2026 Dutch Grand Prix Recap: Norris Wins, Verstappen Crashes Out

And it's lights out and away we go!

Podcasting from Studio 2520, somewhere near Akron, Ohio, plastering stickers all over the Shores and islands of Lake Erie. This is tackling the chicane.

All right, so here we go. Another show. Yeah, uh, we're back, back on the, uh, normal Thursday, Thursday night cadence after not being on Thursday nights for a while. So that feels good. Uh, once again, quite a bit to get into.

We've got an F1 race to discuss, a potential new maybe, just maybe, uh, title challenger in F1. We've got IndyCar live from Washington, DC and everything that comes with that, so we'll get into that. Premier League opening weekend came and went, and some mighty interesting results coming from said weekend. I think, uh, We're set to reveal our second teams. Yeah, Premier League as well.

Yeah, uh, a couple upsets, a couple interesting results to say the least there. So we'll touch into that. We'll dip into Scotland's one top-flight Premiership match, the Dundee Derby, and we will once again— it's becoming a bit of a yearly tradition talk about Celtics failure in the Champions League qualification playoff round. And it seems like they find more and more unbelievably explosive ways to lose in Europe. So we will, uh, that'll be the caboose of the show.

But for now, uh, maybe some less, uh, heart-wrenching topics to discuss. Uh, I think we can start in F1 unless you object. Uh, we were in the Netherlands for this one. F1 back from its big summer break. So it's pedal to the metal until December now.

This is the first race after the break. I think so. Damn, why does it feel like— I don't know, it goes on until December, so yes. And then, um, let's see, so we're only off like 3 months. Do they start in March, right?

So like basically 2 months. But yeah, anyhow, yes, Zandvoort. And apparently for some reason off the schedule after this year.

Yeah, I don't have like insider information as to why that is, um, beyond like literally Googling why. But yeah, it's not coming back next year, um, so there's that. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if it's a product of the current regulations just not giving us the most gripping racing, or maybe the track wasn't that great. I, I don't think there was— the race itself was okay.

I don't— it could be a travel, um, for you. Is that what you're saying? No, it could be logistically they, they're taking it off to add another track or something. Yeah, I don't know. Um, Yeah, so I mean, big storylines in this race.

Verstappen out first lap crashes, apparently got loose or something. Which one's the bump bump bump bump? Yeah. Oops. It helps if you pop that up.

I think like the first like big crash of this year that I can remember. Yeah. And it was.

It looked like he got into some— there might have, may have been some dust or whatever, but it only takes a tenth of a— or a hundredth of a second to fuck up, and next thing you know, you're in the wall. Unfortunately, um, I believe he collected a couple of other cars, or at least had contact with another car due to that. Um, Bearman just brakes on the second formation lap when they're trying to get the grid back together, so see you later. And mechanical failure there. Yes, our favorite again.

Haas is mired in 7th or 8th place in the constructors, and that's where they're going to stay apparently for the rest of their lives. Yeah, I mean, they started the season out relatively well, and since then it's been an absolute nothing burger of a season from them. Yeah, uh, there— this was a sprint weekend which George Russell took home the sprint win there, and Mercedes extends their lead in the Constructors' Championship. Yeah, hot on the soundboard early here. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just excited.

Well, I prodded you for the— that's true, that's Price is Right. We could have waited a few minutes for the Vader theme. We also have voice effects coming, so you never know when that's gonna happen either. Um, look, typical F1 race. Um, Norris's car was strong.

McLaren seems to be making a potential late comeback here. A lot of races left. Yeah, I mean, it's not impossible. They, they could charge up here and we'll see what happens. Piastri kind of got a little bit of bad luck here and there, didn't probably finish quite as high on the podium or on the, uh, the grid as he would have liked to.

I believe he ended up 6th. Um, Ferrari still hanging around 4th and 5th place in this race. Um, but yeah, Norris back on top and looking like potentially McLaren has some secret sauce here left to, to throw down. Now, 2 wins in a row for Lando Norris. Yeah, um, there was a, a team order on lap 66 for Russell to swap with Antonelli.

Yeah, um, and Sainz and Albon take each other out, so good for Williams, right? And they both, they both, uh, signed extensions to their Williams deal this week. Yeah, so what better way to celebrate that than to crash into each other?

Yeah, I don't— you know, I still— I have tremendous respect for that team. I hope someday that they can at least be something that we can talk about. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case this year. Yeah, 2 podiums last year from Sainz, but really have shown nothing in this. Yeah, and regs, Cadillac, you know Who knows how many years it's going to take them.

I'm sure when Haas came aboard that they had several seasons under their belt before they looked even racy. So we'll see what happens with that. Um, as I said before, typical F1 scenario here, uh, almost 12 seconds between the lead car and the second car, and then it just dumps down from there.

Um, Antonelli will extend his championship lead over George Russell, probably the big takeaway from this weekend. Yeah, I don't think we're seeing— gonna see any real semblance of a fight between those 2. I think that ship sailed probably honestly earlier in the season when Antonelli rattled off, what, like 4 in a row? That, right, kind of killed any real— I mean, we've got a lot in a row. We got a little bit of a race going in the driver standings between 2 and 3, tied.

George Russell and Lewis Hamilton are tied at 183 points, and Lando Norris at 159, Leclerc at 155. But anything can happen with this number of races left. Yeah, I think at least in that top I'll just say the top 5. I mean, it just depends if Antonelli has a stroke of bad luck. Russell's right there.

