I've just been handed this statistic, and I think it's the perfect way to open the show.

For the first time in history, England is going to battle France.

This is the Arsenal Vision World Cup Daily.

My name is Eli Smith, the Blackman, Twitter, Yankee Gunner.

I think that is the statistic.

Phil put it in the chat.

So for the first time ever, England and France will battle each other. Oh, no. No, it turns out that's happened quite a bit. But it is the first time in men's World Cup history that England will face France in the knockout stages. So I had my history slightly wrong. It does say here that England and France have in fact done battle before.

So I apologize for getting the statistic slightly wrong, but we are going to discuss how we arrived at an England-France quarterfinal, which, I mean, it looks tasty to the neutral,

but everybody hates the neutral. And you can block this one on Twitter, Yankee Conner.

We're probably not going to talk much Gabriel-J-Zus or any Gabriel-J-Zus, but over on Patreon, there's a podcast dedicated to the news and what it means and how to think about it and what are the softest tissues to cry into so you don't get a chafed nostril. We did talk about it on yesterday's World Cup Daily with Lewis Ambrose, and it will be part of the main pod that will be coming out tomorrow. So there'll be plenty of opportunities to be miserable about that news. But today is about celebrating England and France and our own Bukaiosaka scoring goal as well. And here to do that with me now is Phil Costa. You can find him on Twitter underscore Phil Costa. Hello, Phil Costa. Hello, Elliot. You had me in the first half there. Not going to like, but you managed to,

you resurrected it. I was just ready to type something into the chat like, uh, did he get that wrong?

I did get the stat wrong. It turns out that England had faced France on the battlefield in the past,

but in the World Cup, in the knockout rounds, they have not. And it is a tasty matchup. Let's not look forward to that first. Let's look back to the games that were. We'll start with the England game, of course. And no better place to start than win the lineup, Bukaiosaka gets his place back. And I have to admit, I've been rooting for Baccio to start. I've been rooting for Baccio to play.

Given what's happened to Gabriel J. Zeus, it's sort of dimmed my interest in seeing Arsenal players get their chance at the World Cup. And I have to admit that now I'm giving into the catastrophizing and fear and would like them all wrapped in cotton wool. But Baccio did get the start. He did score. We'll talk about that in a moment. but Henderson comes in and starts Kyle Walker starts

He wrung the changes

Phil Foden starts. Now, we do want to send our best to Rahim Sterling and his family and hope that everything's okay. It turns out he had to go back to England. There was a home invasion at his home and he wanted to be with his family, which is totally understandable. So we wish him the best and hope that he can make it back to be with the England team if the situation warranted it.

But as a result, Phil Foden starts.

So your thoughts initially on the decisions, and one in particular that I think is interesting, which is the Henderson decision.

Yeah, I mean, I think Foden may have had a look in anyway, regardless of what eventually

happened to Sterling and his family. So, you know, that didn't really surprise me because

I think as much credit as he's got in the bank with Southgate and with England, I think

he's had a quiet World Cup so far. So I liked Foden coming in on the left. I think he's much more effective there than

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