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Today with Clare Byrne on RTÉ

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Radio 1, sponsored by Cash and

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Kerry Kitchens, at the heart of

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Irish homes for over 40 years.

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CashandCarryKitchens.ie. Email

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todayCB at RTÉ.ie. Now

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that all 24 teams have played at least

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one match in the Euro 2024 Championship, it

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does seem like a good time today to

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get an update on some of the action,

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with Scotland on the brink now of qualifying

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for the knockout stages for the first time

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in a major championship. Simon Cooper

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is co-host of the Heroes and Humans

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of Football podcast, and joins us on

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the line to talk about what else

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we can expect. Hello Simon. Hello.

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Thank you very much for joining us this morning.

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So we did see Scotland take on Switzerland. This

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was in Group A. They secured a draw,

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which was a fairly gritty thing to do

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after that awful 5-1 defeat to

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Germany on day one. So I would

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imagine their hopes are high now that they can

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get out of the group by beating Hungary. Yeah,

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I mean, the thing about having 24 European

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teams is there are quite a lot of them

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that are not very good. I'd put Scotland in

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that category although, weirdly, in the second half they

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were better than Switzerland. So Scotland-Hungary

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is the kind of game that you would

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not see in the Premier League, say, or

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in the knockout rounds of the Champions League.

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And yeah, I mean, the Scots could perfectly

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easily beat Hungary, and then they almost suddenly

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get to the second round. Mind you, the

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Hungarians will be thinking we can perfectly easily

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beat the Scots. And they

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were beaten last night though, weren't they, decisively by

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Germany? Yeah,

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Germany operating in a whole other sphere

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of consciousness. I mean, with

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players like Moussaille and Coase and Gundogan,

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it's very odd because we're all trained

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on watching this top level football, you

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know, played by teams like Manchester City

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and Arsenal and Madrid, and then you

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see football like last night that just

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is not there. Germany is more or

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less in that category of top football.

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Are they the favourites now to win? I would

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make them favourites. I mean, I wrote a book called

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Soconomics years ago with a sports economist, and we calculated

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that home advantage is worth about 0.9 goals

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a match in international football now. It's more than it

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used to be. So we always

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know home advantage is important. It's become

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more important. So if you add on

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to a very decent German team, 0.9

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goals a game, you also look at

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England, other favorites, not looking

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invincible. France, Mbappe has broken his

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nose. That's an issue, although he

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hopes to play. So

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I would say Germany looking best so far. And

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Kylian Mbappe has his mask. I saw the video

2:28

of him yesterday opening the box. He'll

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be wearing that. When's he coming back? Do we know?

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It's not entirely clear. I think he wants to come back

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a bit more quickly than the doctors want. Yes.

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And that is probably to be

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expected. Now, he did catch the

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world's attention making his position known

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about the French elections, didn't he,

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Simon? Which is this is always

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interesting when we see politics and

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sport mixing. And he said,

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I don't want to represent a country

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that doesn't correspond to my values or

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our values. But he didn't go further

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than that. What

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do you think of him making that statement? Were

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you surprised to hear Kylian Mbappe saying that? In

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a way, yes, because he's politically always very cautious. I

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mean, the very, you know, I live in France, I've

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lived in Paris for 20 years. The very first episode

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of our podcast was about Mbappe is a fascinating guy,

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he's very intelligent. And he does

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have strong political opinions, but he's careful of voicing

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them because he doesn't want to be seen by

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the kind of mass of the French

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population as quote an angry young black man who

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is not really French, which is what exactly what

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the far right wants to suggest he is. So,

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yeah, he didn't go quite as far as

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to mention the Rassam le Monde Nationale far

3:37

right party by name. His teammate, Marcus Turan,

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did. He's the only one who really went

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there and said we must stop the Rassam

3:44

le Monde Nationale. But other players and

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Mbappe said, I share Marcus's views, I

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share his values. So he kind of

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clearly aligned with the very explicitly answer

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far right statement. But Mbappe said, I'm

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against extremes, which some people said, would

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you also be in the far

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left? you're also against. So that was a

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bit ambiguous. And has there been a

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backlash against Marcus Turram for being so

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explicit in his views? Well,

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inevitably in a country where about 40% supports

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the far right, if you come out against

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the far right, people are going to

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bash you, especially if, you know, like

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Turram, you're a multimillionaire, you

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play outside France, you're

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black, which in the minds

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of many far right voters means that you're

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only French on sufferance, you're not really, truly

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French, you have to prove that you're worth

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being French and so on. These

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typical far right views. So yes, I mean, he

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knew he would face a backlash. But you know,

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his father played for France, father won the World

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Cup in 1988. And his father, Lillian, is a black

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activist all his life, a very impressive anti-racist

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activist who named his son Marcus Turram, is

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named after Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican black nationalist.