Hamilton's right there. And as we said, Lando Norris had a very strong car this weekend, just shades of McLaren past. So Yeah, we don't have a race this weekend. We have to wait another week for Italy, so we probably won't talk about that until next Thursday. Uh, uh, yeah, which is always a fun track.

Um, I will just quickly go through the constructors, uh, just to keep everybody fresh, um, after F1 stops putting pop-ups on the screen here. Mercedes at 425 points. Ferrari, which they have— Ferrari has to be— Vasseur has to be thrilled that they're second in the Constructors' Standings, I would think. Yeah, I mean, it's like a comfortable second. They have a pretty solid gap to McLaren, uh, in third place there.

So they have been very comfortably the second best team and have shown that on occasion they can compete with Mercedes. Now it doesn't seem like they are in the best bit of form at this second. McLaren have seemed to find quite a bit of speed, particularly with Lando Norris. Uh, so interested to see how that continues to develop throughout the rest of the season. Um, definitely still Mercedes championship to lose at this point, and I I don't really see that happening.

I think what maybe has a better chance of happening is Lando Norris makes a little bit of a charge here in the second half of the season, right? Um, so let's just see what, what he is able to do in Italy in particular. That's a track that rewards straight-line speed, which maybe plays into the hands of a Ferrari, but Um, yeah, I mean, I think it's been a little bit since we had our big rant. It has been a little better, uh, recently. Some teams getting into the mix of things.

And when drivers crash, as horrible as it sounds to say, it does make races more interesting. It does. And listen, these cars are to the point where they're so safe that something truly, truly horrific has to happen. And yes, um, you know, when you see Red Bull on, on lap 1, the alien himself, the, the greatest possibly racer, um, that we've witnessed in the last 5 years or so, makes us a mistake quickly on the first lap and he's done. And I mean done, not just Hey, let's— of course, in F1 this doesn't ever happen.

They don't— no one ever goes back to the paddock and says, maybe we can put this thing back together. Yeah, they did. They're just done. Yeah, right. I mean, that, that, like I said, that was one wreck this year where I was like, wow, that was a big one, you know what I mean?

Yeah, we haven't seen much of that this season where he hits the wall and obviously it's game over, right? Um, so, you know, interesting that it happens, maybe not, um, what we exactly want to see as race fans. Yeah, I'll just say this about Zandvoort, um, or this particular race. We did have 6 DNFs, um, so obviously Verstappen went out early, Bearman had issues mechanically, Stroll, who cares. Uh, the other Haas, uh, a DNF.

He got 52 laps in, and then I believe that was also a mechanical failure, if I recall. Yeah, and Bottas was told to retire the car at lap 61 for Cadillac, which I, I think we both know that Cadillac is mostly just collecting data this season. Well, and that's how this works. Yeah, you don't show up year one and just blast through the field, right? Right.

Um, so there you have it for F1, coming back in a week or so for Monza, uh, which we will cover fully. But let's talk a bit about the Freedom 250. Yeah, and I'm interested more in just because this is a one-off. The race happened, obviously, and we'll get to that, but I want to hear your opinions just on the event as a whole. Um, obviously kind of a unique situation, and IndyCar pretty much said it's only happening once.

Um, so want to hear your thoughts on just how it went. I have some figures here that show that from an IndyCar perspective, it went very well. But curious your thoughts. It's— and I don't know how much of this is pomp and circumstance vis-à-vis the commentary box, but everyone seemed to embrace this race in DC. Apparently there were a ton of spectators.

Obviously there's going to be a lot of people who don't— aren't into motorsport Definitely not into IndyCar, just come down for curiosity's sake. If you live in DC, why not? Yeah. Um, it felt a lot like Detroit to me as far as the— that, like, the track. Yeah, I mean, it's similar in that you just have sectors and sections of little tiny stands.

Uh, there's no grandiose. No. And, and there's no— it looked to me like in Detroit there's parking structures where people layered up and even some sponsors would take the top level of a parking structure and turn it into a venue for the day. There's not that in DC. Um, but yeah, I, I didn't think it was horrible.

I thought the race was entertaining. I mean, we had a, a pretty interesting finish to this one. Um, There were, there were a few cautions at the beginning, and then we had a nice stretch of green. And then, you know, the problem with these really super tight road courses is somebody goes into the wall and somebody's gonna get hit. Yeah, there's too many blind corners, which we saw with Maloukas.

Um, and we'll— I want to talk about Yeah, we— the thing with the street racing, especially with IndyCars, they insist on running a lot of these tracks because they garner a big audience of, of paid fans. Now, you didn't actually have to pay to attend this race, but, um, yeah, I heard it was pretty difficult to actually see the race if you were there. But I think a lot— you, you sort of you get fans going because it's a one-off thing. Um, what I will say is this: the Freedom 250 averaged 3.28 million viewers, uh, on Fox, which is the highest number for an IndyCar race other than the Indy 500 since the series was formed in the 2008 reunification of open-wheel American motor racing. So hard to argue against that.

So Mr. Penske is not a fool, okay? This was his brainchild. He's been trying to put this together for quite some time.

It only— all things fell together in the fact that It's the 250th anniversary, right, of the United States. Why not have the race, call it the 250, put it in DC, surround it with not one flyby but a flyby from each military group? Yeah, yeah. Uh, obviously the president very present, uh, as he normally is, right? Uh, it felt like the broadcast was just a a bit in my opinion.

And listen, I, I love this country, but let's take her from 11 to 10, okay? Yeah, I don't need Will Buxton, who's a limey Brit, talking about how great this, you know, this is in this country. And I'm thinking, well, you know, we, we kind of had to fuck you guys up a little bit 250 years ago, right? Yeah, I mean, this is not a political show, so I'm not gonna— no, and it doesn't need to be. Did you not feel the same?

