calcio diary 1 (1)

Joe O'Sullivan, a football and travel enthusiast, is on a journey around Italy to explore football culture and history. He recently visited Milan and the AC Milan Internationale stadium. He also had a haircut in Parma and had an interesting conversation with a Brazilian barber. Joe has always been fascinated by Italian football and is enjoying the nostalgic and iconic atmosphere of the game. He believes that the Italian league is one of the most competitive in Europe, despite not being the best in terms of standard. Joe is impressed by the passion and dedication of Italian football fans and the way it is ingrained in the culture. Milan has been one of his favorite stops so far on his journey. Hello and welcome to the Atlantic Dispatch, in our first episode of the Calcio Diaries, with me, Christian Brown, and football and travel lover Joseph O'Sullivan, who you will usually find writing about South American football for Forbes and Italian football for the Getup Group. Now, Joe being the Indiana Jones of the beautiful game, travelling into depths unknown and uncovering football culture across the globe, is currently embarking on an epic journey around Italy, taking in games across Syria and beyond, finding the best foods across each region, chatting to locals about Calcio, and learning about the culture and history of each place he visits. Joe is documenting this voyage of discovery, and we'll be discussing his Calcio Diaries over the next few episodes. Today, we'll be looking at the city of Milan and one of the finest stadiums in the world, AC Milan Internationale, which Joe recently had the pleasure of being at the other day. But before we get on to that, Joe, you're currently in Parma, reflecting on the last few days. How are you doing? I'm good, thanks for that generous introduction. I went with the Indiana Jones of football rather than the Dave Zambra. Fair enough. Very kind, very kind. No, I'm great. I'm in Parma, like you said, making my way through Italy, essentially from north to south, and I've just been in Milan and Lombardia and the surrounding area for probably about 10 days. Lots of football, lots of tennis in Milan, so yeah, I loved it. I got to see Milan better and more than I have ever before, so I feel like I got to know it a wee bit more this time instead of just dropping in match day and then leaving the next day. Now, we'll get on to that, but first, we were discussing earlier that we both had haircuts today, because this is the chat that people are tuning in for. Yours looks slightly better than mine. How did the Italian barber's experience go? Well, I'll tell you what. I got a pleasant surprise, so I walked up to the barber and said, I need a haircut tomorrow. I've got some media duties over the weekend. I need to sort myself out, and it looks quite nice. I get home, my flatmate's like, yeah, I haven't been in there yet. You'd better watch. They'll charge you about €80 for a haircut because there's a bit of money in Parma, type thing. So I check it, and it's €30, and I'm like, that is quite steep. Having said that, at this stage, I don't really know what else I'm going to do before this podcast slash weekend of games and stuff. So in I went, bit the bullet, and I said, I did my little hello and how are you and all that in Italian, the basic Italian that I've got, and then I said to him, do you speak English or Spanish? And then he started, as soon as he opened his mouth to it, I knew he was Brazilian, which was class. Actually, maybe I'm using confusing, but class, because I've got a little bit of Portuguese in the locker. So I ended up speaking, trying to speak Portuguese to him for the whole haircut, and because I'm learning a couple of different languages, and I'm trying to do Italian, and I'm thinking and flipping English, and then I'm trying to do Italian, and then this fellow's speaking to me in Portuguese, Brazilian. Honestly, my head nearly exploded when I'm sitting in the chair. But anyway, he was a fan of Internacional do Porto Alegre, so it's great when the barber likes football, doesn't it? No, it will be the maker of wreck, really. So the address that I went to, there was a Fernand Banshee fan, he had Fernand Banshee strips all over the wall, and when he was doing my beard, he had the knife right up to my neck, and he was like, what team in Portuguese do you like? And I was like, eh, I'll just be Fernand Banshee, of course. And I said, do you know what, they won last night, and I noticed that, you know Alexis McAllister's brother, Kevin McAllister? There's both teams, there's none of them in Argentina, and they're both from Scotland. So the Athletics did a great piece on that, actually, like, they went into too much detail. I can't remember who wrote it, but he went to Ireland, then he went to Scotland. Basically, they were originally Scottish, but then went to Ireland, and then they were in Ireland for that many generations, that everyone thinks they're Irish, sort of, whatever. And then they went with, like loads of Irish did, Guillermo Brown and the rest of them, to Argentina. And I've actually met his dad, and yeah, that's Fernand, I've talked