Brilliant game and to think I was nearly going to watch boring Arsenal....

22° and it's time for one of these in sweating Melbourne.....

If it gets a few notches above 30°C I'm indoors with the air con on....🥵 Mid-high 20's is my sweet spot....

There's big money in football pod/video casting and it won't be long before the G & G podcast is being chased by the big podcasting conglomerates..... How much Grazor? $1m maybe $2m???

Currently 26°C with a gentle breeze on Brisbane's Bayside.... I've been sitting outside this morning with a flat white, a pain au raison and listening to ABC Jazz whilst reading the papers....

And definitely not suspicious.... Probably a homeless person.....😋

https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/200-a-barrel-the-oil-contracts-that-show-how-fuel-crisis-could-worsen-20260414-p5znos.html It's paywalled so...

I quite often watch games from France's N1 League (Le Championnat National 1) on YouTube which is the third tier of the French national football pyramid... It's a fairly watchable and a decent standard of football. Below the A League and probably the equivalent of the NSW and Victorian NPL top...

Dembélé is quality

Liverpool were playing quite well for a good part of the second leg but it was a very professional performance from PSG.

EPL....Weak, underachieving, fanboys?? Sounds like the bitter as fuck SBS tv lot in the 2000's!! I thought they were all dead, seems not! They're alive and kicking....🤣

One of the most iconic images of Italian football taken 20 years ago this week....

I remember when the radio listening ratings guy came to my house with this diary-book for me to fill out. Then I couldn't be arsed to do it each day. The end of the week he rang me up saying he was coming to pick up the completed diary... So on the Friday morning I just quickly filled it out...

If Magyar is heavily pro-EU you can bet your last €uro that he's also quite pro economic immigration... Now personally I agree that the case for low-skilled economic immigration within a pro-EU framework centers on structural necessity... But it doesn't always go down well with the punters...

From El Pais... Peter Magyar, a World Economic Forum-aligned elite figure from Hungary’s judicial dynasty..... This echoes familiar patterns of insider-led “reset” governance in Europe. Yet, as history shows with similar elite-installed figures promising technocratic competence and European...

This was taken at the PSG v Arsenal CL semi-final last year.... 🤣

You can only imagine the reaction in government circles when Albo read out his letter from FIFA.... The Australian poltical and media establishment have historically disdained 'soccer' to protect the dominance of homegrown codes like AFL and Rugby League. Seen as a threat to domestic sporting...

Union Berlin make history by appointing Marie-Louise Eta as Bundesliga’s first female head coach... .. From The Athletic

Probably not. It will need Stevie G to get out of the punditry chair and pull his boots on...

He's got the touch of the contrarian about him....

It would also be the biggest story in the history of football and probably the history of sport.... The soccer-hating media would have a full-on meltdown.... Columnists choking on their pies, headlines screaming “This Changes Nothing!” while desperately boosting AFL/NRL grand final previews...

When England won the Rugby Union World Cup in 2003 rugby's media went on the war path.... Englush Rugby was going to blow football out of the water...."there's only one game in town and all that....' But while there was a slight surge in interest it never happened! Football's century-long...

I agree.... 6 qualifications on the trot for Australia is something that the football family and Socceroo's followers on here should be proud of And not really sure why No Mates has it in for the them... I think as a football team and as a group of footballing individuals they're very...

Which was what I was trying to say... There's nothing wrong with being a second or even a third tier sport. Rugby league in England is a second tier sport and probably not as widely followed as it is in Australia. Doesn't make it bad news for them, it just means they have to cut their cloth...

My article on Le Foot on Guy Roux the legendary French football coach.... https://footballuslife.blogspot.com/2026/04/le-bonnet-tricote-man-who-stayed.html?m=1

My article on Le Foot on Guy Roux the legendary French football coach.... https://footballuslife.blogspot.com/2026/04/le-bonnet-tricote-man-who-stayed.html?m=1

I was speaking more in general really... I know loads of Aussie's who really like football, watch games on tv etc and know all about the game’s trials and tribulations. But they don't have that ingrained emotional attachment.

I think the struggle, in Australia, is not simply to attract spectators to football but to persuade people to commit the kind of emotional allegiance that rugby league, AFL and cricket have long commanded, particularly when it's is still widely seen as the code playing catch-up.... Football in...

I sometimes think Australian A-League fans are having a collective nervous breakdown over crowd figures... But yeah, it's important to add that these things are going to enhance concerns over the future viability of a national sporting competition. Especially when you're not in that top tier...

Liverpool will at least have a bit of confidence now, going into their Champions League tie with PSG....