Well, yeah, I mean, it's— I— the cynic in me goes, but this is clearly a political stunt.

Regardless of was it successful for IndyCar, I think you can pretty obviously say for a one-off race, I think it was Incredibly successful. You can obviously say yes, but I'll say this because obviously this is our podcast and I can say what I want. It's pretty obviously a fucking stunt from our Penske and our current presidential administration.

And that comes with the territory and you get constant— it was like half race and half like, check out the Washington Monument cam.

The fucking National Archives and look at these 7 flyovers. And it's like, okay, nation's capital, great. Let's— it is still an IndyCar race. Can we maybe focus a little more on that? But again, we knew going in that it was going to be a little bit more than just your average IndyCar race.

Yeah. Um, go ahead. I, I suppose in this 250th anniversary of this great country that we live in, you're going to have things like that. I'm surprised that— and maybe, maybe I'm just not paying enough attention— but other commercially available money-making sports haven't played into this a bit more. I'm trying to think of, like, honestly, the World Cup they had that big July 4th broadcast and they kind of played into it.

Um, yeah, but you're kind of right. I, I don't know. I'm sure the NFL has something up their sleeves. Well, sure, they're not— season starts this year is not gonna go out without something. Yeah, I'm sure they've got some bullshit planned.

But, um, let me, let me talk TV ratings for a second here and then we can get into like the actual race. But I— there was an article that was published in USA Today this week and in, in a lot of other, uh, publications. But, um, the headline is this: F1 household reach has declined since Apple TV move, per report. And they are saying that since F1 moved exclusively in the US to Apple TV, they have seen high-profile events see incredibly steep viewership drop-off, with the Miami Grand Prix down 68% and the Monaco Grand Prix down 66% year over year. These races previously benefited from free-to-air broadcast television on ABC.

Um, took that from USA Today. IndyCar just cashed in on free-to-air television on Fox with a big marquee event, 3.28 million viewers. I can fucking guarantee you that, uh, F1 is not even sniffing that viewership in the US. Now with the Apple TV deal. Whatever F1, whatever Liberty Media got in exchange for putting this on Apple TV clearly isn't worth the UX because I don't see anything better on Apple TV than on F1 TV.

Now unfortunately, the problem with a lot of these races is you can't watch them live. And with the, with the, the way that the app works, if you want to do telemetry and all that stuff— still haven't been able to figure that out on myself by myself, and I am decently tech savvy. Yeah, I mean, so you still can't figure that out on recordings? You can't. It's not accessible.

Oh, so it's not even there? It's only accessible on a live broadcast. Okay, so that's why I can't figure it out, because I've only watched like 2 races. And I don't think— I don't know if that was the case. I don't think that was— no, it wasn't, because I used to go and watch watch driver cams even if it was— even if it was recorded.

Yeah, so that's a fuck-up on Apple's part. But yeah, and the races used to be at least on ESPN the channel too. We just had an F1 TV subscription, but— and they would put some races like the big ones like we just read on ABC, right? I think that's where they're— they've lost the viewership. Yeah.

Because there is a huge sector of F1— I will call them F1-interested people, not necessarily fans, air quotes here— that will watch an F1 race because it's on their regular streaming. There's, there's very— I mean, you cut a lot, you cut a lot of people out when you say, okay, it's $100 a year to watch this series. A lot of people are going to be like, I'm not doing that. Yeah, I don't care enough. But I will sit here on a Sunday morning and turn on my ABC or ESPN that I'm already streaming on whatever other service that you have, and I'll watch it.

Uh-huh. Yeah, so just interesting because IndyCar, I would say, kind of knocked it out of the park in terms of TV viewership with the Freedom 250, and generally have had a pretty good ratings year. Um, in F1, at least in the US, has kind of expectedly gone to the shitter, which we could have said that before they started the season. Um, but yeah, uh, not to go on a huge tangent, but head— so let me say this about that. What's happening is, is you're getting the The 6 or 7 year itch from the Netflix F1 series, everyone's done.

You can't keep regurgitating the same thing over and over again. It's good for 4 seasons on streaming, if that, if that's charitable. But yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So that hot bed of shit is gone.

And now people are like, well, I, I've seen— I know now, I've seen it. I don't need to watch the races now. They're going to make me pay to watch the races, which a lot of people are turned off by. And unfortunately, I think they rode a huge wave, and instead of maintaining the fan base in the US, they've— they're casting people off now. Yeah, MLS experienced this early they were the first league to really, or sporting body, to try this Apple TV thing, or like just put your entire product behind a paywall.

Um, and they quickly figured out that, yeah, it, you know, Apple pays you a lot of money, but in terms of people that are watching our games, it, it plunges. So they go, okay, so now there's no season pass, it's just a part of your Apple TV subscription. And I think they've benefited a little bit from pivoting there. But, uh, that's why it's like I could have told you this F1 thing wasn't gonna work on Apple TV if you're talking purely viewership numbers. You, you can't put the entire product behind a paywall, you just— and expect the same viewership.

I mean, there's no way people in the marketing rooms of Apple TV were going, we are going to get the same viewership that ESPN did when we put an entire season behind a paywall. I just— there's no way they thought that. They were totally fine with just, you know, spunking all that money on the F1 and then getting it back with their subscription model. Yeah. And, and As we all know, I don't, I don't know, is this a multi-year deal with Apple?

