OTB Football
One of the great footballing nights… but was it worth it? | ‘I LOVED the madness!’ | Thursday’s Papers | OFF THE BALL BREAKFAST
29 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Football on Off the Ball. Spurs see themselves as this big club, but are they a big club, really?
Chapter 2: How does the discussion around Tottenham Hotspur reflect on their club status?
This whole narrative around Frank, and it's got so toxic and so nasty as well, it's just a really bad reflection on Tottenham Hotspur fans in general.
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off the ball breakfast Ireland's sports breakfast show so we weather warnings oh yeah saturated areas that could see more flooding well that's a good way to describe the Champions League last night because we were flooded with action if you are in Merino or Fairview get out because a pipe burst in Fairview Park last night there was guards on the road this morning don't go down no no
Anyway, the beauty of the natural design of where I live is that it is this very slight slant downhill towards town. All your shit runs down to us. I'm getting out of here in a couple of hours anyway, I like to go south. Like at the start of a disaster movie. Oh, you're going to Cork? You know, go away. I'm going to Cork, yeah. Back home, where they'll understand you properly.
Yeah, exactly, yeah. There's been a cultural clash in rugby, of course, we've seen in the last 24 hours involving a Munster referee. And I'm just going down to... It's a part. In the general area of Limerick, you know. Is there not a low-key beef between Limerick and Cork? There seems to be.
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Chapter 3: What were the highlights of the Champions League matches last night?
I think it's high-key. Oh, yeah. In rugby or world?
Oh, rugby, yeah.
There's more pronounced now. They're talking about splitting the problems up. Yeah, that's right, yeah. Well, it's an interesting point, because it would be more pageantry in terms of hard in that stage, you know. But in the rugby, I suppose, it's kind of simmering.
undertone of like hold on now you get all the big gains but we make all the money yeah there's a bit of that but I don't think it's got mainstream yet if you will Donald Lennon's pretty Donald Lennon's piece yeah it's a good point but anyway we're going down to pour oil on troubled waters Go back to UCC actually. There's a panel. Did you go to UCC? Yeah. I haven't been back in ages.
It's a lovely campus. Was it good to go to? It's brilliant. Brilliant. Did you ever wish that you didn't live at home? Or did you live at home? Yeah, that's true. The only thing is that we all did. Everybody that went. Yeah, because it was all down the road from us. Yeah.
So you still live the college life, but that is true, like, because I'm only up the road from DCU now, and then I see all the student accommodation. It's like, oh yeah, none of us kind of got that. But then you are so lucky that you have the college down the road in the first place. Yeah, you never have to worry about finding a place. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
Well, UCD, it's like, this is a big, sprawling city. Yeah, but incredibly expensive. I like DCU's campus. It's also very nice. Yeah, it's nice. Sorry, not to pry, right? But what happens if you weren't to come home for a day or two? Which is, you know, every student's right. That's just a quick text. From the mother, like? From the mother. Yeah, exactly, yeah. That's very quickly done.
Well, we generally would have a relationship anyway, so you would be communicating... I know, but the night goes well, unexpectedly, and suddenly you're not coming home. Well, listen, it's a great point. The theme of the show this morning will be respect, right?
This is our pre-show thing that a lot of sporting topics wanted to get through today, including the referee, Bundy Aki, Novak Djokovic, respect. Oh, and the rowers. And the rowers. And the rowers, yeah. The respect thing there is that, oh yeah, of course, you give them the courtesy of telling them if you're not going to be home. But you might not know. Oh, but that's fine.
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Chapter 4: What are the potential effects of the Champions League format changes?
So they won't actually, they're not on the same side of the draw. But it'll all become clear tomorrow at 11. And I think because almost no bad teams are left.
the worst teams left you would say are Carabag and Bodo Glimps and we've seen Bodo Glimps play some great football Galatasaray Club Brugge who had a random 3-0 win yesterday to squeak in Olympiacos they're the teams that everybody's going to be looking for but yeah Olympiacos went to Ajax last night and won. And nobody really is going to fancy going out there.
No, like you say, very few teams that you wouldn't fancy in the top 24, they're very poor. And at the same time, we talk about the lack of jeopardy in this Champions League, big hitters are out on paper. Big enough European names compared to those who have qualified, like Napoli, like Marseille. Well, Napoli's unbelievable. Napoli wasn't even close, they were just 30th.
30 to 36 Villarreal are gone like Villarreal former Champions League semi-finalists they're gone in terms of big names that might not be the squad these days but names the club PSV Ajax Athletic club as we call them all gone gone baby gone no more European football yeah more time to spend the Guggenheim for those kids so I for one enjoyed the Champions League league phase if just for last night em
I just say on that with the rugby I was talking to a couple of people from Telegraph there yesterday about the format of the European Cup and the Prem are looking into a way to make it more exciting completely at the envy of the football at the minute and it seems to have the backing of the URC and the French League to do so maybe the back of the original format that they had was quite good yeah the last time this happened it didn't end so well why did they move do we know why they moved from the original format is it a bit like we don't know why they moved off the Hooter
It was the English Premiership and the French League wanted to... Fewer games.
Yeah. They wanted fewer games because their home league is the only thing that matters to them. Okay. Now they're all regretting it. And there was also a power struggle. The... The organisation used to be in Dublin, and then everybody felt, oh, they're in Dublin now. And now it's in Switzerland. So it's obviously neutral. And people have less interest in it, in the competition now.
But anyway, we are talking about rugby. Disastrous day for Andy Farrell. The Bundyackey news obviously wasn't news, you were sitting on this information?
Yeah, I had known that Jule Postlewaithe was in the Ireland squad because I saw him in the airport.
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Chapter 5: How did Jose Mourinho influence the outcome of the Benfica vs. Real Madrid match?
The ban isn't from the IRFU and you can't give them any credit for... Gone for everything like so. That's just always been the way it is. Yeah, I suppose I questioned that part of it. But anyway, look, the ban has been imposed and it must have been real serious. Like, real serious.
Because Ireland are obviously worse off for it now and you could say it's only words and Ireland were already going through an absence crisis. And there's another player who, whether he started or not, he would have probably been in contention for the squad. Maybe as number 23 against France. So we're a player lesser off now. So whatever was said must have been mad.
We may never find out what was actually said. It'll travel the culture pretty quick. Do you think the referee will do a tell-all interview? No, no, no. It'll just be, you cast as if to say, that'll be class. It won't be class.
It won't be class, yeah.
So otherwise, we're never going to know for sure because the only man who's going to say that is the referee officially, because Bundy's not going to tell us what he says. Maybe Bundy comes out and says, look, I didn't realise that that word was so, or that phrase was so egregious outside the dressing room. It's the type of stuff that we say to each other.
Do you think if he apologises in an official statement, he'll get a reduction? No, it's too late now.
It's done. Why is it too late? Well, it's already suspended to four.
It was six weeks. It was suspended already. So he's going to miss, luckily enough for him, it'll count as the URC game this weekend. So that's one gun. straight away. And then he's going to miss France, Italy, England.
Yeah. I would be very surprised if they recalled him into the squad after it as well. I don't know.
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