Right

... sauce at a certain point.

Um, so I, I'm not saying that I think he's arrogant but I think he's just very aware of who he is and what he can command in a room so I think that's the change and I think the reason that he acted that way in the press conferences is because of that and I think the reason he took the Red Bull job I would love to listen back but I think when we talked about this last when he took that job I think I probably did say he this is the step towards international management I'm nearly sure you did and it was obvious then and it and it's been obvious in the last few weeks you mentioned the media activity I mean let's be honest the comment when he said oh you know Julian Nagelsmann is picking the team for now yeah um and if we're being honest I think yes he apologized and he said in the press it was one of the worst days of my life and all of the things yeah sure and it was a pretty embarrassing public like apology to Julian Nagelsmann on public television it was a lot but I think I think he knows what he's doing I refuse to believe that it was an innocent comment that he made and he shouldn't have thought about it and oh my god what a mistake I just refuse to believe someone who has spent so much time public speaking would would have done something like that without being aware of it and honestly it just is another step towards him cementing the job I mean that's the direction of travel he's had since he left club management the Red Bull job was a perfect placeholder to be in and around football but not in a way that he'd ever be in the public eye a lot yeah yet now in the last few weeks almost unavoidable and if you factor in for people who who live in Germany people will also recognize him I mean also during this World Cup he's in so many adverts yeah so his face is almost unavoidable throughout the entire summer of football even though he's not got a job and now he has a job he will of course be unavoidable for different reasons but I mean that was my next question how can he maintain his Trivago uh advertisements in the United States how can he balance that that workload he may be looking for a new hotel sponsor let's just say that yeah um so so I guess what the natural question for for those of us over here in the United States is we had a sense on the podcast I played the audio of Didi Hamann who was on Irish TV after the elimination to Paraguay and Didi was Didi doesn't mince his words anyway and he went viral for what he said because he basically said that uh Julian Nagelsmann had um he didn't go to games he was almost a did not get dug into the detail of the job uh and was almost an absentee manager didn't go to games didn't go to tournaments to watch opposition he had a long list of of frustrations with Nagelsmann how bad did it get in Germany for Nagelsmann I yeah it was pretty bad um I think the fallout was pretty heavy I think most the irony is of course if they had beaten Paraguay and Jonathan Tarr's goal had stood and they would have won that game there would have been a totally different reaction to the inevitable loss that would have come against France right because people would have said okay you know you're probably losing to a team that's going to make the final and we weren't expecting to so it in some ways perhaps it's a blessing and a curse because you know bigger issues have been revealed by this this poor performance but the fallout was pretty heavy and I think Julian Nagelsmann deserves a fair bit of credit uh credit like criticism for for the reasons for that fallout his communication in the six months in the build-up to to the World Cup was not ideal to say it diplomatically I think he recognized the errors of his ways but I would really love to know what changed because he did such a good job at the Euros two years ago he said all the right things and he really seemed to connect the country with the team again and his speech after the Euros was very passionate and very much about bringing Germany together it wasn't just about football I thought wow this guy's really done his homework and he gets it and now two years later it feels like he lost his way a bit didn't know his best 11 too many experiments communication was off Undav's bad now he's your key player I just felt like he got too many things wrong and I think a lot of the decisions that he made didn't really work in his favor I mean Manuel Neuer was not a factor until he saved a penalty against Paraguay I mean that's very late in the tournament to be a factor um I think you know he was not aided by the fact that Florian Wirtz took his poor form into the tournament he wasn't aided by the fact that Jamal Musiala was still coming back from injury um these are all issues that I think would trouble most managers but if you put that into the context of the communications issues that he'd had I think it was just terrible and the fallout was pretty bad I think a lot of people pointed to him but I think my other issue with the fallout was that there were so many former world champions that were in the media that I don't really think it was a positive thing right we had uh on ZAF we had um Christoph Kramer and Per Mertesacker right and I'm very happy to see Per Mertesacker now be in the running or likely to be or will be um taking a German FA role I think that that's a good step because I think what we had after the tournament was too many people who had won something talking about how bad it was and my I'm of the opinion well do something about it then yeah just don't just sit there and talk you know so Christoph Kramer was very critical but it's easy to be critical on the couch uh Mats Hummels and Thomas Muller uh were obviously also critical and had loads to say on Magenta easy to be critical in that position especially when you factor in that Mats Hummels isn't the biggest fan of Julian Nagelsmann so that also plays a role and then on top of that we've got Philipp Lahm writing articles for Debate and for The Guardian um saying this and this and this is wrong with German football so I think that that cannot be easy for a manager uh or players to be like well guys you know this 2014 team was epic maybe we've forgotten that um And there are just a lot of them, half of them, and Bastian Schweinsteiger as well, by the way, half of them are just chatting-

Yeah

... just annoyed by the fact that Liverpool as a whole were kind of in a funk for a while.

It wasn't just him.

He was an easy scapegoat.

But yeah, I think if I'm, to be honest, if I'm Florian Wirtz, if I'm any player, if I'm any player in this Germany setup, I'm looking at this thinking, "I have to use the juice that Klopp is gonna give me to boost my club career, but also to, to reignite my Germany career." Because honestly, we're looking at the Euros in two years, and we're looking at the World Cup in four.

Uh, do you have any further questions, Jonathan?

No.

What I will say, I was struck by just how comprehensive that was, and it's, it's really heartening to have that level of transparency around an incident like this.

And then, and the part I most enjoyed is him almost suggesting you just have to take a deep breath.

It's obviously a major incident, a flashpoint, but on the balance of probabilities and when you look at the amount of runners that we have in Britain and Ireland, how rarely this actually happens, it's, it's important not to get too carried away.

But it is an interesting topic, isn't it, Nick? Like, part of the charm of these racecourses is how long they've been around, and clearly part of the problem with them is [chuckles] you don't necessarily know exactly what's underneath them.

Um, so I...

But the regulator is there to try and help as well as to admonish.