Second Captains

Ken is having a great time at this World Cup and has chosen wisely so far, catching Messi's hat trick, The Azteca on opening night and England putting in one of their best ever World Cup performances... at least that's what MOST people thought.Next up its Brazil for Ken, and with loads of surprise results and some of the big stars shining, its shaping up to be a great tournament.To listen to all our World Cup programming throughout the week, join the Second Captains World Service. There’s no contracts, no hidden fees and shows can be listened to on all good podcast apps, on Spotify or through our website. It’s independent, commercial-free and member-led with feature interviews, breaking news, Ken’s Football Show, The Politics Podcast, and lots of added extras. You’ll also be supporting the development of our longer-form work, such as our international series’  ‘Where Is George Gibney?’ and Stakeknife. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This weekend gave us our first glimpses of Brazil, Morocco, Scotland, Haiti, Switzerland, Qatar, Germany and Curacao, and we manage to call in on quite a few teams on our Sunday night whistle-stop tour. We speak to comedian, podcaster and Scotsman Ray Bradshaw about Scotland's first win at a World Cup in 36 years and the influence of McTominay and McGinn.And Ken was in beautiful* Houston for Germany 7-1 Curacao this evening, where he may have seen Jurgen Klopp, but he definitely saw Bastian Schweinsteiger, and he also caught up with Curacao journalist Lilo Sulvaran.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to cheat week on the Second Captains world service! It all started with the Arsenal West Ham VAR fallout and got progressively murkier as the week went on with the Southampton "Spygate" saga, Celtic's questionable late penalty against Motherwell and Florentino Perez calling out all the haters and losers at Real Madrid.  There was also the news this week that Chelsea are looking to get Xavi Alonso as their next manager, news that astonished Ken given Liverpool seem a better fit and given how Liverpool's season has gone with Slot in charge.Coming up tomorrow we have the latest in our series of Fiesta Fridays ™ - last week it was Seve - this week it's bullfighting culture wars. Its a fiver to join, it takes 30 seconds, you have instant access to every show we've ever done, and all the top stuff coming up such as Ken at the World Cup, the Premier League and Champions League deciders, Madrid continuing to be insane, Rory's majors quest, Leinster in the champions cup final, the munster hurling championship is getting red hot, and the football championship is getting real tasty too. GO TO secondcaptains.com/join Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Arsenal are nearly there. As the manager flailed wildly with random substitutions, David Raya and Martin Ødegaard stood up to make sure that when the referees stepped up to rule on the climactic, decisive melee, Arsenal already had the crucial edge. We go through the fallout, and also talk about the Southampton spying scandal, while Eoin confesses to a faux pas in the presence of an unusually glamorous and sophisticated colleague.Nick Ames and Rich Jolly join us to talk about the West Ham-Arsenal VAR drama and debate some eternal questions. Is football's tottering refereeing system in need of urgent action to save it? Or is it actually working about as well as can be expected, but being sabotaged by a poisonous alliance of the cheating players and managers who disregard the rules, the self-righteous morons who watch them, and the entrepreneurial anger-farmers who whip everything up?Oh and Real Madrid we haven't forgotten about you.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.