Indo Sport
World Cup round-up | Exciting England & Portugal's Ronaldo problem | Damien Delaney
18 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What are the initial impressions of England's World Cup performance?
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This is an Irish independent podcast. Now, welcome everyone. Keir Starmer, Dare Them to Dream. And England are suddenly some people's favourites for World Cup 2026, including Damien Delaney, who's on the way. We'll hear what he has to say. William, hello.
Hi, Joe. Our words yesterday about how the major tournaments really kick up a notch when England come in. Proof prophetic. It feels alive today.
I only watched it this morning. I saw your message last night saying, this is the best game so far. I came out of another meeting and you were like, Will, England, Croatia. It was unbelievable. Ronan Mullen is in Munich, holding the fort over there. Hello, folks. Saw Klopp and Tuchel having a very warm embrace on the pitch after the game last night. Big hugs.
Yeah, it was nice telling of the humour that I was alluding to yesterday with some classic German sarcasm about, that was easy, right? You know, it's always easy to go last, right? So... Yeah, Klopp and Tuchel, I didn't know anything of their sort of pre-existing chumminess or otherwise, but they seemed to get on swimmingly. Nice warmth, yeah.
He followed him to Mainz and then to Dortmund as well, which was interesting. He was the replacement on both occasions.
If you think of Rafa Benitez following Jose Mourinho around, there was a blood feud there, you know. Damien Delaney on the way, so we'll chat to him about... We think with Damien a little weekly check-in is the way to go, so we'll see what he's made of week one. Isn't it, Matt, this time last week the World Cup had not started? I can't imagine a world like that.
I don't want to imagine a world like that. It has been very nice, I have to say, for all our group stages.
It's been great. It's been great.
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Chapter 2: How does Damien Delaney view hydration breaks during matches?
I've honestly had a pep in my step coming into work. Not that I don't usually, but an even greater pep in my step coming in to talk about these games. It just feels like, I think it's 27 days in a row of football until the first break. That sounds unbelievable, doesn't it?
Approximately what time have you been filling out the wall chart, Will? First thing in the morning?
You know what I love? The wall chart isn't a wall chart. It's just a chart at the moment because even though someone very helpfully placed some adhesive tape on my desk overnight, whoever that good Samaritan was, thank you. I like to come in, I like to unfold it onto my desk, take out my pen and first thing I do is put in the results.
It's Will's personal table chart at the moment as opposed to the Indosport wall chart.
Well, there's another one sitting there that Rowan asked me to keep safe for himself. If someone wants to go for that, they can.
Okay, well, I think maybe it's time for it to go up in the water. I'll do it after this. So, look, we'll talk to Damien Delaney very shortly. I should say, of course, of course, our football coverage is sponsored by Sky Sports and Sports Extra, which you can get on Sky TV or stream with now. England and media, very impressed with last night. Oliver Brown, for instance, in The Telegraph.
Well, here's what Eamon Dunphy said 20 years ago today, I think, yesterday. It was for their first game 20 years ago.
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Chapter 3: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the England team under Tuchel?
Ah, their first game 20 years ago. This is doing the rounds, so we thought we'd give it a run out.
God is in his heaven and all is right with the world. Today is such a day. A cloudless June sky, the oxen reposed in the shade of the mighty British oak. the week rising from a million barbecues, and England beginning its World Cup endeavor. It's the kind of thing that puts you off England, isn't it? Well, I think it's the kind of... There's no irony in that. The Telegraph is an irony-free zone.
They think God is English. And if they win today, they'll be rubbing our noses in it.
All right, all right. Oliver Brown in the Telegraph today. Always enjoying Oliver Brown, Colin. For the first time in 25 years, England... are fun again. Electrifying waves of attack. How refreshing to report that it is after far too long. A thrill to watch England again.
And he talked about the team surging forward with a level of heedless abandon that would have been unthinkable under Gareth Southgate. Whisper it. Whisper it. The stars might just be aligning.
Oh, we're so back. But on what planet? I'm not whispering it. You're writing it in a national newspaper.
The stars might just be aligning. Whisper it.
All jokes aside, this is their most dynamic start to a major tournament in their history, I would say. They drew their opening game in 1966, nil-all. In Euro 96, they drew one-all with Switzerland. So, like, both of those, and they're probably the two most iconic ones of their existence in some ways. And even the Gareth Southgate ones, there was always a pragmatism to their feeling their way in.
Even they beat around...
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Chapter 4: How does Cristiano Ronaldo's performance impact Portugal's chances?
From there, then we made some decisions where the energy was not free in our mind. Playing long when we should play short, playing short when we should play long, really. Not playing through the gaps, so not allowing us to accelerate our game the way we wanted to. then you think the penalty would free us up, allow us to play more like us, look more like ourselves.