about that before. Yeah, it's the brilliant Carlos. But in this way, Carlos does not care much for his, the stories of his heritage. They're quite English. Argentinos, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is fair enough, they've been there for about six generations. Kevin McAlister got sent off against Fenerbahce last night. Haven also got sent off in the league at the weekend, which I thought was quite mad. Now, who's sending us back to that? Just going on a straight tangent there, would you really know if you're going to watch the Fenerbahce? It's a volatile character, isn't it? Apparently, in the derby, they were, I didn't watch it, but apparently they were all over Galatasaray, despite getting beat. But like, you saw his introduction at the club, didn't you? And the city and the stadium filled up, and he started swinging the scarf, and it resembled certain cult leaders of the past, I'll mention. So, such is his talent, I suppose, for football populism, he can probably stay in that gel for quite a long time. Yeah, I agree with that. Now, as I mentioned in your 20 minute intro there, you're currently travelling the length and breadth of Italy in search of discovering more about Italy's football and fan culture. What sort of sparked this journey for you? So, I think Italy, for me, has always been there. To go way back, my, what do I call him? My grandfather, when I was super, super young, gave me like a video of Ireland at the Italian 90 World Cup. So, basically, the whole story of Ireland at the Italian 90 World Cup, and I just remember watching that on repeat. So, I was born in 96, so like early 2000s, it was obviously still video cassettes on like PS1, and you couldn't whack Netflix on, or YouTube. So, I watched that over and over and over again, and I just wished I was there, and you have all these amazing stars coming up in it, like Scalacci and Baggio and Maradona and Naples and all these stories, as well as, you know, Ireland getting to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. So, I always liked it from that point, and then just growing up, being interested in football. I don't know, it's just so iconic, Italian football. You look back at, especially the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s, the tapes, the cities, the culture, and then growing up and travelling a bit more, experiencing the atmosphere here, the food, the weather, and then just the football on top of that. It's just, unfortunately, it's probably not the best standard of football in Europe, hasn't been since the glory days, but it's, I just think it's the most iconic and nostalgic, if you like. Definitely most iconic and nostalgic, I agree with that, and you're right, the standard probably compared to the early 90s isn't the best, but what probably has done is probably made it slightly more competitive, because you don't have, you know, albeit in Milan, just our most powerful team in Italy, I guess, but we don't have the same situation that a few years ago when Juventus were winning it year after year. Yeah, that's true, yeah. Like, I mean, I think, yeah, there's been four different winners in the last five years, and I know we're only five games into the season, but Torino are top, there's an ATM player up there, and all the big boys have lost points. The other thing is this year, Barre or Atalanta, I think four of last year's top five all switched managers this summer. Yeah, Zagreb, Milan, or Barre Inter as well, so Zagreb, Milan, Moffat, Juve, Conte, Napoli, and there's one more off the top of my head, I can't remember, but yeah, competitive, it is. Possibly, arguably one of the most competitive league in Europe, I'd say, if you think when you've got Man City just romping every year, Spain, Barcelona doing really well, but Real Madrid will, I'd say Real Madrid will probably win that. You've got France, they're far less competitive than last year in Germany, but we'll see what happens there this season. But Italy, yeah, I'd say it's the most interesting league, even if the standard has somewhat diminished slightly. Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, you look at this week, we have the Coppa Italia, second division, Sampdoria went and won the derby with Genoa. Yeah, I mean, I could write a book about this and I won't drag on from the podcast. There'll be plenty of Italian football loving to come, but you realise how many big clubs there are, how many sleeping giants there are, even in the second division. It's probably like English football, to be fair, in that sense where, you know, I think you can romanticise a lot over teams like Leeds and the Sheffield clubs and stuff like that, but I've, you know, sort of drifted from their glory days, you know, Wolves won titles before Everton, Preston, you know, there's a lot of that in Italy, there's a lot of football culture and heritage and fan culture as well. I've lived in Spain and you won't get an away end at a match and the home fans, I mean, they don't want to put all the country in one basket. I don't think Athletic Club Bilbao or Real Betis perhaps go in that, but the majority, it's very much rock up, eat your sandwich