So we're gonna have to deal with it for however, however long that contract is. Yeah. And then by that time, who knows what interest there'll be left. I mean, we do have 3 races in these United States that are F1 races. How long will that stay.

F1 is the most, you know, pliable, weird thing. They could be like, okay, 2030, uh, we're out, or whatever. You know, the second F1 sees that the dollar signs are elsewhere, they will have no issues elsewhere. Yeah, yeah. Um, okay, so let's leave that there, right?

Freedom 250 IndyCar. Uh, you had some comments you wanted to make on the actual race? No, I mean, look, Kyle Kirkwood— everyone, it's always pillow with these guys on TV, but let's face it, this guy's got something happening here. He seems to be very competitive. He led most of the laps of this race without issue.

Christian Lundgaard comes in 2nd place. Uh, by the way, reminder, Christian Lundgaard is not returning to McLaren next year. No, the guy who came in 3rd is going to McLaren, which is also so weird to me. Will Power and, um, actually it's Scott Dixon. Scott Dixon.

Felix Rosenqvist. Yeah, my fault. Um, Andretti had, uh, finished in 3rd and 4th with Will Power and Marcus Mark— Marcus Ericsson. Kiffin Simpson had a great race, um, didn't lead any laps but ended up 5th with Ganassi. Um, and Nolan Siegel, of all people, how— when was the last time you saw that guy?

He's kind of quietly had 2 solid races now with, uh, what was the week before? Uh, they're mold— Portland. Yeah, they're molding in my mind, but, uh, yeah. Um, he is looking for a seat next year, so let's see if he gets picked up. He has a lot of money behind him.

Yeah, so, um, yeah, Kirkwood has been— if there's been any real competition to Palau these past 3 years, it's kind of really mostly been Kyle Kirkwood. He's not going to win the championship next year, but maybe he can delay, uh, Palau's 4th in a row. Um, but, uh, kind of a rare really bad day from Alex Palou in this one. He had pit issues and crashed and all this. He had 2, I believe it was 2 issues in the pits.

Um, one was a right front wheel issue, uh, the other I don't recall what happened. But yeah, just, I mean, sometimes that that happens, and you can be the quote-unquote best driver in the series, and then if you can't get support on those stops, it's going to kind of mess you up. And yeah, he had a bit of contact as well. Um, but yeah, I mean, I, I don't— look, I think the guy's probably going to take the, the series. I mean, yeah, I don't think it's— well, there's not many races No, we have— what do we have, 2?

4. Oh, 4. Well, a doubleheader at Milwaukee Saturday, Sunday this weekend. What do you— how do you feel about that doubleheader, having 2 races in the same weekend? Filling the calendar and they're filling oval races.

They've had trouble finding ovals, and frankly, fans don't show up to ovals outside of the 500. I don't know why. Oval racing is the best racing IndyCar does, in my opinion. Um, but yeah, it's hard to get fans out to ovals. So, and NASCAR, unfortunately— well, I will say unfortunately— has ownership of a lot of the main oval tracks in the U.S., and they don't cooperate all that well with IndyCar, which is why IndyCar ditched Texas.

It's why they don't really, you know, they don't go to Homestead-Miami or anything like that. So Um, I mean, I get it from a scheduling perspective. You kind of have to do it. It's probably not my preferred thing, like 2 races in a weekend. It's just a little strange.

Yeah. Oh well. Um, yeah, Malukas bends his car into the wall. Um, Stingray Rob unfortunately gets collected. The one time Stingray Rob is probably not responsible for crashing.

Yeah. When, when I was watching the race, I was also doing other, other things. And when I heard the 2 names, I was like, oh, if Spinray took this guy out, I'm gonna be super pissed. Obviously there was nothing he could do. It was a blind corner.

Yeah, you know, and frankly, we're quite lucky that neither one of the drivers was more seriously injured because He took a stabber. Yeah, Malukas took a stabber from Rob coming around that corner, and he was going fast. Yeah, ugly past few weeks for, for Malukas. I— and you know what, when he came out of the, uh, what do you call it, medic— yeah, deal. And I don't know if you— did you catch that interview?

Yeah, he's like, I, I'm in my own head. I— that's When you hear stuff like that from a, a driver as young as David Lucas, it's a little bit of a red light. Like, well, yeah, I— there's clearly a lot of pressure on him to perform at Penske. Um, and I— so you can only finish second so many times before that becomes a mental battle. Uh, 5 second-place finishes for him Yeah.

I'm wondering if it wouldn't have been better for him. Obviously you're going to take the offer, right? He was a supported team by his parents' trucking business when, when we first, when you first came around. Um, would it not have been better to ratchet to like a like a smaller team for a couple of years. And then, I mean, he kind of did that though.

He did 2 years with Dale Coyne, then he had signed with McLaren and they shitcanned him when he broke his wrist, right? Right. Um, and then did half a year that season with Meyer Schenck, and then he does a season where he kind of comes out, uh, with AJ Foyt. You can't when Roger Penske calls, you don't say no. And yeah, he's been their best driver in the championship battle the whole year.

Um, Newgarden just is an oval wizard, so he can farm oval wins. But, um, he's had a good season. It's just— it— look, we're 0.015 seconds away from David Maloukas is the Indy 500 winner. Yeah, so that's— and they know that. It's just, it's framed on TV differently when you hear interviews like that.

Um, and I wish him the best. I mean, I, I think he has— if we can get a victory this year with him, yeah, that would be Milwaukee's— that would be huge. Milwaukee's your best hope. 2 oval races, that's his kind of specialty. So, so that's actually coming up very shortly here.

