United States Grand Prix 2025: Verstappen Wins, Liverpool Lose

Yeah, it's lights out, away we go!

Podcasting from Studio 2520 somewhere near Akron, Ohio.

Bringing you all the latest talk in soccer and motorsport, this is Tackling the Chicane.

In the City, 30 seconds of In the City. Boy, they're cramping my style.

Song by Joe Walsh, who was a member of the Eagles, also known as Kent's favorite son. Because he's from Kent, apparently, Ohio. Uh, this song appeared on the soundtrack for the movie The Warriors, 1979. Not sure if you're familiar with that or not. No.

It was also a book in 1965. Basically, it, it's about gangland in New York and how these gangs come together and decide they should rule the city because they outnumber the police like 3 to 1. I saw it a long, long time ago, but it might be one to be revisited. Uh, it's probably pretty awful, to be honest with you. Most movies that came out in the late '70s were, were pretty horrible, but might be something worth taking a look at.

It's a good tune. Uh, wish you could hear more. Yeah, you know, the Eagles are notoriously stingy with copyright and stuff. Well, this was— I'm sure they would fucking nail us for that. This was Joe Walsh on his— on a solo album, and then he was still with the Eagles, but they liked the song so much that they put it on the Long Run album.

They re-recorded it as the Eagles. This is a better version though. This is the soundtrack version from the movie. And I think it's, I think it's just a better version.

So there you go. All right, well, yeah, um, yeah, Spotify is just, uh, every once in a while they just go hog wild with the copyright. I always win the claims. I'm just very, very tired of the emails. So that's why.

What, so what, what do we do? Keep it under 30? Yeah, you, you just can't play half a song. Unfortunately, that we don't have the rights to.

Okay, well, I guess our listenership has reached the, the numbers that they're paying attention. I guess maybe that's what we'll say. Yeah, no, it's all computer. But, uh, all right, so we got a, um, pretty jam-packed agenda for this show. Of course, the United States Grand Grand Prix in Austin, Texas occurred, came and went, brought with it, uh, some spills and all sorts of spills and thrills on track.

Um, the GP in a vacuum, not interesting, but, uh, sort of the, the storylines that come with Austin are incredibly Uh, interesting. And we'll talk the IndyCar adjacent news from our guy Colton Herta. Of course, we will then pivot over to soccer, where in the Premier League it looks like, uh, Liverpool are having some struggles. And we will set up what is due to be a box office showcase in Scotland this Sunday as we record. But I want to start off with the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

And I think it's time I'm going to ask the question: is Max Verstappen truly in the fight to win a World Drivers Championship? For the 5th consecutive year. Absolutely. I mean, you can't ignore the fact that he's roared back quite a bit. And the way he drove this, this last GP, won the sprint, won the pole, won the race, was way far out at some points, 11 or 12 seconds, I think, was was the largest delta.

So yeah, 100%. I mean, uh, I know it seems like a big chasm right now points-wise. Thanks for the pop-ups, F1. Um, 332 to 306. I mean, it's, yeah, at this point from Is that 2nd to 3rd?

2nd to 3rd. Piastri at 346. So 14 points separate 1 and 2. 26 points separate 2 and 3. So the gap— a poor finish from, from Lando Norris and a win from Verstappen puts him ahead.

Ahead. I think the big story. You know, the gap was over 100 points like a few weeks ago, right? It's down to, by my count, it's 26 now. Well, I'm talking to first.

Fuck Lando Norris. Well, that's true. You know, I don't, I don't even know. 40 points from third to first. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I don't, if, if you extrapolate the form, Verstappen's, he's going to win this thing.

Maybe. I mean, if he does what he's done in the past and just start winning fucking every race from now until the end of the season, then, and what, you know, what can you say about it? The guy has just proven that he is the best Formula 1 driver right now and possibly one of the top, I don't know, want to say 5 maybe drivers in history of the sport right now. Um, yeah, I don't know, I don't have the metrics, but oh, he's got 4 championships, 60-odd wins, so that's gonna put him in the top like 5 just by default.

