The Square Ball podcast.

Welcome to the show. This is The West Stand, where we welcome in guests from around the world of Leeds United. We throw open our doors, and you will find it on YouTube. You'll find it in your podcast app as well. I'm Dan Moyland with me. Is Dean Smith today? Hello, Dino. Hello, mate. How are you? Very, very good indeed. NordVPN. Yes. Bring you this show. Big time for VPNs at the minute. Big time, yeah. Especially in Leeds. Yeah. And, well, the UK as a whole because of legal things. Yeah. Yeah. So if you need a VPN to browse anonymously from wherever you want. Yes. Yeah. It'll make you safer on public Wi-Fi. It'll help you securely access content whilst you travel. There are many reasons whilst it's still okay to do so that you can do it. And you can have a virtual location if you need one. You can. For some reason, as a UK resident or a worldwide resident for that matter. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. So just got to town, have fun. It's nice and cheap, good quality stuff. Up to 10 devices at once, the fastest VPN in the world. If you want to get an exclusive discount of your NordVPN plan, you can go to nortvPN.com slash TSB. Risk free as well, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee, NordvPN.com slash TSP. All right then, Bering Cross from the Athletic, our guest for today, back from Germany,

and back from mopping up a puddle of tears about Igor Paisiao. If we can dive into your

most recent article that you have published about

Paishao and the current state of play as we stand here.

Approaching the 1st of August, we've got what, two and a half weeks until Everton.

Now it's not long, is it?

And the window shuts at the end of August. It feels like there's a bit of a, a little bit of a squeeze is starting to just happen. And a lot of disappointment in the wake of missing out on Pai Shau. I wonder that article. First of all, should we summarise what the contents of it were for anybody who's not read it just yet. You can find it at the athletic. What did the club have to say to you and what's the current state of play?

So I think they are acutely aware that Paiaja was clearly somebody that they got very, very close to, and that was in the public domain for quite a little while. It really accelerated whilst we're in Germany. And I think they were also aware there was a lot of pain and disappointment on Monday afternoon slash evening when it began to break that Marseille had finally struck a deal after many months of talks with Feionaut. So, I mean, they don't have to do these things. I mean, of course it was all off the record. So nothing is attributable quotes-wise. And, you know, people will be familiar with how journalism works and kind of the way you piece these things together. It wasn't just with sources at Leeds. We spoke to, you know,

other sources as well in other places to stand some of their assertions up. And ultimately,

they got there. They had a, I think it was a 32 plus 3 million euro offer accepted by phone,

or they had an email saying we have agreed a deal

we are very happy with this we can proceed pie jars people also sent them a formal email saying

we have agreed personal terms and so you're left with a situation where you've got um the club's hierarchy

looking at each other saying well okay so what's next like are we done, can we send him a shirt? What happens next effectively? And the impression we get is that throughout the entire process, Adam Underwood in particular, never felt comfortable. I think they got a sense that Marseille ultimately. And the Leeds fans noticed this as well. I mean, and it's funny how the fans will pick up on things. And you always wonder if you're overthinking it, but the club were noticing how Paiaziao's family were interacting with Marse's social media content. He was as well. Sorry, he was. The entire lot, I mean, it was very clear to the fans and also to the club. There's some twerking going on. Yeah, they wanted Marseille. And again, you can overthink these things and wonder if somebody else is controlling Pai Jow's account, but they always thought, if Marseh get close enough to really kind of turn Feanor's head, then at best we've got a 50-50 shot. So at the point of which they agreed terms with both parties, they felt, okay, now it's basically a straight shootout. They felt getting to that stage, gave them a coin flip, effectively.

And it sounds like it went quite, sorry, skipping back.

Saturday that came through during the Padaborn game from Feinord.

Sunday, they went into the full press in terms of Marate, Underwood, Evans, on the phone

with Pajiao and his agents. He then got Lucas Perry, who's been a lead to play for less than 36 hours on the phone to his compatriot in the dead of the German night, speaking to Pajos in Brazilian time, trying to convince him to come. I mean, that was quite impressive when we sort of had that tip bit from the club. So, you know, they did as you expect.

They worked as much as they could,

got it to the point where they feel they did as much as they could. I mean, you can't say better than agreeing terms with, with all parties. And ultimately, it's a play a decision, really. So Monday went very, very quiet. And they kind of felt the hammer blow was going to come at some stage when Pai Zhao's end went quiet

and clearly Marseille got close enough eventually

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