Hello and I'm Gabriel Marcotti and I thank you for joining us yes I'm sorry see it's that international break of the kind that crops up every four years the one where there's no meaningful football and you're all getting withdrawal symptoms don't worry it'll be back with a bang on Saturday some

huge games next weekend Chelsea Chelsea and Spurs, Sevia Barcelona, Juventus and A.C. Milan,

D'Aclassica, right? What could be better than that?

Borisia Dortmund and Byron and a French League Cup final.

How about that?

See I did my research.

Monaco and Paris Saint-Germain.

I'm delighted and I'm joined in the studio. We like to introduce them in

different ways at different times. He's a man who wears many hats. Former

England under 21 captain. It's Stuart Robson from one franchise to another.

Henry Winter will be joining us to discuss England's victory over Holland and the forthcoming

friendly with Italy, because it's International Week, we'll be speaking to not one, but two authors from around the globe.

American journalist Grant Wall from Sports Illustrated, will be talking about his book, Football 2.0,

how the world's best play the modern game.

Basically, he analyzed different positions and roles in football by speaking to some of the

best practitioners out there.

And in Brazil, Andrew Downey has written about one of our producer Charlie's

personal footballing heroes, the one and only Socrates.

The one of your heroes as well? You know what? I can admire what he did on the picture I admire his skills I like the fact that he's politically committed and blah blah blah and had an opinion and was obviously very intelligent.

But you know what? That whole playing at two miles an hour,

I think it had time and a place and it's gone,

but certainly one of the more interesting figures.

...