Um, yeah, I, I'm not gonna make like a big sweeping judgment, but I think really all the momentum is in Verstappen's camp right now. It is, and that can change, but You know, he's won 3 of the last 4 races, most of them in very convincing fashion. He won the sprint race at this one, um, in which McLaren both finished on 0 points because they were taken out by Hulkenberg. Um, he's still gonna have to put together a lot of good performances, but it's Max Verstappen. If there's anyone on the grid that can do it, it's him.

Well, this season is way more akin to what we want. Out of this series, right? Not a runaway. And Constructors, let's face it, is just not as important. It is for the teams.

It's not for the fan. Not yet. Not for the viewer. So it's all about the driver championship. And we have a, we have a good one, a good battle going right now.

I'm just, I don't have many race notes. It wasn't that great of a race, to be honest with you. No, that's why I didn't even really bring it up. I mean, I think the race itself was, yeah, quite boring actually. He had a 7-second lead by the 18th lap and then he extended it to 11 or 12 seconds.

Everyone ran their pit strategy. Some people took the soft on the first stop. Some people took the medium. Didn't really seem to have that great of an effect other than eventually Norris goes around Leclerc, uh, for, I Am I saying that right? Did— was Leclerc in front of Norris for a while?

Is that twice, actually? Yeah. So yeah, I mean, good, a good showing for Ferrari, 5 and 6, which, you know, anytime they can do that is, is a good day for them. 3 and 4 in the race. Oh, I'm sorry, I got the wrong screen up here.

Leclerc finishes 3rd for his 6th podium of the year. Hamilton with a nice 4th place finish. So they took home 27 points. That is higher than the points total of McLaren. Right.

A decent, decent run for Tsunoda, who usually is not that high up on the grid. 7th place. Hulkenberg scores 8. You know, Sauber has been kind of a thorn in Haas's side this year a little bit. Again, finishes one place ahead of Oliver Bearman, who's doing the best that he possibly can.

Sad to see that Haas is going to drop to probably 9th in Constructors this year. They might— I don't think they're going to pick up a place. Yeah, I think it's more a credit to the rest of the grid. The midfield is a lot better this year. Haas haven't really been bad per se.

They just haven't been as good as You know, they haven't had those huge performances that Sauber's had. Williams are a lot more consistently better. So, yep.

You know, after 10th place of note, you had Lawson in 11th, Antonelli 13th.

Other than that, Williams kind of suffered a little bit in this race. Sainz got taken out pretty early, but they're, they're They're having probably one of their best years. Yeah, and he had a nice points tally in the sprint race. Yeah, so if you look at Williams' position in 5th place, that's, that's the highest they've scored in quite some time. So they have over 100 points is the big key there.

No one would care— I mean, they would care about 5th place, but if it was a 5th place where you had 40 points because the rest of the grid is so bad The midfield is so damn good this year.

Yeah. So yeah, not a whole lot, like you said, to say about this particular race. This was a Max Verstappen weekend. Mexico City is coming up here this starting tomorrow. 2 practices tomorrow.

And then, well, 3 prac— and then practice number 3 on the 25th, qualifying that day as well, which is Saturday, correct? And then the race is, uh, the 26th, 1600 local time. So potential to watch live. I gotta watch one of these fucking races live. Yeah, this might be the one.

I'm so tired of watching them on replay and knowing what happens. 4 o'clock on Sunday, uh, That should be doable. Or at least I need to watch it and not know what happens. I'll probably watch it sometime Sunday. Yeah.

Other ancillary news, um, F1 or Liberty Media has decided to sell the broadcasting rights in the United States to Apple TV. So they're blowing up my beloved, not It's not going away in the world. It's going away in the States. My F1 TV Pro app, which I loved, worked flawlessly. I could watch it on any device that I wanted to.

Lots of content, uh, is going away. So hopefully Apple can provide at least some of the same features that, that F1 TV provided. I'll be disappointed if not. There's not a ton of information about it. I'm assuming they will.

Because you'd have a lot of pissed off people. So I'm sure they will. Apple doesn't really cheap out on shit like that.

Um, the one thing is, you know, you put F1 behind a paywall now. So, you know, it was on cable, which generally speaking, if, um, you didn't— if you weren't a cord cutter, you know, people had ESPN and could watch. Certainly not going to help the casual fan in the States. People who paid for F1 TV for $89 a year, it was well worth it. The thing here's— but for the casual F1 fan in the United States, they would like to turn on ESPN on a Sunday and watch.