at halftime and go home after and it just pains me, whereas at home or in Italy, it takes up a day, it's friends, it's family, it's everything, you know. Yeah, it's definitely a way of life and it's ingrained in culture. Now, one of your first stops along the journey, as we said, was Milan. What's been your thoughts on the city? What do you think of it? I loved it. This time I spent like a week or a little bit more in Milan, whereas the last time, like I mentioned, we'd just drop in for a day or two, go to Duomo, go to San Siro and that would be that type thing. But I spent a lot of time this week or last week around the Porta Venezia, Porta Romana, parts of the city, which I think is like west-southwest, went to some really cool bars and restaurants, cafes, walked around, very much felt like you're in local Milan and not touristy Milan. And I absolutely loved it. It's not cheap, but every corner you turn, a bit like Rome, in a different way. The buildings are amazing. There's just really cool, good-looking people at any time of the day, just dressed well, having coffees. And there's a bit of sport where you just sat there and you just want to sit down and pretend you're James Richardson. Do you know what I mean? It is class. And then the pinnacle of it all, obviously, is the fact that that's where the San Siro is. And the Derby was my fifth time at the San Siro. And it's just, it never, ever, ever gets old. It's like you see it in real life and your jaw sort of drops because it looks like, I don't know if you've ever played football in one of those winter domes, where from the outside of it, it barely covers the pitch and you go in and you feel like you're in this giant land. Swallowed by it. For me, it's one of the most iconic, if not the most iconic stadium in the world. And the fact that it's not going to be around forever, it's like gut-wrenching. It sort of shows you where football is going, with teams that have this unbelievable, of course, who have this unbelievable history, are sort of leaving that behind almost to upgrade to these almost Lego stadiums, I guess. But in terms of all the stadiums around the world that you've visited, where would you place the San Siro? Oof. I mean, yeah, I'd have to think about one, two and three, but it's up there. It really is up there. The scale of it, those fantastic towers, like they're just, yeah, so iconic, aren't they? No one can quite put their finger on why those towers are so cool. I think they're just so unique, aren't they? It's one of those places where you can really feel the history when you go inside. Again, I go back to Italian 90s. The fact that it's called the Giuseppe Meazza, it's commonly referred to as San Siro, obviously, but if you read about him and his history with both clubs, particularly Inter, the fact that it's about a hundred years old or more, you've had World Cups, European Cup finals, Conquest, Macdonald, Derby, League titles, all of that. It's just, yeah, for all these new stadiums, you just can't really buy what it offers. No, not at all. So if you're a football tourist travelling across for the Derby, what's your day looking like in the stadium? I definitely think Il Duomo in the centre is worth a visit. Is it La Scala, that fantastic shopping centre beside, which is just, aesthetically, it's just dead gorgeous. There's a little cafe inside there. I forget the name of it. We'll have to do a little note and put it underneath all this. There's a pizza place just up the road from Il Duomo called Peace, see how it is, and it's class, you're in and out pretty quick. Like three pizzas on the menu, do you know what I mean? It's great. Porta Venezia, I think it was, where I spent most of the time. There's a bar there called Bar Batto, and the streets around that area and the bar is sort of the fashion, and so I sort of thought it was in Paris, which is just, yeah, I don't know, I suppose Milan, Paris, fashion, there's obviously similarities there, but it was such a cool area, and this was such a cool bar, where I think you paid five euros for what they called it, like essentially a toasty behind the bar, and they were absolutely tiny, but the most delicious toasty you've ever had to accompany your aperitivo. Old school, like you know the big shiny red neon lights, Bar Batto, everyone has to go to Bar Batto. It's where the pretty people in Milan go to have their aperitivo, yeah. And then pasta, I went to this place a couple of times called Pasta del Torre, which I'd recommend. I mean obviously risotto is the real dish of Lombardia, it's not really a pizza pasta place traditionally, so risotto, I think it's called osso buco, no, oxtail, in Spanish as well, it's quite popular in Madrid, it's meant to be the dish, so have that in just like a real random place, which is quite nice as well. So you can just walk around all day, the streets are beautiful, the people are beautiful, the food's great. I don't like afro, which is bad crack if you're in Italy, because it's always the cheapest drink on the menu. You can go to Navigli, which is another region sort of on the river, on the canal, where lots of people do happy hour. Porta Romana, Venice