Libero 098 | Juventus, Benfica And The Plight of Europe's Forgotten Clubs

Libero

Sports, Soccer, Society & Culture

4.9 • 867 Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2026

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s Champions League punishment round week, which means clubs who were among the biggest and best in Europe 10 years ago are slogging it out to make it through to the last-16. The question on today’s show is what these sides - especially Juventus, Benfica and Borussia Dortmund - can realistically achieve in a European game that is now stacked against them. Jack Pitt-Brooke, Tariq Panja and James Horncastle discuss whether they ever build a competitive team to last, or whether they will just get picked off by the vultures at the first sign of success. And if they can’t hope to win any more, are they left with a sense of identity that they can fall back on? P1: (10:28) P2: (31:50) Produced by: Tom Bassam Email in via getintouch@liberopodcast.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @liberopod Follow us on X @podcast_libero Follow us on Bluesky @liberopodcast.com Follow us on Instagram @liberopod Follow us on TikTok @liberopod Follow us on Facebook @liberopod Music: Kid Kodi - Blue Dot Sessions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:07.9	Just bring along your final settlement agreement.
0:10.4	If only they could make parallel parking simpler.
0:13.6	To the right bit, mate.
0:14.8	Yeah, back. Back a bit more. Bit more.
0:18.7	Oh, no, too far.
0:21.1	We buy any car, selling made simple.
0:23.9	To sell your car today, enter your reg number now at webuanycar.com.
0:30.5	Hello and welcome to Libero, the podcast about the most important of the least important things,
0:35.1	as Georges-gesus once said.
0:45.5	My name is Jack Pitbrook. I'm from The Athletic. I'm joined today by James Horncastle,
0:49.2	also from the Athletic and by Tarantpanger for the New York Times. We would like to start with our normal request, which is that if you are enjoying this podcast, please leave us some nice reviews.
0:55.0	The more stars, the better.
0:56.3	If you could just leave us some five-star reviews on Apple, on Spotify, that would be really
1:02.4	helpful for us in terms of our quest, up the algorithm.
1:06.7	Now, Tariq, you seem to be again in a business hotel somewhere.
1:11.3	Are you in, are you still in Milan?
1:13.4	I've moved to Milan, yeah.
1:15.1	I live now in this business hotel on the outskirts of, well, near the railway station.
1:20.4	So come and visit, guys.
	...

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