This is all speculation, but I'm re— I would love to know the difference in how many— I would love to know how many F1 TV subscribers there are in America Because anecdotally speaking, just about every F1 fan I've ever come across has F1 TV. They don't watch on ESPN. But there's data that shows that about 1 million people per race tune in to ESPN. So, well, so I wonder what if you add that with the number of people who are using the F1 TV app, What is the total viewership? I don't know.

The thing is, you're going to kill a decent amount of your ratings just because it's on a streaming service, like Apple did with MLS. Um, you know, they made money, but you, you cut your viewership. So the intersection might be— there might be a plausible number of F1 fans who are watching who have Apple TV for other Ted Lasso type. Yeah, apparently somebody's done their research and has looked at the metrics and said this isn't going to kill our viewership in the States or else they wouldn't do it. I don't think F1 gives a fuck about the viewers.

That could be too. Why? So why, if I'm F1, why would I turn down a company that's offering like over $40 million more a year I wouldn't care. You think I'd care? Well, the ratings might go down.

Well, I just— I still got my money. I just wind $40 extra million in my pocket. Yeah. And I mean, you had mentioned that you think they're just going to repump the Sky Sports feed. That is what's going to happen from what I've read.

And that's— I suppose that's okay. The thing is, Sky Sports owns the world broadcasting rights for F1 so that they are the default Um, broadcast.

But when it was on ESPN, did ESPN not have their own crew or was that a Sky Sports? Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, I remember now because I didn't always have F1 TV.

Um, so it largely will remain the same. I'm just talking about what, what content will be available to me. As a viewer, I just struggle to see a scenario in which Apple is like, well, we're all— here's the broadcast for the races and qualifying and practice. I'm sure, because when they bought MLS, they immediately put a ton of ancillary content about MLS, so they're not gonna cheap out. Um, you just— it's another streaming service you'll have to buy.

Yeah, well, I mean, one begets another. I don't know what Apple TV costs. The same as everything else, $10, $12, $15, whatever, right? I don't know. So I think F1 TV Pro was $90 for the year or something, $99.

I don't— so it's going to be similar. Yeah, it's just, um, the consumer continues to get microtransaction to death. People acted like streaming was the fucking second coming of Christ, and you're paying not the same, but it's getting to that point, especially because live sports keep getting divvied up. So the rub is everyone, you know, like, so for example, if you choose Hulu for your live television streaming service, they advertise a certain price, and yes, it, it looks very attractive compared to cable. Until you have a household that has multiple screens.

And then all of a sudden, if you want unlimited screens, which most people need because they have more than 3 TVs, it's not $25 a month. Now it's $68 or $70 a month. And then you have to up your internet package to make sure that you have unlimited data. Yeah. Streaming is kind of the greatest.

Uh, Trojan horse in the history of entertainment. I mean, I, I don't want to get off too far on a tangent, but there is so much— the cool thing about it is, is if you really wanted to, if you really could not afford to pay Hulu their monthly bill, their deal, there's so much content on these streaming services that's free. You, you could You could survive. You could survive without paying a streaming service. It wouldn't be— the live sports fan gets— is the one that gets constantly raked over the coals.

And that was the case with cable too. But— and they know that. That is where— because that's the biggest draw for television is sports. Yeah. It's not people watching fucking CSI Miami, you know.

So they know, okay, well people are going to buy our streaming service because the NBA is on it, right? Or the Champions League is on it. Yeah, not because fucking season 3 of Yellowstone's on there, right? You know? No, you're right, you're right.

It, it drives everything. So we'll see. I mean, I'm— this platform is about whatever we want to talk about, and I think it's important And we'll talk about it in 2026 when we see what, how the Apple deal is, just like how the Fox, the Fox deal changed IndyCar for, for the formidable future. Well, television directly impacts how you watch the sport. So it's incredibly important to talk about.

Um, yeah, we'll see. I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal. Honestly, it's just another streaming service. That will be purchased, but hopefully just a different logo. Yeah.

Um, so there's that. Um, Mexico City coming up, as we talked about. Will Max Verstappen, uh, kind of shorten the gap? I, I'm predicting he will, but, uh, we have Sunday to find out. Let's talk Colton Herta.