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So this is a long tradition. Also the

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fight between the team and the far right

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goes back at least 30 years. Now

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tonight, going back to the football, two big games.

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So in Group C of England taking on Denmark,

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and I see in some of the papers today, the

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writers who were watching Musiala playing for

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Germany, and you've mentioned him, you know,

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that team playing on a different level,

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and the English regrets there that he

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was allowed to leave the England set

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up. It's about three years ago now.

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I mean, I'm sure they wish they

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had him back. Yeah,

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I mean, he was in the youth teams, in England

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youth teams, he was a roommate of Jude Bellingham, and

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they were very close. But

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you know, England doesn't really have a

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lack of talent, a team that can

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leave players like Jack Rieleich and Marcus

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Rashford at home, has easily enough talent

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suddenly upfront. So I don't

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really think that he's the missing link. I mean,

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almost any other national team in Europe will be

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delighted to have Musiala, but I don't think that

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is particularly England's problem. They

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play a very, I mean, the thing is, I didn't think

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ever think that they were going to concede

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a goal against Serbia or draw. But they do

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play a very kind of cautious back foot football,

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which for a team with so much talent is

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disappointing. Were you surprised? the Croatia drew

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with Albania last night? I

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was, yeah, but I saw the

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Spain-Croatia game, they definitely look like

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a team of old men, I

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mean all some wonderful players, Chief

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of All Modulich, who were in

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the World Cup Final in 2018, now

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clearly have reached the end and the younger players are

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not at that level. Yeah, the Croatian

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manager was braving it out last night saying

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nothing is last yet and saying they were

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looking ahead to playing against Italy, but really

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as you say age is not on their

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side and there were those who were romanticising

6:31

those great players they have on the team,

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but really I suppose it proves

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when you're in a competition like this you need

6:37

the talent and the youth really. Yeah,

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but I mean, you know, they can look

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ahead because 16 of the 24 teams will

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qualify for the second round, so you

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know the first round of this tournament is not very

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useful, it takes two weeks to weed out just eight

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teams, so you know anyone who wins a

6:54

game has a very good chance of

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getting into the second round because the best third

6:58

place teams get to the second round, so

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I think Croatia could well do it, but

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yeah, that shouldn't be like that. And Spain

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versus Italy, that's been marked down as one of

7:07

the must-see games of the tournament, how do you

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expect it to go? Ah

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gosh, predicting any individual football match

7:16

is incredibly dangerous. Simon,

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have we lost your line? Oh sorry, your line

7:24

just dipped there, you were saying it's dangerous

7:27

to predict, but you mean you've seen Spain

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play, you've seen Italy play now, does it

7:31

give you any sense of what that match

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might look like? Is it still the must-see

7:35

of the group stages? I

7:38

mean there's so few games in the group stages

7:40

between two top teams and this comes close to

7:42

that. I'm not sure that Italy is a top

7:44

team, Spain look

7:47

distinctly better, I mean am I going to be foolish enough to

7:49

say that Spain is going to win? No, but I mean if I

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have to say which of these two teams is a bit better,

7:53

I'd say Spain. But yeah, there's

7:55

just so many gains between

7:57

either two Paul's teams like Scotland and Hungary. or

8:00

good team and a poor team like Germany,

8:02

Scotland, that Italy, Spain is a kind of

8:05

rare occurrence in the Cape. Yeah, I

8:07

mean, all of these tournaments tend

8:09

to throw up surprises. How do you

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characterise the opening group games? Is it

8:13

a question of just getting through it?

8:15

You mentioned there weeding out the ones

8:18

that just aren't going to make it,

8:20

or has it been a fascinating opening

8:22

few days? I'd

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say it's been very enjoyable. It's been fun

8:26

more than fascinating or surprising. So I can't

8:28

think of any shock results that

8:30

nobody had expected unless I'm overlooking something now. But

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what you have had is a lot of goals.

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European football is in the kind of attacking phase.

8:37

Teams are happy to go forward. The Euro, I

8:39

think they also take a little bit less seriously

8:42

than World Cup. So there's a bit less of

8:44

a life and death we must win at all

8:46

costs, and we're going to play it safe

8:48

and put ten men in front of goal things. So teams

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are mostly going out there to have fun knowing that the

8:53

defeat is not fatal because it's quite easy to

8:55

reach the second round. So there's

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been really enjoyable football. Simon

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thank you very much, Simon Cooper there,

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and every match is live on RT2,

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the RT News Channel and on the

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RT player. Back after this.