Yeah, this weekend. Um, yeah, so I won't go over the schedule, it's— it doesn't matter. But Milwaukee coming this weekend, uh, in IndyCar. And I'm assuming that with the 2 races, uh, qualifications are going to be What, on Saturday? I don't know.

There's a Saturday race and Sunday race. Yeah. Um, we'll leave it there and move on because we have ran a little over and we do have a lot of soccer to get into. Uh, Premier League opening weekend, and I must say I'm quite invigorated to, to watch some Premier League. I'm still riding the World Cup buzz, honestly.

Where it's like I just want to watch. I'll watch any team play anyone at this point right now. That's where I'm at. So most excited I've been going into a Premier League season probably since this show started. Um, some really interesting promoted teams in it.

I also think that outside of Arsenal, a lot of the big teams are in moments of transition— new coaches, new players. Which leaves most of the top end of the table very, very, very wide open. And we saw that with some of the opening weekend results, which we'll get into. But I want to start with the reveals of our second teams. I'm really interested to hear what your team is.

Yeah, it's— I have quite strange couple ideas, but I don't know. Um, and then we'll go into mine, and then we'll go there. Well, first of all, if I'm looking at these standings, I'm shocked that the team that I chose is where they're at right now. It's very early, I understand that. So I guess with— I don't know if we have a drum roll on this thing or not.

You have to, uh, test the buttons. I'm not sure. We have, uh, chimes, crickets, trombone, rim shots. No drum roll, so I'll have to work on that a bit. But yeah, so this, and this was purely 98% based on kit.

Kit. And a team that I mentioned to you early in the podcast, uh, were when we started this in 2022. Uh, so yeah, my team, my second team in the Premier League is going to be The Brentford Bees. Oh, okay. I— that's not what I thought you were gonna pick.

So, all right, Brentford, London-based club, uh, and a really good result for them early, which I'm sure you just noticed. Um, and we can get into— yeah, Brentford. Okay. And, uh, I guess, so is it all kit-based at this point? I mean, when I, when I went to the table, I was like, well, I don't want to pick that.

I don't think I want to pick that. And I've always liked— I mentioned this when we did our very first run-through of each league in 2022. I said, oh, I like that. Yeah. Um, and so I just went with them.

Uh, I don't have a favorite player because I don't know the roster that well. It appears though that in the last few matches they've been fairly solid. Uh, I know they played one on Tuesday and, uh, won 6-1 EFL Cup, whatever that is. That's the League Cup. Okay.

Uh, yeah, they took down, um, second-tier side Birmingham City. Birmingham City, uh, you're a fan of Peaky Blinders, there are about 5 million references to Birmingham City, the team in that show. That show is set in Birmingham, obviously. So, um, yeah, interesting selection. A London team that I've already said.

Um, let's see, I had a, a close second was going to be Ipswich. Yeah, that's it. I thought you were going to go with Ipswich. Yeah, so you threw me for a bit. Very close second.

Um, yes, so okay, rivalries for Brentford. Their main rivals are Fulham, Chelsea, and Queens Park Rangers. Uh, Fulham is their probably longest and, and most— Chelsea probably doesn't really care about Brentford, if we're being honest. Uh, it's a fixture known for crowd violence, according to Wikipedia at least. Um, although Brentford and Fulham are both known for having rather, I will say, uh, well-behaved fans.

Um, let's see, big trophy wins. They have exactly zero major trophies, which isn't that surprising really. Uh, they've won the Second Division in 1935. They came up in 2021 via the playoffs.

Um, they've been runners-up of the EFL Trophy, not the EFL Cup, as late as 2011. Uh, so no, no, no real big silverware to discuss, but they are a fun team to watch and consistently punch above their weight. Any, uh, specific player that I should key in on, or should I just do my own research? Yeah, so their striker that scores a lot of goals is Igor Thiago. He's a 25-year-old Brazilian, actually missed a penalty against Spurs this weekend.

Um, people are really high on this character in the midfield, Mamadou Excuse me, Mamadou Sangaré, who I believe is a new signing for Brentford as of this year. Yeah, they signed him from Lens in France. But yeah, people are raving about Mamadou Sangaré in the midfield, uh, which I picked up on. I actually watched Brentford destroy Tottenham of all teams this weekend, 3-0. You were in the throes of Putten Bay, so can't really— oh yeah, Saturday.

Yeah, uh, and that's when I texted you Tottenham are, are still very much shit. Yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, very much shit under, uh, the stewardship of Roberto De Zerbi. So, all right, Brentford, the Bees, a London-based club for your selection. So I'll go into mine.

And I can't imagine, um, not getting a bit of kit for this club, um, just because kitten caboodle, I guess. So, all right, maybe a scarf. Well, probably a jersey. Well, or both. I mean, or both.

Maybe a scarf to throw up here. Yeah, I don't know, just throwing shit at, at the wall here. Okay, so I'll go into my team and then we'll go into, uh, some actual games here. My team is— drum roll— it is Hull City. Hull City are a newly promoted team for this year known as the Tigers.

They, uh, have a tiger on their badge, which is kind of cool, um, and unsurprisingly play in Black and orange stripes. Oh, uh, Hull City. There's— there is a reason for why I selected this team. They're a very interesting club in the respect that, uh, last season in the championship they were actually tipped for relegation to go down into League One, which is the 3rd tier. They punched very high above their weight, obviously, and made it into the playoffs and then won through the playoff route to get promoted.