Right now, uh, confirmed. This has been in the IndyCar rumor mill for about a year. Uh, if you're at all plugged into IndyCar, this is not a surprise at all, but he will be running a full F2 schedule next year with, uh, Hitech Grand Prix, uh, who are— I, I did some research, they are currently 2nd in the Constructors Championship in F2 this season. But he will be the oldest driver on the grid by quite a few years because he's 26. Yeah, um, I was just trying to get back into my IndyCar app because they had an article up on this.

Um, 28 races, I guess, in that series.

Uh, in F2, does that sound right? No, that's what it says. There's not 28 races. There's less races than an F1 schedule. Hurton, who has— Herta, who has 9 NTT IndyCar Series victories since his debut in 2018, will drive in the 28-race series that stages— maybe they're counting sprint races.

Perhaps. Yes, that sounds probably like what they're doing. Yeah, they, they run maybe, yeah, like 15 races. Okay, so they're counting the sprint races as well.

Test— and he's also a test driver for Cadillac. Um, I'm not going to read through the whole thing, but I don't know, makes sense. This, this was Sort of the plan, um, for the last couple of years. Uh, we'll see why Colton Herta, he must have the best chops or else they wouldn't have picked him. I mean, there's other people out there in the IndyCar land that, that might be good candidates.

Are you talking for an eventual F1 seat or? Yeah. Um, it's the Andretti link. Yeah, that was always going to be— he's Andretti's prodigy, right? So when, when Cadillac came in, it was always going to be Colton Herta.

Um, this is all just part of their plan to get— not even to get him into F1, he's going to be in F1 in 2027 pretty much no matter what. So, um, this is just the first phase of implementing him into F1. I don't know, like, he didn't— he hasn't set the world on fire in IndyCar, but I don't really know how much that actually matters to the FIA formula ladder. Probably not a ton. I— it's just there's no parity between the two.

We've seen F1 drivers show up at, at the 500 and just do horrible. So it's just completely different car. It's, it's all about the driver and the driver's capability. Can Colton Herta get into an F2 car and perform at a high level? And that's what I'm interested to see.

It might actually, it might actually make me watch some F2 races. I'm definitely watching it. That's like, are you kidding me? A big name IndyCar driver in F2. I'm gonna watch that all day.

Uh, I did a clarification. There are 28 races. The, the confusion was there's 14 rounds. They race twice per round, a sprint and a main. Each round consists of a sprint race and a feature race, totaling 28, but it's 14 weekends.

Okay. Um, I think he's gonna do pretty well in F2, honestly. I think the thing with F2— and I, I'm not gonna sit here and act like I watch every race or anything like that, but from what I've been— I've, you know, like to read about this kind of stuff— generally speaking, it doesn't— it's not a huge, huge deal what team drive for in F2, the talent usually shows itself because when it's a junior series, people make dumb decisions and make stupid-ass mistakes all the time in F2. So experience and general racing IQ usually finds its way to the top no matter what. And Colton Herta has 6 full IndyCar seasons under his belt.

Across all types of different tracks. So I think he's gonna do pretty well in F2. I, I think, I think that experience is really gonna push him towards the top. What was the, uh, name of the team that he's gonna be running with? Hi-Tech.

H-I-Tech, I believe. Hi-Tech Grand Prix Formula Racing Team. Uh, British motor racing team is founded by Dennis Russian and David Hale in 2002.

And relaunched by Oliver Oaks in 2015. They are based out of Silverstone, United Kingdom, and like I said, they are currently sitting in 2nd. Yeah, so I'm looking at the pro side profile. I still think the F2 car is so much more attractive than the Formula 1 car, just from the, the standpoint of scale. I don't know if you, if you're looking at it.

I am.

That car is friggin sweet. Yeah. It, it looks sort of similar to an IndyNext vehicle. F2 is back. I like the short wheelbase.

Yeah. I like the compactness of this car. Um, I love the wheel design without the stupid hubcaps that they run in F1. I hate those. They look horrible.

I, yeah. So I'm, I'm all in. I like the rear wing design on this car. F1, if you're paying attention, shorten the— well, maybe in 2026 it will be. Will the chassis be shorter for that car?

Marginally. It's very marginally smaller. Yeah. I just like the look of this car. It's really, really sharp.