But again, we fall back into some fearful patterns. And yeah, we've always been able to rely on set pieces. We get the second goal. Again, we're hoping that's the moment to free us up and allow us to move forward in the game. But OK, we can see the second goal later on. And now we have to speak about that at halftime. Thank you.
I wasn't like shocked listening to that. It was just so blunt and so critical of the team. I was kind of just taken aback. You just don't hear that sort of rhetoric. Certainly in like one of these in-game things where they can often be particularly bland. That did definitely... I was like coming through cold water in my face.
I was like, wait, did I just hear that? Thomas Tuchel at full time in the press conference here echoed a lot of what Barry had to say. I mean, fascinating to know... Who's saying it first? You know, that's what I want to know. Like, did Barry at halftime say to Thomas, we're playing it short, we should be playing it long, long, we should be short? Or did Tuchel say it to Barry?
But either way, they're very much on the same page. Here's Tuchel.
I love the second half, all of it. I love the reaction to a very complicated first half. But as you said, I mean... We played against a top opponent. I think we showed a bit of nerves. Maybe we wanted to overdo it, but we clearly overthought our decisions. It took us too long to take decisions. When we could play short, we played long. When we could have played long, we played short.
We couldn't find a real rhythm in our game. And even in defending, it took us too long to make decisions, to go as a block into the high press. We spent way too much time in a low block, which is also not our identity and not what we wanted to have.
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Chapter 5: What strategic changes did England make during their match against Croatia?
The leads, both leads, didn't make us more free. It had more the impression we have to protect something now. Got punished for it, which is psychologically not easy. But I loved the reaction after the half-time. We encourage them to go for it, to play with more courage, to be brave, to be ourselves. And like I said, I love the reaction. We created a lot of chances. We had a lot of ball wins.
We scored goals. And overall, I think we deserve to win.
So that's Tuchel, who is a super impressive character and England do definitely have one of the best managers on the planet in charge. And, you know, I sort of like, God, is it Barry saying it to Tuchel first? Is it Tuchel saying it first to Barry? Regardless, you know, will you spend a lot of time talking about this misaligned Leinster coaching ticket? They're very much on the same page.
And even you listen to all of the players interviews, be it Kane talking about what the halftime message was, you know, go for it. Let's lose our way if we're going to lose. If you see a free man pounce, you know, let's get on the front foot more or Bellingham or any of the players I saw interviewed. To be fair to them, it's an incredible, there's a great clarity.
All of them are saying exactly the same thing. The messages have landed. You know, sometimes you see post-match interviews and one player saying one thing, another player, another, the manager slightly different. They're all very on the same page here. And I don't think in a kind of concerted, some PR type handed out, you know, sheets with the talking points.
I just think they're fairly aligned in a good way. To your point there, I think history is written by the winners, but Anthony Barry called his shot at half-time there. It's going to look quite amateurish if they go gung-ho in the second half and Croatia pick them off and win 5-2. It's like, what is this guy doing? He's dead to his death.
I don't think Tuchel would have been echoing those sentiments had that been the case. So whatever about who, presumably Tuchel, calls the ultimate shots, but...
Anthony Barry went out as Will said like those are off and bland like we need to do better in attack and defence that's the best you're going to get from coaches usually in that setting so I thought like Frank and you know let's be realistic here there's a bit of self-regard about that like it's self-promotion to an extent like he knows he's in a shop window yeah and
for future job prospects it's true he's got an audience of 10 million what is instructive though is you often hear like rhetoric about oh we need to be braver and then the actions they take as coaches with substitutions are the opposite of that whereas to Ron's point like at 3-2 because they were braver at the start of the second half they blitzed Croatia should have probably been 4 or 5-2 ahead at 3-2 when they you know Stoutgate will be shutting up shop he brings on attacking substitutions to really kind of
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Chapter 6: How did the hydration breaks affect the flow of the game?
Prove me wrong, Anthony Gordon, but of all the high points of the high-octane approach and attack of Monterey, he got a lot of change on his wing. Gordon was anonymous.
Do you think the powers that be at Barcelona watched the Gordon-Rashford substitution and thought, huh? Did we get the right guy? Thomas Tuchel, by the way, incidentally, was very irritated if people didn't see the video. He was seemingly very keen to watch his boys sing the national anthem. And there was a wall of photographers in front of him.
And he, at the time, was visibly saying, guys, too close. And tried to walk around them, couldn't really. And then the anthem started. So he walked back and put his hands around the English backroom team all lined up. But afterwards, he even brought it up. It kind of ruined what he thought was going to be a special moment.
I'm begging FIFA to change the position of the photographers in the national anthem because I could not see my team in the national anthem and I was waiting for this moment. It was a very, very special moment today and I was standing in front of a wall of 50 half a meter away and I could not see one single player and it ruined a little bit my experience today.