is probably a bit nicer, but Navigli is maybe a bit livelier. And if you're there at sunset, it's great. Everyone's on the happy hour, and I just remember this like supercar, the supercar of the afro, whatever colour or whatever's in that drink, the sun shines through it a different way. Like there can be an afro on a table about 100 metres away from you, and it looks like all these little orange diamonds just lining the canal, and you just know what country you're in. So yeah, Milan. First couple of times I went, I was a bit like, eh, but I did clap if you find the right places. Yeah, you can learn to appreciate that. Now, when we spoke the other day, you said the Milan garden was a bit of a bucket list thing for you. What was it like into the game, the atmosphere on the way there? And did you get a proper sense of the football culture in Milan? Yeah, I mean, as the day sort of started in the city centre, you started to see all the jerseys pop up. And then as you got out towards the ground, like the San Siro itself, if you've been, you'll know it's sort of out on its own. But if you get off the metro a stop or two before it, there's like little kiosks and the odd bar, or temporary bar where people sort of congregate. Roma is quite similar, actually, when I think of it. It's a bit isolated, but you have all these sort of stalls and food and drink trucks in that area around the San Siro. And that was pretty busy a couple of hours before kick-off. But what I noticed was there was no real police presence, and there was lots of Milan and Inter fans having a drink together. Very much, yeah, very interesting. Looks like they'd be friends, cousins, brothers, whatever, couples, you know, lots of blue and black, hand in hand with red and black type things. And it was quite cool because when you're in the ground, if you've been to the game, or even if you've watched it on TV, you associate it with sort of life or death passion, you know. And in the ground, it felt hostile, like it felt like there was a lot of colourful chants going on, and you felt like they meant it, I think. But it didn't boil over. Like before and after the match, it was very much a mixed happy pride, which I thought was magic, because I'm all for having one end, one team, and one end, the other team, and then giving it everything for 90 minutes. But when people start trying to kill each other, you're like, you know, come on. That's usually a test, stepping over the bar. Now that was repression, to be honest, because, you know, because I think you see, I've seen a Liverpool fan in the away, in different grounds in England. One time in particular, I was like 18, and we scored a fifth goal at White Hart Lane, and I couldn't help but like, joke, you know, because it was just ridiculous. I was a young lad. And I'm just, I'm like 18, I'm like a boy, and this, just this spurs like that comes over and starts like essentially squaring up to me. And I'm like scared, you know what I mean? And someone else, obviously a Spurs fan, to be fair, comes in, sort of tells him to do one, and is like, you know, like, oh, you played well today, like safe home type thing, do you know what I mean? And I'm just like, we use passion as an excuse to batter the heads off people in the wrong end. Yeah, it does my head in because at the end of the day, if you've got a home end ticket, and you're generally keeping your mouth shut, you know, you really want to be there. And you've got football, and I love football. And so the Atlantic was refreshing. And not any less noisy or passionate for that, do you know what I mean? Yeah, I was going to say that because the atmosphere, I watched it on TV, and the atmosphere was ridiculous. And you do think people think to have this sort of wild and incredible atmosphere, it has to almost bubble over sometimes. But that's quite refreshing to hear that I never got to that stage, but didn't affect the atmosphere in any sort of way. And you chose a hell of a game to go into. How was the game itself? And we touched on the atmosphere there, but how does it sort of compare with other derbies you've been to? It was amazing, to be fair, I was shocked. I think on the one hand, everyone went into the game thinking it would be quite an easy one for Inter, just based on form. I was in the Liverpool end about four days earlier, watching Milan against Liverpool, and Milan were crap, maybe in hindsight Liverpool were just pretty good. I don't know, it seemed like Liverpool didn't need to get out of second gear. Also, when they signed Emerson Royale in the summer, I'm thinking Jesus Christ, you know, he actually had a good game in the derby, ironically. But they gave the away ultras the full curva, so behind the goal, the middle tier, all the away ends. And it's the ultimate diehards. So the Milan curva was louder than the 90% of the stadium that were all out to France for the whole game. When Inter scored, obviously that was the loudest roar. But apart from that, the Milan fans were incredible. Apparently, the Inter one of the main boys passed away recently, there's been a bit of stuff going on. They didn't do a choreography, they weren't as noisy