Yeah, uh, so I think he's gonna do well in F2. I really do. Uh, maybe I'm just huffing copium for— oh, I hope, I hope he does. I think he will. Uh, you don't, you know, 9 wins in IndyCar, those we know, those don't just fall into anyone's hands in that series.

6 full seasons of IndyCar, he's gonna have 18-year-olds in F2 who have never lifted their kart out of, you know, like, there's a lot of shitters in F2 is my point. There's a lot of guys that just, they're there because daddy paid for their seat. Yeah. And Colton Herta is not that guy. Well, there's a few of those in F1 too.

Well, that, that's everywhere. Lance Stroll. That's everywhere in racing, but it's very apparent in the lower junior formulas where, yeah, money reigns supreme. Alrighty, well, just a quick dive into Mexico City before we get into the weekend. Roll fast here.

4.3-kilometer circuit, first GP 1963, 71 laps, fastest lap time was a 1:17.7. Valtteri Bottas, 2021. Um, a super long straight on this one, um, coming out of the last turn on the track. Uh, so lots of room for passing, hopefully. I would love to see a race where people actually race.

That'd be great. Not gonna happen. I'm hopeful. So we'll see. These are, these are like watching fucking paint dry recently.

Recently they are. Yeah. But maybe this one will be different. So more to follow on Mexico.

Cool beans. All right. So let's keep it rolling here. Let's transition into the world of soccer, which I would say recently has been, uh, providing a little bit more fireworks than our F1, uh, components. But, uh, I, I do think F1 is gonna heat up here with this championship battle.

It's only a matter of time. Uh, I want to start with the Premier League here. Sort of a very surprising result in my eyes. Um, feature match for this episode, of course we're talking Liverpool-Man United. Uh, arguably the best rivalry in British— no, not British, in English soccer.

Um, and I would say provided quite a bit of fireworks. Um, some context leading into this game: Liverpool had lost 3 on the trot in all competitions and had, uh, relinquished their lead at the top of the table to Arsenal. Who now sit 4 points ahead of Liverpool, if I remember correctly. But Liverpool are, you know, this team that has spent ungodly, ungodly amounts of money this summer, and it's not gelling all that well. Yeah, so interestingly enough, Man City is second place to Arsenal, 3-point differential.

They didn't start out that great, right? No, they lost 2 of their first 3 and since then have been pretty solid. Yeah. So that's good. Chelsea on the backside of Liverpool, just 1 point behind in 5th place.

And then Tottenham Hotspur tied for 5th place, it looks like, with 14 points. Them and Sunderland. So yeah, there's a nice mix in the, in the top, I would say, 7 or 8. Crystal Palace, Sunderland. Bournemouth in 3rd.

Yeah. Which is, let's see how long they can hang on. Yeah. I'm wondering, I keep, this is the point where you really, you'll see a taper if teams are real or not. So Uh, I'm interested to see how that goes, but I really do think Liverpool— I'm not gonna say like, oh, they're in trouble, but, um, the season's so long— but I would have thought they would be absolutely flying out of the gates based off, of course, winning the title last year and spending, oh, about half a billion pounds on reinforcements over the summer.

Including Florian Wirtz, Jeremy Frimpong, Alexander Isak, all of which have been middling to almost, I'd say flop territory. I think Florian Wirtz has been a flop so far.

But, you know, we talk about this game here, Liverpool didn't really look all that convincing and it showed in the final score.

Yeah. So the first goal is this. I'm trying to think back. Was this the within the first? Yeah.

Two minutes. Sixty-three seconds. Um, Bueno. It's easier to say in Bueno. That's not technically how you say it because he's French.

Yeah. Bueno. But I think the British guys were saying him Waymo. He one of those names that when he first, you know, became a thing, it was in Waymo and no one said anything, and then suddenly he became in Burmo. Yeah, I think I think that kind of rocked the Liverpool fans that were on hand there and a very large crowd.

They were quite silent. After that. I mean, that's always in the matches that, that I've watched in both the Premier and the Scottish Premier League. When you come out and fire a bullet inside of 2 minutes, that tends to shift the entire, uh, what do I want to say? First of all, everyone shuts up right away.

The dynamic. Yes, the dynamic switches very greatly.