Um, but kind of the main reason that I picked Hull City was because, uh, on FIFA when I was a youngster, the first time I did a full season, uh, like manage the team type situation, I picked Hull City, uh, when they were still in the Premier League at that time. That would have been like FIFA 17, and I managed them to a 5th place finish in an FA Cup trophy, which, uh, was, you know, pretty impressive for Hull City. Uh, so I've kind of always had like a little soft spot for them just because of that. Yeah. And I've followed them a little bit here and there, and they're back in the Premier League for this season.

So that is my team. All right. Well, okay, so following Brentford on Fotmob, um, and I will try to because I, I don't think I'm going to be able to see a ton of Brentford games on TV, but, uh, they'll— that will tell me, right, if it's— yeah, well, technically you can watch every Premier League game, so it's just a matter of If you— the thing is, like, so USA Sports is like split from NBC now, so Peacock isn't quite as powerful as it once was. Um, but yeah, technically you can watch every single Premier League match if you really wanted to. Uh, Brentford take on Leeds this Sunday, 9 AM, and Hull City take on also newly promoted Coventry City Now my Hull City took down Man United 2-0, uh, a big surprising result there.

Um, so off to a good start for my— well, for both of our, yeah, second teams here. Um, but all right, I think we should now get into the kind of the marquee match of the weekend. And that was between Newcastle United and Liverpool, both kind of new-look teams for this season in terms of new management, some new players coming in.

Um, Newcastle are managed now by 38-year-old Matthias Jassel, I think is going to be how I go with it, at least for this Uh, show. 38-year-old German manager, they brought him in from Saudi Arabian club Al Ahli. And Liverpool are now managed by, uh, former Bournemouth manager and Spaniard Andoni Iraola. Um, but I thought this was a really entertaining match actually, which you never know with these big marquee matchups. Yeah, no, this, this one was fun to watch.

Obviously the Alexander Isak, um, apparently the trade was met with tons of ire from the fans of, uh, yeah, Newcastle. So he left— well, he was bought. He signed for Liverpool, um, last season and then pretty much instantly got injured for most of the year and basically did nothing. Um, but this— so this I think was his first time playing at Newcastle since he left. And yeah, and they did not play off.

I mean, even the whole 90 minutes, if he had a foot on the ball, it was quite prevalent. Yeah. Which, that's kind of what I love about this league is the passion of the fans, and they weren't going to let this guy go, uh, clearly. Yeah. Um, Erlander scores pretty early.

Elanga. Oh, I'm sorry, Elanger. Elanga. Anthony Elanga, technically. I— so I have to rely on the pronunciation of the guys in the booth, and sometimes they don't say the name the way Yeah, it should be Anthony Elanga.

Uh, yeah, he kind of completely burns, um, Milos Kirkos, the left back for Liverpool, on this one. Uh, he gets behind the line and that was— yeah, kind of it. Pretty quick off the, off the whistle in the 5th there. Um, 18th, a good save by Newcastle Can't tell you who made the strike, but it doesn't really matter.

There's Liverpool, I guess, conceded some 20 set-piece goals last year was a stat that got thrown up there. And I was like, wow, that's a lot. That's quite a few. Yeah.

Well, I think we can very obviously tell that they're still very defensively frail. Yeah, they're playing this kind of high line the whole time that, that was more— didn't really work. Yeah, more than any other team in the league. Yeah. So, and that— remember, Liverpool was defending a title last year and it went pretty terribly.

They finished 5th, um, which is why they have a new manager, Andoni Iraola, who managed Bournemouth Here's the thing that pundits and myself, I would agree with said pundits. They are playing, Iraola is making Liverpool play like Bournemouth. Now Bournemouth are a team that would pretty much never win the title and play a much more scrappy counterattack style of play. Liverpool is going to be dominating a lot of games that they play this season. So to kind of purposefully give up, um, you know, like good chances from Newcastle on the break, um, allow Newcastle to take a decent amount of shots, um, is a little perplexing.

And I wonder how, you know, think about this Liverpool team when they play the Arsenals and Man Cities of the world. I, I struggle to see that going particularly well. There was also, um, a bit of commentary about how many yellows were thrown. Oh yeah, the officiating was terrible. Uh, 4 in the first half and for seemingly no reason.

I mean, I don't, I don't know what, what makes a referee decide that he just starts to need he just has to start throwing cards for, you know, small variations. Yeah, incredibly small, just kind of nothing challenges that would be fouls or yellows. And yeah, I was really disappointed with the officiating. Um, 55th minute, Cody Gakpo finds the equalizer for Liverpool to make it 1-1. They kept the lead for all of about 90 seconds before Joe Willock scores for Newcastle in the 57th to make it 2-1.

And it really looked like Newcastle were the better team and were going to win this one. And we make it all the way. So here's a trope that my friend Cody's a big Liverpool fan and I kind of bust his balls, but I think it's a little bit true sometimes. It feels like a lot of times in the Premier League with Liverpool, they just play until Liverpool wins slash gets a penalty to, to win or draw. And my theory is looking pretty solid in this one.

90th plus 6 minutes. Yeah. And then it takes another 3 minutes to take it. But this to me was not a penalty at all. Yeah, I don't, um, I don't have the exact contact that happened.

Um, I do remember it feeling a bit, a bit light. It was a, a light brush of the knees. Yeah. Um, is what I would say between, uh— so we, we had a total of 8 cards thrown in this match. And then a stupid penalty which probably should not have happened, and the result is a draw at 2-2.

Yeah, uh, maybe kind of deserved, but I, I do feel like Newcastle is gonna feel a little hard done by not taking all 3 points. To me, it just, it, it confirms that Liverpool have a lot of work to do. They didn't really look that impressive to me in this one. I still don't really see how guys like Florian Wirtz— and really Isak was a ghost in this one too— that they spent a shitload of money on. Is Mo Salah still around?