as I thought they would be, but maybe there's a reason for that. But the Milan end was amazing. So that added to it, Milan scoring first, made them all lift off. They started letting off those like, you know, like those bangers, but they sounded bomb. Honestly, like eight or nine of them went off in about five minutes. And you know, the next one's common, but still, it's hard to get used to. Then Inter scored, the place lifted again. And then Milan getting away at winner, thoroughly deserving it. And the fact that when you're in the press box, you're in the middle tier at the middle, and you've got each curva in the middle tier to your left and to your right. It's just like the sound waves just smashing into each other. It's such a unique atmosphere. You obviously love the old firm, and where it's got to now with essentially no away fans, takes a lot out of it. I've been to Stutthof Classico's before, Bocca River, and it's amazing. But again, I can only imagine what it would have been back, you know, 20 years ago when they had an away end as well. So it feels like you've got, yeah, they've got the percentages pretty perfect for the right noise, the right atmosphere. That's probably what makes it so special, because Adarbi for me is only Adarbi when you've got both sets of fans in the stadium. Anyway, you mentioned Regis and Celtic, where obviously those games just isn't the same anymore, and it just dilutes it somewhat, whereas it's good to see that the tradition of what Adarbi should be has been carried on in the Milan-Darbi. Now, before I gave AC Milan no chance at all of winning that game, what was the reaction from the fans after the game, or did you get a sense of during the game if Milan deserved to win, and what was the reaction after the game? Yeah, I think everyone in the fans included knew that Milan deserved to win the match. It was definitely more important for them to win in hindsight. Obviously, there was a Monday night at the end of last season where Inter beat Milan to win the league on that night. They knocked them out of the Champions League semi-finals as well recently. I think it was six derbies or seven derbies without a win for Milan, so that and the fact that they've had a slow start, there's a lot of pressure on them. I think it was last week when they played at home before the next season that Ulster's basically unfurled the banner right in front of the bus, which was colourful and threatening, shall we say. So I think from that perspective, they did this job with that win on Sunday. They were brilliant. Inter looked so open, I couldn't really believe it. Maybe the City 0-0 took it out of them, you know, priding themselves on that defensive display, and then in the second half, Milan and Raphael in particular should have had two or three. So no, there was no complaint. I think the fact that Inter has been so successful recently also made that an easier defeat to take. How do you think both teams will do this season? I also think that Faggot is a really underrated manager. I never hear his name getting bandied about for other jobs. When Kelsey's job became vacant, I don't hear anyone mentioning his name, or even Liverpool as well, unless I've just not heard it or seen it. But I think he's really underrated. Can I expect him to have a job with that? Yeah, I mean, what they've done is amazing. The nature of the European Cup, the nature of the Champions League means that you can be unlucky, and I think in the last couple of years they have. Because on another day, they do beat City in that final. Lukaku scores one of those, the bounce of the ball goes a different way, and they win that final. Then against Atletico Madrid, again, that was such a tough match-up because of how Atletico played, and they could have won that and gone further. So maybe within a European context, maybe it gets overlooked because of that when it's a Cup competition, and they've been dominating the league in the meantime. I think people still think, oh, it's just Serie A, which is obviously not really fair. I think people thought that when Liverpool beat Milan as well. You're probably right. And I thought that not because of Serie A, but just because Milan haven't been very good. But then you look at the team sheet and what they did on Sunday, and still early doors in the season. Yeah, and Zaghi's been great, and if he keeps this up with Inter, then maybe he will be in the hat for jobs like that pretty soon. Although he, you know, in Italy, they'd argue that there's not many jobs bigger than that one. That's true. Now, you confessed to me that you're more of an Inter Milan fan, and I said I was more of an AC fan. Now, you gave some reasoning behind that, and all I could offer was that I love Maldini, and I'll continue to do that. Hey, no, listen, that's as much of a reason as any, you know what I mean? That's what football's all about, getting sort of inspired at a young age, and then sort of following a club thereafter with that reason in mind. Like, I'm a Liverpool fan, but as a four, five, six-year-old, I was pulled towards many a club, just like a certain player, or I think everyone's going on nowadays, like, all