And then so Liverpool continued to have these fairly well-struck shots, but off the ball was a magnet to the right and left post. Yeah. Well, they created a bunch of great chances. Cody Gakpo must have had 5 or 6 good chances to score on him. By himself.

He ends up getting Liverpool's only goal in the 78th minute. But looking at the stats here, he, uh, has 3 chances created by Fotmob, 5 total shots. Um, technically, this is a, a thing to keep in mind: a shot on— a shot that hits the woodwork is technically not a shot on goal. If it hits any of the top right or left woodwork, it is not a shot on goal technically. Well, that's lame.

That's stupid. Yeah, but I guess technically it's impossible. Yeah, so a shot on goal is within the actual frame. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I mean, some of these were miracle.

Like, it wasn't just deflected off the outside of the post or the center of the post. Some of these balls were inside, sort of inside part of the post and they sort of just kind of caromed off. Yeah. Liverpool by chances created, probably, you know, you could say could have won this thing. Cody Gakpo alone, who has completely transformed into a great player.

So in this match, he was the only shoe. I mean, I'm looking at my notes. It was Gakpo. Gakpo. Yeah, for Liverpool.

It was a one-man band. Most definitely. Yeah, 4 minutes of stoppage in the first half. In the 50th, another no-go for Gakpo. And then we kind of had a bit of, and this was not an uninteresting match to watch.

Yeah. I just don't have a whole lot of notes until we get into that 78th minute. It was one of the things where Man United come out and they get that goal, and Buemo is able to just go on. He falls and then goes on a run. No one marks him, slips in 63 seconds in.

I think there was some shock there Liverpool had to play through. And then Liverpool was creating chances, as we said. They just, you know, none of them actually went in. So there were plenty of opportunities, there's a good amount of attacking, but we didn't see, uh, any, any change to the scoreline for 70-odd minutes because of how early that first goal was.

Yeah, and I thought this, this match was officiated very well. I don't think there was a— there was any egregious ridiculousness going on. Uh, there was quite a few substitutions. I mean, I think half of the The line for both teams had changed by the, by the end of the second half. But so in the 78th, uh, Chiesa, Chiesa, Chiesa, close.

That was the Gakpo goal that brought the, the game to a draw at 1-1. And then 6 minutes later, uh, Maguire for Man U just slabhead Maguire. Uh, I really thought— well, I— okay, he does have a big head. Yeah, in theory I would have thought I, I knew the result before we watched, but, um, you would have thought that Liverpool— in the commentary kind of said this— Liverpool equalizes in the 74th to make it 1-1, and you're thinking, all right, well, Liverpool's gonna go on and try and get this win. Very rare.

So far in Ruben Amorim's tenure as Man United boss, but they actually showed fight and some grit. And 6 minutes later, they actually take the lead back by Harry Maguire and his big head, uh, off the corner, which is completely like unprecedented with this Man United team. Yeah, so I mean, well done and a fun match to watch. First time in a year, I think, that Liverpool had been beaten at home. So for, for one, one year, some, I think it was some 28 matches or something where they had not been beaten at home.

And then it's been way longer than that since Man U beat Liverpool. I don't know what the exact field. And then the other stat was Liverpool hadn't won, lost 3 league matches in a row since 2015.

2021. Yeah, so that's 4 and a half years ago. And then Liverpool, uh, yeah, they, they had lost 4 matches on the trot including Champions League. So there is this, this thing going on with Liverpool, you know, you're defending champs and the bookie's favorites to win it again, that they look vulnerable defensively, like they can give up a goal really at any moment in They've played a lot of close games that maybe some of them I think they've been actually fortunate to win. I think there's a scenario in which they have less points than they do now.

And again, like I said at the beginning of the segment, they have spent like £400 million in the summer transfer window and these guys aren't really doing much for them. It's the guys that were there last year that are Carrying. Well, I don't know how many matches it takes for these guys to figure out how to play together. I have to assume that it's quite a few. Yeah.

So this could be, it could be a case of, oh, we suck for, I don't know what. So what's the total number of matches? 38. 38. They've only played 8.

Correct. So 10 matches from now is 18, which isn't quite halfway. We may see a completely different Liverpool team. That's the thing. I mean, the season's so long.