No, he's gone. Yeah, I, I have a note here that he's gone. And yeah, where did he go? He went to Trabzonspor in Turkey. Oh Jesus, Turkey pays a lot of money.

Okay, so a lot of guys that are maybe a little past it will cash in in Turkey. He was always a hell of a— I mean, yeah, fun guy to watch. Yeah, so it's kind of going to be interesting, interesting to see how Liverpool, you know, react to life without him. Well, clearly they're going to have to make adjustments. Yeah, because I remember watching Liverpool matches where that was a name thrown around every 4 seconds because he was dynamic.

Yeah, very true. So like I said, I— this is going to be a really compelling season, I think, because Arsenal are, I think, very clearly the title favorites. Not saying they're gonna cruise to a title or anything, but a lot of the other big teams don't really seem to have it totally figured out this season, and that showed with the results. So Arsenal kicked off the Premier League season on Friday, 3-0 win over newly promoted Coventry. Then like I said, Man United lose 2-0 to Hull City, newly promoted.

Crystal Palace lose— and reminder, they won the Europa Conference League last year. Lose 2-0 to Everton. Ipswich gets a late, late winner against Sunderland, 2-1. Tottenham get absolutely scuttled by Brentford. Aston Villa get romped by Brighton, who scored 4 goals in 31 minutes, uh, on, on their way to a 4-0 win.

Man City, it took a 90th plus 1-minute Josko Gvardiol, uh, goal to make it a 2-1 win for them. In fact, Man City was losing to Bournemouth until the 84th minute, so that was a rescue job for them. Um, and then we had our 2-2 draw with Newcastle-Liverpool, and then Chelsea had a bit of a scrap but ended up winning against Fulham. So a lot of the big teams struggling out of the gates.

Yeah, um, super excited to have a second team to follow here. Um, I think it'll help along with staying with the league, so looking forward to that. I don't know how much you want to dig into this derby with Dundee and Dundee United. I'll just briefly touch on it. I know we're coming up to time a little bit here.

Um, what I will say is your Brentford take on Leeds Sunday on USA, so certainly something you can watch. Uh, I have to record that. The big match of the week is probably Monday night, Aston Villa-Arsenal. Tottenham and Newcastle looks good as well. Crystal Palace-Man City tomorrow.

So keep that in mind. Hull City take on Coventry. So let's see what happens there. I will, yes, briefly touch on the one and only Scottish football, uh, top flight match at least from last weekend, and that was the Dundee Derby. And it's the blue side of Dundee, uh, taking the spoils in this one with a 2-0 win over Dundee United.

Um, really not a ton to say. It was mostly one of those games where truly kind of the only notable moments were the goals. Yeah, and, and, and really well-struck, well-taken goals. Um, but yeah, I think Dundee United are in some serious trouble early on here. Uh, obviously got destroyed by Celtic in the League Cup.

Uh, they took a pretty stiff loss to Aberdeen as well. And then losing to your closest rivals, um, that might be my tip for the first sacking of this managerial season. There was, um, one goal notably in the 43rd minute, um, right from way out. That was the 1-0, um, goal. But I mean, 25 yards plus and just a, a laser, um, minute stoppage halftime, and then it just kind of goes, you know, 2-0 to Dundee.

It was a nice corner set piece, Forrest to Bevan. Um, off of the back foot of a player. So it wasn't the most boring match in the world, but, uh, yeah, so 2-0 Dundee. And as you said, Dundee United may be in a bit of a pickle at some point here. I, I think Jim Goodwin has probably lost that fan base and is not far removed from, uh, potentially getting sacked.

So keep an eye on that. The league returns with a full card of fixtures this weekend, including Celtic taking on Falkirk, um, as well as other matches. And it's loading. Here we go. Um, Hearts, St. Johnston, Aberdeen Rangers, maybe on paper the, the best and biggest match Sunday.

Uh, all right, 5 minutes on Celtic in Europe here.

We talked last week after hours after they defeated LASK. In the playoff round to get into the league phase of the Champions League. 3-0 up, 3-0 up against LASK in the first, uh, leg of this fixture. Then they travel to Austria for the return leg and score first in the 20-ish minute Callum McGregor makes it 4-0, and at that point you think it's dead and buried.

This is Celtic in Europe we're talking about, so it's never fucking dead and buried, ever, ever. Benjamin Negrin, 30th minute, gives— basically passes the ball to an opposition player who slots it home. It's 4-1. And immediately to myself, I'm thinking, well, that's not great. That's not great for momentum, but surely we won't throw away a 3-goal lead, right?

Right. So second half comes around and last score, 2 minutes into the second half. At that point, you're thinking, okay, this is officially bad. This is officially not good. 5 minutes go by, they make it Uh, 3-0 on the night, 4-3 on aggregate.

At that point, I knew Celtic were done. I knew they would fucking lay— lie down and just die. So quickly, the aggregate goals— 2. You play 2 legs, home and away. Okay.

Oh, and so it's just, uh, take the total of the 2. Okay. Gotcha. So to, to be up 4-0 on aggregate 20 minutes into the second leg, it is almost impossible not to go through at that point. Yeah, but this is Celtic we're talking about.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, what, what do you say about that? Well, here's what I will say.

I am I, I've never really been that high on Martin O'Neill. I think you can attest to that.