kids support players and not teams. Are you? That's a real pet peeve. Which I think, yeah, I get that, and I think it's true, and the whole Messi-Ronaldo thing is probably boiling over a little bit. I don't think it's anything new. I think a lot of people across the years and decades have, you know, turned the telly on, and the team's won an FA Cup final, or players caught their eye and supported that team and stuck with them. Maybe now, because it's PSG and Real Madrid, it gets on people's nerves. I get that, but, yeah, I don't think it's changed that much, but Inter, yeah, when I was doing work on Italian football in the last year or two and started looking into these things more, or even maybe Inter, I sort of knew this before, but obviously being called Internazionale, International, I was like, oh, so what's all that about? And obviously Milan, AC Milan, were set up as a cricket and football club within Milan, and Inter were founded out of that. They broke off from Milan and founded their own club, basically, because Milan, and a lot of Italian football at that time, did not want to accept foreign players and only wanted Italians to play. And, but then, Inter sort of went against that, and, yeah, I think it was, I've got it here, 1908, March 1908, they set up, and this just, this amazing quote that, I just think is class, and if I was setting my own football club up tomorrow, this would sort of be the, what's the word I'm looking for, like the proclamation, if you like, of our new football club. It says, this wonderful night will give us the colours of our crest, black and blue, against a backdrop of stars. It shall be called International, because we are brothers of the world. And obviously, that's one of them, accepting foreign players amongst the sort of anti-foreign players. I just think that's, that's a great way to go. So poetic, and the day and age we live in now as well, I think it's a nice message, even though some of the Inter alters up there, particularly the other way, which is ironic. But, yeah, it's a great story. And, yeah, love it, basically. So I've always sort of leaned towards Inter because of that. But like you said, there's been so many Milan legends over the years that I think everyone's sort of looked up to. Yeah, just to stick with there, it's, I mean, Milan, the game started, it goes back to that. It's a game made by the people for the people. And then just seeing the day and age where it all becomes, a lot of football clubs or football teams are a big vanity project for billionaires who come in to a team and sort of treat it almost like a, I don't know, like a hobby. But when you hear something like that, it sort of reaffirms your faith in the game. And it's just, it'd be nice to get back to that. Yeah, that was sort of quite more poetic for liking it than, I'd say, I grew up watching, I loved Dimitri Albertini, he was one of my favourite players of all time. And then you've got Van Basten and Hula in the strip as well, the red and black strip, I just loved that. But you see that, that's as good a reason as any. That's like the child with the stars in it now, is watching this game and seeing these colours. And, yeah, I can't remember that one either. And then watching Italian football on a Sunday on Channel 4, thinking, ah, maybe I could get football, and then going outside and playing and realising very quickly. I'm actually in the shop now, there's a lot of these. But yeah, I gave you literally probably about an hour's notice for this, but I challenged you to pick your all-time Inter dream team against my all-time AC Milan dream team. And after this, we'll let the people, the listeners, decide whose team would be better. All right, I'll rattle through this. So, in goals, Zenga, what's with Zenga? I think we'll leave him to UEFA Cups, with Inter as seen as the most legendary goalkeeper. Right back, Zanetti, the Argentinian who is their, I think he's now the director, and he's their record appearance. Let's centre back to his teammates, the infamous, for a certain reason, Maserati, who was an after-party to work with someone he'd love to have as an animal, won the, did he win the title? Yeah, he was part of the treble team. Mourinho left, there's a nice video of Mourinho and Maserati embracing in the car park after he announced that he was joining Real Madrid and Maserati, isn't it? That was made for each other yeah. Lucio, the Brazilian alongside him, obviously just an absolute rock in that team. And then the legendary left-back, Facchetti, I hope we're not butchering his name, more European silverware there. I struggled, obviously, going back to those ages where I wasn't able to watch those players, but I've tried to mix it up. In the middle, another Argentine, Esteban Cambiato, Wesley Schneider, who was sort of a reference, what I suppose 10, 15 years ago, just those delicious passes and just controlling the game, and it looks like he's having a good time in retirement too. I don't know if you've seen a couple of them recently, but you still know he could just rock up to like, probably like, the Serie B and be the left-back on the pitch. And then alongside