Interesting article on youth development in Italy... https://federicotomadin.substack.com/p/my-experience-in-professional-italian?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

I think that the far-right populism merry-go-round in Eastern/Central Europe will perhaps start to plateau out now and a more sensible centre-right conservatism will start to look likely as the political norm.... It certanly offers that pragmatic, stable alternative to the volatile swings of...

Fair point... Although I do hope a decade from now the Women’s A League should be able to sustain a full-time professional set up.

There's never going to be promotion and relegation in the Australian Men's A League.... People just have to except that the game’s business model doesn't allow for it. The best thing that can happen is further expansion from within the current NPL ecosystems.... Your South Melbournians, Gold...

I reckon that the Socceroos will do pretty well. I'm not at all a Socceroo's aficionado but I've had a feeling about this for a while. If it's one thing the Australian football team has going for it its balls.... Sure there's no golden generation this time, but the current squad's got that...

From British political magazine 'The New Statesman' The end of the American empire About a 10 minute long-read if you've got a bit of time on your hands...

What is your opinion for the second leg mate? Does Slot's team have it in them to turn the tie around? I go on a couple of French football forums, mainly to read and one or two of the PSG fans still worry about Anfield on big European nights....

L'Arsenal - the best French club outside of France... https://footballuslife.blogspot.com/2026/04/larsenal-21-arr.html?m=1

Tottenham fans might wish to give this a rain check.... https://footballuslife.blogspot.com/2026/04/larsenal-21-arr.html?m=1

Kvaratskhelia…😍 Has that ethereal first touch - the kind that feels like the ball just obeys him, that throwback look with a snaking, hypnotic dribbling style reminiscent of a George Best at his peak and that outrageous close control, vision, and those moments of individual brilliance of Leo...

The problem is of course the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) is widely regarded as a world-class elite special forces unit, often ranked among the top Tier 1 special operations forces globally alongside units like the British SAS, US Delta Force and the French Commandement des...

I did read somewhere that one or two of Ben Roberts-Smith's military colleagues were a little bit annoyed that he was 'monetising' his VC award.. There was his corporate and consulting roles, where he was primarily leveraging his military leadership experience, Victoria Cross prestige, and...

When you consider the intense bonds of loyalty, camaraderie, and "band of brothers" culture in military life, when other soldiers, often from the same regiment are coming forward then the writing is definitely on the wall.... Loyalty obvious has limits and you'd like to think many soldiers...

Noosa Heads is quite a lovely place but I noticed that many of the restaurants, bars and cafes are getting a little sloppy with their level of service. For instance there's a nice Italian restaurant called Rococo's where the food is pretty good but they had no Italian wines.... There's one on...

From The Game Football, politics and armbands in the City of Hamburg... https://thegame81.substack.com/p/hamburg-football-activism-and-armbands?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=6g9ej4&triedRedirect=true

To be fair I've just been to Noosa for Easter.... $14K for a month in Mexico City seems fucken cheap in comparison......

Mason Greenwood back in the Premier League? I very much doubt it.. His Marseille stint shows he can still deliver at a high level. But clubs weigh the on-pitch upside (he's still a clinical finisher with further potential) against off-pitch risk.....protests, media storms, dressing room...

Italian fans shouldn't get too distraught about not qualifying. Losing to Bosnia and Herzegovina? It's hard enough to beat 1 country in international football let alone 2....

Well it's going to cost the GOP the next election. Trump can't stand again. Its why Vance has barely muttered a word The Republican Party will be out for at least 2 terms after this debacle. Just as long as the Democratss dont put up another version of Hillary Clinton like they did with...

Instead of hitting people with big chunks of bad news like the Morrison Government did during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, this government seems to be going for more of a drip feed approach.... Which is probably the better way, at least in the short term. It stops dickheads...

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/apr/01/chalmers-says-small-business-paying-the-price-for-middle-east-conflict-as-he-unveils-support-measures?CMP=share_btn_url

Ol' Mate Professor in the Triggernometry interview is a world renowned expert on aerial warfare and strategic military operations. He consults to US and international governments about the high-level planning and application of military, economic, and political power to achieve specific...

I agree....Martin O’Neill at Celtic well into his 70's. I think the secret is having a couple of good energetic assistants to do the leg work and a coaching team working behind them. These days the Manager or Head Coach is basically the figurehead that sets the training, tactics, picks the...

This is an accurate summarisation....🤣

Best analysis that I've seen or heard on this US/Israel v Iran war yet.

This is the first major long-read on my 'The Game' blog.... https://thegame81.wordpress.com/2026/03/30/the-village-and-the-exile/ Also available on 'The Game' Substack page.... https://thegame81.substack.com/p/the-village-and-the-exile?utm_medium=android&triedRedirect=true Hope you enjoy the...