I officially have no real reason to care if he stays because his game plan in this match was an abomination. Immediately sitting back in just protecting a 3-goal lead. That's never going to work in Europe because we're not playing fucking St. Johnston anymore. No, you're not.

Gas, foot on the gas. Yeah, score as many goddamn goals as you can, right? Players, have some shame as well. You don't get off scot-free here either. Horrible, just horrible.

Every single player on that pitch 2 days ago now was fucking terrible. That includes all of our new signings who we were raving about the past 2 weeks. You all, every single one of you, should be embarrassed and you played like complete shit. But aren't they being— aren't they getting their orders from the manager? Yeah, in theory, but the manager also can't account for Benjamin Negron passing passing the ball to the opposition and they slot, slot it home and dumbass mistakes and Luke McCowan giving the ball away 6 times in 30 minutes of play for him.

And of course, this would not be a Celtic rant without a little shot at the board who once again waited about as long as humanly possible to bring in any signings. And then weren't prepared for European play. And we had to, let's see, we had to bring on the likes of, from our substitutions here, Reo Hatate, who hasn't given a fuck about playing for Celtic for 2 years, Sebastian Tenecte, who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, Liam Scales out of position, Luke McCowan, who should never play for Celtic again. Dane Murray, who is 20, unproven, and just about every time he plays is fucking terrible. And Anthony Ralston, who I guarantee you right now after 2 beers could beat in a sprint down the field.

So that is the type of fucking shit we have to bring on from the bench in European competition. And then you wonder why we fucking suck in the Champions League every goddamn year. Last year we were sitting here talking about losing to a team from fucking Azerbaijan, and now a year later they have found an even more unbelievably inexplicable way to crash out of Europe, to crash out of the Champions League. Um, and you just wonder how many more times can they figure out a way to fucking throw it all away. Well, I, you, I think you've hit the nail on the head with this Celtic team is they're very comfortable in the Scottish league.

Obviously we've seen that. Yeah. It was a miracle that they took the championship last year.

They don't, they don't seem to care. How they play outside of the Scottish league. Like, it's just shits and giggles for them to go play these European matches or these cup matches. They don't seem to go in there going, okay, we're gonna show the rest of these leagues, or that, you know, these— that we're, we're as good as we think we are. Yeah, I'm looking at 5 fucking scarves here.

In the pub 5 times in the last 5 years. They don't seem to care if they go outside. It seems like it's, oh well, this is just, you know, it's just— it— we only care about the Scottish Cup, right? Which I don't— I don't know if that's a real thing. I mean, do other teams in their league feel the same way?

No, no. Well, then okay, from fucking that didn't even— the team from— 2 years now we've had the champion from Azerbaijan get into the Champions League. 2 teams from the Norwegian league are in the Champions League this year. These are teams that Celtic should be hammering when they play. It feels like they don't— like they, they don't take it as seriously.

I don't know. And there's clearly a mental block. There's clearly a mental block where the second something goes wrong, they shit themselves and they just can't come back from it. How do I know, still being up 2 goals, that they're going to fucking lose in Europe? I just know they're going to shit the bed.

That's a mentality issue. Martin O'Neill, have some shame. That was horrible. Like I said, Luke McCowan, genuinely do not care if he ever wears the Celtic jersey again. And the board, you have let this team call on the likes of Sebastian Tenecte and Dane fucking Murray off the bench, relying on them to do something in the Champions League.

So here we are, we're back to fucking Europa League Thursday night bullshit. And then play on Sunday in the league. I hope you like that schedule for the next 6 months because that's where we're at now. Um, so rant over, but Jesus Christ, that is genuinely the most embarrassed I've ever been to be a Celtic fan. Yeah, I'm, I'm speechless as well.

Uh, I— who, who knows where this team is going? And who knows who's going to manage this team? Because I— it feels like an old Catholic school, right, where there's a nun principal, right? Like the board is the nun principal that is like, no, no, no, we'll take Martin because Martin is cheap and he's 80. Yeah.

And We don't need to bring any fresh stuff here because we just fucking won the last cup. We've won the last 5 cups. And what did we say when we won that fucking championship? Now, of course, maybe it sounds entitled, but maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if Hartz were able to finish the job, because then you have to fucking scorch earth. We said that and both of us would have been 100% fine with them doing that.

Yeah. And that says a lot about where this team is. And I'm not so sure that I don't have the same feeling this year. Yeah. I don't need another.

What I need you to do is get humbled by somebody else taking the cup. Yeah, it's not gonna happen, I don't think. Uh, I haven't seen any evidence that there will be a serious challenge from someone in Scotland this year. But, um, yeah, we continue to get humbled in Europe, so there is that, I guess. Um, and, uh, they're completely terrible, um, and find new ways to embarrass themselves, kind of like a team we know that plays in brown and orange every week here.

But Um, we'll leave it there. God, this isn't a football podcast, and it never will be. We would be in a psych ward by now, probably. Deshaun Watson starting week 1 for the Browns. How about that?

Uh, I'm sorry, but the Browns broke me in 1999, and I've never been back. So, right. So I guess now let's see how Celtic picks up the pieces. Let's see how the rest of the Scottish league plays out. We will focus on the Premier League as well going forward now that it has kicked off officially.

Milwaukee doubleheader for IndyCar. F1 off week. And with that, we shall get gone. All right. Lots and lots to talk about.

Coming up next week.

For executive producer Richard Tanaka, this has been Tackling the Chicane, Studio 2520. The copyright is 2026. Tackling the Chicane is recorded using Rode microphones. And a RODECaster Pro II console. They don't pay us yet, but as you all know, maybe someday they will.