The Final Third

The First Week of the World Cup!

One week into the 2026 World Cup, and it's already delivered. Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick as Argentina defeated Algeria; the less said about the potential red card, the better. Cape Verde held Spain. DR Congo held Portugal to a draw in a fantastic start to their first World Cup campaign in decades. Germany put seven past Curaçao. We go through every group and every result from the opening round; who's already in trouble, who's looked better than expected, and what to watch going further into the tournament ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The Big World Cup Preview

The 2026 World Cup is here. In this episode, we go through all 12 groups and pick our qualifiers — group winners, runners-up, and the third-place sides most likely to sneak through into the Round of 32. We start with the format: 48 teams, 12 groups, and a new expanded round that makes early elimination much less likely for the bigger sides. Does that make the group stage less dangerous or just less interesting? Then it's group by group, A to L. Group I has France, Senegal and Norway all with realistic knockout ambitions, which leaves Iraq with a near-impossible task. Germany are in a trickier group than their seeding suggests. Spain have the most comfortable draw of any top-two seed in the tournament. We also name the matches worth circling in the group stage, the young players most likely to have a breakout tournament, and note that Messi and Ronaldo are both at a sixth World Cup. It is almost certainly the last time that is true of both of them at the same tournament. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The End and The Beginning

This week on The Final Third, the conversation moves from World Cup visa confusion and absurd ticket pricing to a Premier League season that felt chaotic almost from start to finish. Arsenal are deserved champions, Aston Villa look established among the elite, and clubs like Bournemouth and Leeds forced a rethink of what this league now looks like beneath the usual names. There is also a wider discussion about English football’s financial dominance in Europe, the instability of modern management, and what the 2026 World Cup may become once the football actually starts. Spain and France remain the obvious favourites, but the episode spends as much time on the sides lingering just outside the spotlight: Morocco, Norway, Senegal, and Japan. Underneath it all sits the same question that keeps returning in modern football: who is the game really being built for anymore? ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The Weight of the Finish

Aston Villa’s win over Liverpool felt significant not just for the result, but for the authority with which it arrived. Leeds dragged Brighton into a game of chaos and won it on their own terms, while Arsenal continued to move through the run-in with control and caution rather than spectacle. The preview section looks ahead to Manchester City against Aston Villa, a fixture that now carries weight only as Pep Guardiola's last game in charge of the Cityzens, alongside awkward afternoons for Spurs and West Ham. The broader theme throughout is one of endurance. Nobody looks completely fresh anymore. It's almost a wrap for the season. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The Cost of the Run-In

This week on The Final Third, the conversation begins with the growing absurdity around FIFA ticket pricing and the sense that major tournaments are drifting further away from ordinary supporters. From there, attention turns back to the pitch, where the Premier League title race has become a test of nerve as much as quality. Liverpool’s intensity, Chelsea’s instability, Manchester City’s controlled dismantling of Brentford, and Arsenal’s tense win at West Ham all feed into a broader discussion about how teams behave once the season narrows and the pressure hardens. The preview section then looks ahead to a difficult set of fixtures for Liverpool, Arsenal, and Aston Villa, before attention shifts to the FA Cup final between City and Chelsea, a game that feels shaped less by romance than by whether Chelsea can disrupt City’s sense of order. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.