This is infancy. So, but all we can do is analyze what's in front of us. But what tends to happen too, though, is teams like this, I don't care what sport it is, who have supporters as they do. The— when the air gets out of the balloon at the venue because they're pissed off that they lost 3 in a row, that has a huge effect on how they play. Yeah.

And there's literally— there's not a cakewalk match in the Premier League this year especially. I mean, there's teams— I mean, I didn't see the mass exodus at this stadium that you normally see when— if your team gets Well, they didn't get clobbered. No, no, no. It was a super competitive game. It's just, they, they could have scored 5 times.

They hit the woodwork, right? They just, 3 of them. It just wasn't Liverpool's night or evening or afternoon. It's hard to say, hard to tell in Britain because it always looks shitty. Yeah.

So I don't know. It was originally a 4:30 kickoff. So I guess late afternoon. Everything looks like 8 PM there.

Just saying. Yeah, so we'll see what happens to Liverpool. Uh, let me check who they play next. Um, but I would have, I would have thought 8 matches in they probably would have dropped maybe 2 points, 3 points. They've dropped, um, let me see, quite a few more than that.

Um, they've dropped 9 points. They actually have not drawn a match. They've won 5 and lost 3. That's what's gonna kick you in the ass. You can't lose that amount of games.

That's the teams that win the title, they lose 4 or 5 a year, not, not to the level that Liverpool already have put themselves in a hole. That is going to be pretty fucking hard to climb out of. Not saying it's impossible. Arsenal will probably choke because it's Arsenal, but it's gonna be difficult. I, I— there's really not a team that I would point to and go, they're gonna win the title this year.

And additionally, there's not really a team I point to, maybe besides Wolves, that is like, they're locked in for relegation. It's very tight throughout the Premier League this year with which is different from years previous. So that's exciting.

All right, well, do you want to talk about what we have on in the close distance here, or, uh, not really? I just threw it on. Okay, women's national team in a friendly, but, um, yeah, I don't really have anything to say about it. But all right, we'll talk a little Scottish football. There's been quite a bit of commotion happening there.

Um, over the weekend, Rangers dropped points again, uh, this time to Dundee United. Uh, Celtic lost to Dundee 2-0 for the first time since 1987. Celtic had not lost to Dundee at Dundee since 1987. 1987, folks. They play 4 times a year.

38 years. They play 3 to 4 times a year. Damn near. See how quick that math was? 38 years.

Wow. You were in geometry class. Yes. The last time that happened, '87 would have been sophomore year. Yeah.

So a young 16-year-old. So unprecedented shit. I mean, this is— I, I We have to put this into context, folks. You are witnessing history in Scotland right now. This Rangers team is historically bad.

They are historically fucking terrible. Through what, 8 matches? They're in 6th place. Well, 6th place with what, 9 points?

Um, yes, 9 points. And how is, how is Hearts in first place? Yeah, here's the thing. I, we saw this last year with Aberdeen, so I'm not, I'm not going to get bent out of shape because what happened, reminder, as I have to do often on this show, nobody outside of Celtic or Rangers have won the title since 1985. So what, what happens when this scenario takes place is a team outside of Celtic or Rangers starts well and then they completely fall off a cliff.

October is like week 2 in the NFL season because there's 30 matches left. Um, so I'm not really— I, I— they've been playing well But there's a sect of Celtic supporters that are like, if we don't win Sunday against Hearts, this, we might be screwed. Well, if you look at the win count, I mean, Hearts have 7, Celtic has 5, and then it goes 2. Hibernian 2, Dundee United 2, Kilmarnock 2. And then Rangers have one.

Yes. So everyone else has one or two wins. That's it. Here's the thing. I— there's no— there's not no way, but Rangers have not started this shit in a league campaign like ever, really.

So I, you, I, I will sit here and say they will not finish in the top 2, which is a huge deal. That is a huge deal. Um, they are like historically shit. They're on their 3rd manager of this season. Uh, well, I guess 2nd, 2nd full-time manager with, uh, Danny Rohl, who— and they today, they lost 3-0 in the Europa League to a Norwegian team.

3-0. They are unbelievably fucking terrible. It's actually unbelievable how bad they are. Well, that happens, I guess, occasionally in sports. So setting up Sunday, which I think we're planning on, we're going to the public house.

