Libero 053: The Things That Matter As The Champions League Returns

Libero

Sports, Soccer, Society & Culture

4.9 • 867 Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Champions League is back. Or more specifically, the league phase, which starts with matchday one spread over the course of this week. On today’s episode, Jack Pitt-Brooke, James Horncastle and Jonathan Wilson all look forward to this season’s competition and ask whether anyone will be able to challenge Luis Enrique’s Paris Saint-Germain for the crown. James explains why this might be the year that Antonio Conte makes an impression with his new-look Napoli side. This will be the second year of the Champions League’s new format, where 144 games are played between September and January to trim 36 teams down to 24. What are the lessons of the new system? Does it mean there is less riding on each game? And does the tournament as a whole have the same weight and prestige in the era of the Club World Cup? P1: (01:58) P2: (34:08) Produced by: Tom Bassam Email in via liberopodcast0@gmail.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @liberopod Follow us on X @podcast_libero Follow us on Bluesky @liberopodcast.bsky.social Follow us on Instagram @liberopod Follow us on TikTok @liberopod Follow us on Facebook @liberopod Music: Kid Kodi - Blue Dot Sessions Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Libero, the podcast about the most important of the least important things,
0:07.0	as Gabrielle Anno said to Jacques Ferron in 1955.
0:14.4	My name is Jack Pitbrook. I'm from The Athletic. I'm joined today by James Horncastle.
0:19.2	Hello, James. Hello. And by Jonathan Wilson.le. Hello, James. Hello.
0:22.2	And by Jonathan Wilson.
0:23.1	Hello.
0:26.3	Now, James, you've just got back from Italy.
0:27.5	That is correct.
0:28.6	Very much on brand.
0:30.0	What made you choose to go there?
0:34.3	Just checking if it was still there, like a good cheap executive.
0:37.1	You know, want to be on top of my company. No, I went to Torino because
0:39.1	it was the, it was the debut Italia, so the biggest, most bitter rivalry in all of Italy.
0:45.8	Was it good?
0:47.1	It was fantastic. Yeah, it was three lead changes, Taram brothers, both scoring for different
0:53.0	teams, worldies, some of the best
0:56.7	goals you'll see all weekend, Chalonu Yieldees, Adzich, 4-3, Eventis, Inton Crisis,
1:03.9	Eventis on top. It's like the good old days.
1:07.7	Jonathan, where were you? I was at the Manchester Derby, so I'm still recovering from having spent six hours on
1:15.6	Abante trains yesterday.
1:17.3	It must make you even firmer in your conclusions about Ruben Amarim and his 3-4-3, and
1:22.7	it's not working.
	...

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