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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Sport. On the Claire Burns Show. With Visa. Everything's a top-in. With Visa. Wherever the game takes you. Well, it's time to preview the weekend sport and I'm delighted to be joined by Off The Ball's Phil Egan.
We were going to start with the World Cup, but we'll have to start now with this statement coming from the FAIE, something that has been well flagged that the Ireland-Israel fixture would be played in a neutral venue. But what I wasn't actually expecting was that it would be played behind closed doors. What does that mean?
That just means there'll be no fans at the game at all.
Chapter 2: What is the significance of the Ireland-Israel fixture being played behind closed doors?
It'll be very like what we experienced during COVID where there was no atmosphere and it was all very eerie. But yeah, as you said, no real surprise that this is happening at a neutral venue. The talk had been Budapest and obviously the fact now that you take fans away from it means in their eyes there'll be less around this game. But this game is coming up on the 4th of October.
There's still so much time between now and then and I would imagine like in the next few hours, there's going to be more reaction to it and it's a problem that's not going to go away. The players were obviously asked about it in the most recent international window. They wanted to see what the FAI were going to do with it.
The FAI then obviously were saying, well, we're getting our guidance off UEFA and Israel have played qualifiers in the last few years. Teams have played against them. So UEFA were never going to step in and say, do you know what, lads, you're right and we won't play this game. So,
If they haven't done it before now, they weren't going to do it now.
I get people saying, well, we could be the ones to make the stand and maybe others would follow.
So do you think the other leg of this then, the Israel versus Ireland, which is on the 27th of September, will it also now go behind closed doors?
I would imagine so as well, yeah. So you'll have two games behind closed doors, neutral venues, and then that'll... That would be UEFA, just their way of dealing with it.
Now, it won't stop people travelling to the venue and potentially protesting outside of the venue, but you'd imagine it's going to minimise it.
This is what it's all about. It's trying to reduce it and minimise it. But as I said, this won't go away. This statement, it's the next phase of this. We've obviously talked about what are the government going to do about it? What are the players going to do about it? What are the FAI going to do about it? This is just the next phase.
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Chapter 3: How does UEFA's involvement affect the Ireland-Israel matches?
the spectacular games we're looking for probably won't get going to the last 16, but there is still a few decent games to look at. Obviously, the fact that the opening ceremony, the first game was at the Azteca Stadium, which is the most iconic venue in World Cup history. It's hosted two World Cup finals in 70 and 86. 70 Pele wins, 86 Maradona wins.
Two of the best footballers of all time have played there and won World Cups. So it was actually, when I was watching, I was thinking, actually, I'd love to play more games in Mexico, to be honest.
There was a great energy in the stadium.
Absolutely. And Mexico, you know, it's not their best team, but actually the fact that they have home advantage, they have such a good record in that stadium because it's played at an altitude and opposition teams can struggle there. So it was a comfortable win. It was a nice moment for Raúl Jiménez, who scored the second goal. He was very...
a few years ago where he fractured his skull playing a game for Wolves against Arsenal and not only was it career threatening but it was life threatening so for him to come back and you would see that he wears the protective headband to score his first World Cup goal in what he knows as his last World Cup you could see he was in tears so that was a nice moment for Raul Jimenez I didn't stay up till 3am or get up at 3am to watch South Korea and Czech Republic which incidentally would have been our game if we had qualified
let's just move on I don't want to talk about that I had that moment yesterday when I watched and thought oh I really wish Ireland was in this World Cup well South Korea anyway came back and won 2-1 so that's the first two games only another 102 to go this weekend will be football heaven for those who are following this World Cup what do you watch what takes your fancy
Well, you've got Canada tonight as the second of the co-hosts going in. They're playing Bosnia-Herzegovina, who upset Italy to get there. They obviously beat Wales as well. I think a game I'm looking forward to, the USA play Paraguay in the early hours of the morning. You've got Brazil and Morocco till tomorrow night at 11 o'clock. I think that's a decent watch as well.
And then on Sunday, we have Netherlands-Japan at nine. I think that'd be a good one as well.
Oh, nice. And a reasonable time and you don't have to set the alarm for the middle of the night.
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