interested in the New Zealand thing because there was a lot of fuss about what we're going to learn from playing New Zealand and a friendly. Whereas this is an England side who hasn't beaten Trinidad and Tobago, Algeria and Costa Rica at recent tournaments. so yeah a warm-up friendly against you know a kind of lesser

well beaten Trinidad and Tobago, Algeria and Costa Rica at recent tournaments. So, yeah, a warm-up friendly against, you know, a kind of lesser World Cup side. It sounded quite good to me. We have some small but very important issues to take care of first. Coxie, we need to squash this one straight away. Well, let's go straight on to the clip, really. A 4.5 XG is still quite high. I mean, that is the recipe for a, you know, a real exciting game,

if not necessarily a nine-gold thriller, as we had at Villa Park.

This was obviously a deliberate wind-up.

This was a deliberate provocation.

But I'm seeing more and more of this.

...