Michael Cox
speaker
164 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 6 Jun
Michael Cox’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
I think usually there's some kind of system change midway through.
I think managers go into the tournament with a set idea, but often I think things just fall into place.
Someone gets unlucky because a sub comes on and looks really good and things just click.
It's amazing how often that happens.
And I would say maybe the most fundamental one is I don't think you need a prolific number nine.
I think there have been so many examples over the years.
I mean, just off the top of my head the last few years, Argentina, they had Alvarez, but he came into the team midway through the tournament.
He wasn't really considered a top class number nine on that level going into the tournament.
2018, France, Giroud didn't score in the whole tournament.
2014, Germany kind of chops and changed, ended up with Miroslav Klose back up front, which I don't think people would have suspected.
Spain, 2010, actually didn't get any goals from the player who started in the number nine position in any of the games.
It was David Villa from the left who scored the goals.
2006 Italy chopped and changed but the main man Luca Toni only scored in one game and obviously the exception to that would be Brazil 2002 where Ronaldo scored eight goals in seven games but then go back to 98 and you got Stéphane Guivache who like Giroud was the main man for France but didn't score at all in the tournament so if there's any teams where people say ah they're good but they're lacking a number nine I say well that is actually probably okay.
Yeah, I mean...
Varied a lot in qualification in terms of the shape and actually looking back at the last tournament, I'd forgotten how many different systems they played in a short period of time.
They went five at the back at one point, stuck with that for the next game, then switched away from it.
It was actually very variable.
Yeah, I'm a bit unconvinced by Argentine.
I really didn't expect Messi to still be around, actually.
I thought after 2022 that was him done and in the best possible circumstances.
Showing 61–80 of 164 · page 4 of 9
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