him, obviously German legend, Lothar Matthäus, who won Serie A with Inter, won UEFA Cup with Inter. And then the front three, Samuel Eto'o, who was, again, the main man. Shout out to Melito, obviously he scored two goals in that final, but Eto'o was, he was the boy, wasn't he? He was the star striker that year. Obviously, he won it with Barca as well, but yeah, he was class. Eto'o, Giuseppe Meazza, who we mentioned, won it all with Inter, is the real name of the San Siro now, the style of Giuseppe Meazza, played for both clubs, mainly for Inter. And it has to be, running the original Renato, Brazilian Renato, between them, who peaked, I would say, at Inter, probably would have kept speaking for the next 10 years if it wasn't for that bloody knee injury. The things like, he was 24, he won the Serie A, won the UEFA Cup, had like two Ballon d'Ors while he was there, and just pretty much everyone who played against him were like, this is the best guy I've ever played against. It's just a ridiculous place. Even when you watch him, it doesn't look real. And that's why now you get people who say Mbappé's at this unbelievable elite level. There's no comparison, but I think Mbappé, he could get such a higher level, but he always looks like he's just playing sort of Russian gear, and then you have Ronaldo, who's just, yeah, no, he's like a superhero. Yeah, the pace, the power, the technical ability. For me, my first tournament, where I sort of fell in love with football, international football, all the rest of it was the 2002 World Cup. And obviously, again, Arlen qualified, did quite well, should have done better. But Ronaldo, that tournament, with the haircut, and the Nike boots, and just the goals, and the goals, and the goals, the brace in the final, it's just, yeah, he was the boy. I was probably too young to even understand how good he was at that stage, but he was, you know, just a shine on that level. In fairness, Mbappé did it, but I agree, when you watch him, you feel like he's got more. His noise, when he was strutting about the pitch, or just sort of looking a bit, I don't know, sulky. And then you watch Ronaldo, when he's teamed at PSV, he came home from Brazil to the Netherlands, a huge difference in culture, and there he's just, he's not yet a man, I guess, in scheming, and just, it's unbelievable. He's making need-to-experience pros look foolish. He did that throughout his career, and then you see him at Barcelona, it's just unreal. Yeah, I lost him, what a player. He was a joke, and that goes back to the other point we were sort of making, it's like, had you, I don't know, had you been five or six years old, or seven or eight or ten or whatever, and he's coming on the screen doing that in front of you, and then if that makes you an Inter fan for life, or a Barca fan for life, or whatever, then, you know what, fair play, because, you know, as long as you're supporting your local as well, like, you've got that. It's just, that's just magic. It's the reason why, it's the reason why you tune in, isn't it? Just, you just see stuff, and your jaw just drops, like, yeah. In fairness, I don't know if I'm right with this, but there's very few players now that I watch that have that effect. Now, I'm watching again, there's nobody that I watch now and think, there's even comparables that have messes of the unbelievable, like, he's in the, the end of his career is Nye, and then there's obviously Cristiano Ronaldo, but just off the top of my head, there's nobody now that I would even put in that sort of bracket, which is a shame, actually. I don't know if that's just the way football is now, it's, if it's more tactical, or if it's just teams don't play in a sort of free and easy way, it is more structured and rigid now, that players maybe don't have the freedom to do that. Yeah. What's the barometer of just your, just disbelief at what's happening in front of you, I suppose? I get a bit, I think Neymar and Suarez, you know, maybe we tick that box. Suarez is an unbelievable player. You know, doing stuff, and you're like, who even thinks of that? Like, even more so than Cristiano, who's like, a joke, but a goal-scoring team, but, you know, Suarez or Neymar, just that ability to just do things you can't even consider, and then Messi is obviously just a joke, like, I remember thinking that Neymar was clearly going to go on to become the best player in the world, even at the World Cup in Brazil, because he's still a fairly young age, and he's, he seemed to take on the whole responsibility of the whole nation. I thought he was unbelievable, and for whatever reason, he's just sort of, I thought PSG, he would take him on to the next level, possibly win the Champions League, but it just didn't happen for him, which was a shame, because I really liked him as a player. In your mind, Cristiano Ronaldo, great player, but a goal-scoring machine, but a different sort of way to Neymar, where you just watch and you think, oh, yeah, it's opinion, isn't it, but for me, yeah, for me, there's a thing there, like, for example, if Erling Haaland goes on to score as many goals as Ronaldo and Messi did, what, are we going to say he's in the