Yeah, we're going to peel out. We haven't been up there for a while. So we'll be at PJ McIntyre's for the match on Sunday. A half Irish breakfast, I will order. Hearts and Celtic going at it, uh, that is, you know, that's as big as it gets in Scotland right now.

Uh, will Hearts continue their form? It's so hard to say. It's so early. If we're sitting here in January and it's still a title race, then, then I would start getting worried. But right now, no.

Celtic have been fucking horrible, but today they did win in the Europa League against Sturm Graz. They're the Austrian reigning champions 2-1. I thought they actually played pretty well, so everyone just take deep breaths even though it's been really fucking terrible. I think if, um, they lose to Hearts at the weekend and are 8 points behind, I'm not saying heads will— heads aren't going to roll, but heads will need to be starting to potentially get lined up for the guillotine. Yeah, I think, um, we need to bring— take some mojo up to PJ's.

We haven't been— I don't think we've been in this campaign, right? It was last year, so yes.

Also, I will I will, uh, campaign that you find a place in Cam's Corner to live. Wow, that would be pretty sweet. Yeah, I guess that would be cool. I mean, I would just— you would hang out anywhere, anywhere in the Cleveland area would be fine. Yeah, at least on the west side.

Um, I don't— I really don't expect Celtic to win. It's at Tyne Castle, so that's You know, tricky place to play. Well, I'm going to sit here and say it's going to be a draw. I don't think Celtic wins. Okay.

We'll see. Haven't seen enough evidence to suggest that Celtic can actually get that across the line. All right. I hope so. We'll see though.

I'm more interested to see, to get a barometer of how are the sect of fans that we've, I wouldn't say befriended because some of them just, um, they just come to watch the match. But we, the guys, the, the regulars at PJ McIntyre's, I would like to kind of take the temperature in the room, see how they feel about this effort thus far. I'm sure it's toxic because they get pissed when Celtic aren't winning within 30 minutes. And anytime they do anything bad, a lot of, there's a lot of moans and groans in the pub. Yeah.

That's, but that's what makes it, I suppose. That's why we go. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm sure it's, you know, appeased a little bit with this win today in the Europa League.

But who's the, who's the, the old guy? Mike. Mike. Yep. Go see Mike Sunday.

So, uh, I, I'm hoping for a win. I'm not expecting one. Uh, Celtic are bad. Scottish football is fucking rancid this year. I mean, we getting just destroyed in Europe.

Yeah, well, Aberdeen lost today 6-0 to a Greek team. Rangers can't beat a mid-table Norwegian team. It's kind of sad in a way, but these things are cyclical.

I suppose you can't win— you can't win them all, and you can't be a champion forever unless you're an Ohio State fan. I can do both. When you have 40 years of evidence to suggest that eventually a challenger is going to taper off, I'm still be backing that 10 times out of 10. Yeah, but part of me that's like just a general football fan would be like, that would be insane if Hearts won the title. And probably a kick in the ass that Scottish football kind of needs someone to break the duopoly.

And really it's a monopoly right now because Rangers are terrible, but the historical duopoly, um But that is, uh, I think that's a wrap on this week. We covered our agenda. Next time on the show, of course, Mexican Grand Prix. Will someone not named Max Verstappen win?

We shall see. Practice and qualifying, uh, sometimes gives you a look into how the GP is gonna go. So, uh, more to follow. But I don't think we're going to see the last of Mr. Verstappen. No, I'm really starting to think he might pull it out.

Well, just because Piastri has sunk into this windless fucking hole and he was like the king of the world for a while. Yeah. So we'll see what happens. I mean, something's going on there. The ebbs and flows.

I don't know if it's a head game for him, equipment. It's not a quit. Uh, I don't know. It's a— listen, folks, strap into a car that goes that fast for that amount of time with pulling that many G's is not an easy thing to do. So we, we get a little bit jaded when we watch these GPs and we make fun of people, but there's few of us that could do it for a half a lap.

So there you have it. There you have it. All right, that'll do it for this episode. We'll reconvene next week. All right, with that, we'll get going.

For executive producer Richard Tanaka, this has been Tackling the Chicane.

Copyright 2025, Studio 2520. See you next time.