Interesting. It is like a comical flanks of individuals. It's like riot police during a hot, you know, some sort of febrile atmosphere. It is quite funny.
Roberto Martinez is in a sticky situation. You obviously know what the sticky situation is. It's been going on for several major tournaments now, but Cristiano Ronaldo is every bit as cumbersome as feared. We've sort of seen clips of him playing in Saudi looking old and he looks particularly old. But obviously he wasn't substituted in the game against Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo.
They drew 1-0. Roundly criticised. Ronaldo now, interestingly, World Cup major tournament games and Euros major tournament games has not scored in 10 in a row. That's a heavy statistic for your immobile goal scoring number nine. His first group game in 2022 is his last time he scored.
That was a penalty as well.
Criticism is coming in from all quarters. There's a sense there may be pressure coming down on Martinez from the Portuguese FA. Ronaldo's a very lucrative player to have as mainstay in your team. And then Martinez, by all accounts, is not a confrontational type, doesn't enjoy it. He's not a tuchel. Once Harmony would not particularly want to grasp the Ronaldo nettle.
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Chapter 7: What are the potential implications of Ronaldo's situation for Portugal?
He's like, not content with ruining the Belgian golden generation. He's now hightailed it over to Portugal and is destroying them as well. Like, Fernando Santos had the temerity, a European Championship winning manager, myself and Ronan were discussing off air, to kind of try to grasp that nettle at the last World Cup.
didn't go well and we're four years later and it's still like I would like to know what the average Portuguese supporter thinks are they actually like oh no we deified this man so much that we are willing to overlook his obvious flaws and just have him in the team yeah I'm interested in that too we should get a Portuguese guest on actually because it is it's such a fascinating subplot now
We'll see what Damien makes of it in a second. And that's pretty much all I have. Chechia, you know, could have been us against South Africa today. Sorry, tomorrow. Today. Today. Thursday. Five o'clock in Atlanta. We're back into the dud phase of the tournament. There is a lopsided aspect to the weeks. So we're back into...
the early part of the week and it's not very good groups A and B are really poor just as expected terrible so we'll watch Chechia I think you know kind of blunt their way to a 1 or 2-0 win against terrible South Africa the Swiss against Bosnia Herzegovina you could not pay me to watch it Canada against Qatar you could not pay me to watch it 2am Mexico South Korea fine Things pick up on Friday.
8 o'clock Friday evening, our time. USA against Australia. Fun game, I think. I want to have a look at USA in full.
Especially Australia getting the win over Turkey.
That becomes a quasi-shootout for top spot. And then 11pm, Scotland-Morocco. Very interesting game. Friday evening. Half won Brazil, Haiti. And then Saturday, you know, the Dutch against Sweden is okay at 6. Germany against Ivory Coast.
They're both big games for seating. They are. They might not be sexy. And you keep... Jeez, you're looking at me with the most dead-eyed stare. No, but they are important for seating.
I will. I really don't care about the seating.
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Chapter 8: Who are the standout teams and players in the World Cup so far?
Wouldn't? Have the group stages been cumbersome or where are you?
I found it very hard to get into the start. I watched the opening ceremony or the opening game, sorry, which was interesting. But then a lot of the fixtures post that, they didn't inspire me to make time and sit down and get the kids to bed early or whatever it might be. But then it sparked into life on Tuesday night with Senegal-France.
I just saw that fixture and I get up in the mornings and I quickly watch the highlights and some goals for the first week. But then that France-Senegal game, I went, oh, that's piqued my interest. And I made time and sat down and I watched that game. And I am fully invested now, Joe. That was the spark that I needed.
England last night?
Yes, England last night as well, yeah. Good game, really good game, really enjoyable game. All the games I watched so far have been really enjoyable.
Let's start with England because it's fresh. So 4-2 win in Dallas against Croatia. They're very excited about this. They're very excited about this second half. Were you impressed? What did you make of them?
Yeah, really impressed. No, I'm not basing my... My being impressed on last night, I've been impressed with Tuchel since he came in. The qualifying campaign has been exemplary. I love the shift away, the clear difference between Southgate and Tuchel. I think they've been very, very good. I was on commentary for their final warm-up game against Costa Rica, and again,
Very, very impressed with what they did. And I felt last night they were really, really good in a lot of aspects of the game. You know, they're not playing against mugs. You know, their opening game is against Croatia, a very, very good team. Players sprinting across Europe. And they made the first half very, very difficult for England.
And I think they tidied some things up at half-time, which is why I like Tuchel, which is why I'm so impressed with him. I think they just... You know, the Anthony Barry interview beforehand, you could tell he was furious that their game plan, they weren't...
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