top three of all time? No, like, I, yeah, that's a whole other debate, to be honest, maybe better not getting into it, but you know I'm getting it. He's a big Norwegian robo. Superb team. I'll run through mine. I went with Sebastian Rossi. Now, actually, to any huge Milan fans out there, I apologise in advance for the peers that I've missed out, for anyone I've not included, and for anyone that I've included that you just completely disagree with, but Sebastian Rossi, that was the first goalkeeper I remember growing up with at AC Milan, incredible keeper. I went for a 4-3-3, incidentally, right back. I loved Cristian Pannucci, unbelievable player, but I opted for Kassi, because I think he's the best right back of all time. Barresi, alongside Nesta, who just, Nesta and Cannavaro, when they played for Etlih, I think one of the greatest all-time defensive units that we've ever seen, loved him. I was very close to going for Kosti Kurta, but Nesta just gets in place of him, and obviously I have to go for Paolo Maldini, because I genuinely, genuinely think I love him. He was just a Rolls-Royce, not a Rolls-Royce defender, just a player in general, and he seems like a genuinely nice guy. In midfield, I went for Albertini. He was one of my favourite players growing up, absolutely adored him, and alongside him, I went for front Rijkaard. It was between him and Klaas Seedorf, but I opted for Rijkaard, and then I went for Kaká. I was going to go for Gattuso or Pirlo. Pirlo, I think I mentioned to you earlier, is probably my all-time favourite player. However, Kaká was just unbelievable. Yeah, back in my old Trafford, six out shots, it was unbelievable. Dan Fletcher bounces off him. Yeah, and obviously, that was around when they played Liverpool twice, in 05 and 07. In fact, that would have been one of those years back then. I think it was that semi-final or quarter-final. Yeah, he just glided. I remember, was it his goal against Croatia at the 06 World Cup? Yeah, yeah, unbelievable player, and once again, seems like a really nice guy. You could just sit down and chat to him, but yeah, and up front, I went for Van Basten. Career cup, ridiculously short. I'll give you another example. If you were to go into, I don't know, YouTube or anything to see some of his goals, it's just a completely different level. Unbelievable player. I went for Ruud Gullit, alongside him. I don't know if people really appreciate how good a player he was, and one of my favourite players of all time is Zlatan. I think he's unbelievable. Genuinely, a scorer of unbelievable goals. Just a phenomenal player, and it annoys me in Britain that he never really got the credit he deserved until, was it a three-goal or four-goal he scored against England? He scored that outrageous overhead kick. I almost remember that English commentators referred to him as a flat-track bully, and just this over-aged player. It's ridiculous. He went to Man U, 36 or whatever age he was, and he still, if it wasn't for his injury, I think he could have done even better, but I think he was unbelievable there. But, with that in mind, I chose Shevchenko over him, just because when he was in his prime, he was just ridiculous. I was going to pick Roberto Baggio, because he's probably my list of top 10 favourite players of all time, but I went for Shevchenko, who I'm basking up for. If I'm going to pick managers as well, I'd go for Ancelotti, just because he might be the coolest manager of all time. I think if I was a player, he's exactly the type of manager I would like. You would thrive under. I'd thrive under. I think he'd put an armour on my shoulder and say, you've been terrible today, but I'm still going to play you next week, I still like you. I think he'd be perfect for a team like that, because he's one of the only managers in the world that I think can manage egos, just people that don't think he had an ego himself, and he seems very relaxed. Whereas with the Madrid team just now, I think any other manager in the world would probably struggle to manage them as well as he does. The interesting thing would be if he does go in the summer or how long he sticks by for, because that's a new team as well. I'm not a massive Madrid fan, I wouldn't mind Ancelotti going and sitting on the beach and Madrid just having a load of issues, because I think their success has been damaging to European football. If I was him, I'd do the season and then just go away. I think he'd go and manage Brazil, or go and manage Italy. I'd love a team with an Italian manager, it would be magic. It would bring something back to international football as well. Also on top of the pitch, you'd think he'd just go and sit on the beach, he's not at all, he's not running for a play. You can sit on a beach with your massive eyebrows, just looking at the sights and scenery and enjoy your retirement. Joe, thanks very much for coming along today. The next thing we catch up on will be discussing your experience of Lombardia. Loving Lombardia, I think we're going to be calling it. Until then, it's goodbye from me, Christian Brown, and goodbye from the man himself, Joseph O'Fallon. Thanks, guys. Cheers, Christian.