Men in Blazers 05/24/23: Championship Playoff Special, Presented by ESPN+

Hey Prime members, you can listen to Men in Blazers ad free on Amazon Music download the app today. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, host of Wondrous Business Movers. In our latest series, Phil Knight bets the future of his little known shoe company Blue Ribbon Sports on a big move, creating his own in-house brand. With this bold direction, Phil creates one of the most recognizable and successful companies in the world, Nike. Listen to business movers becoming Nike on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to the Men in Blazers media network suboptimal radio. Referee looks at his watch. It is a fabulous day for Fulham. This is Rodge with a championship playoff pod special presented by ESPN Plus. And in a minute, I'm going to speak to a remarkable blow. You know it, Tim Reem, a gentleman who played an incredible three playoffs in his career, been to two Wembley finals, that final, one game between two teams who finished anywhere between third and six in the championship and have ground their way through a playoff round to face each other, look each other in the eye in a match, which is off Terrell did as the richest game in football. Which it is because well, a Premier League place is on the line up for grabs for the winner and that game goes on this weekend. Yes, this Saturday, May 27th, it will kick off exclusively on ESPN Plus, noon Eastern time ESPN Plus being that magnificent smorgasbord of football, the place to get all of your football coverage home to the best of La Liga and Bundesliga. And in this case, the mighty English football league, because this game, the championship playoff final is the English League pyramids equivalent to a golden ticket to the Willy Wonka factory worth anywhere, according to Deloitte between $167 million and $328 million, depending on whether the team is able to remain in the Premier League past one season. And much of that is broadcast money. But I've been at newly promoted clubs in the weeks after they just clenched. And you can hear the commercial department phones ringing off the hook because the team has just gone from the championship, being of really local interest, a platform for local businesses to sell themselves to local fans. Anyone that's been to a game or watch one, you look at the hoarding, you can see the local taxi company, the local butcher's chains advertising around the sides of the ground. But suddenly, thanks to one game of football at the end of an exhausting season, they have emerged anew and are suddenly a global relevance. Hence all those global gambling websites that suddenly try and flood in, put themselves on their jersey around the stadium back in 2021. Had this field's former commercial manager, Sean Jarvis, he spoke to the athletic and he described this experience after he went promotion. And he said, a whole new world opened up. The drive home from Wembley after we just got promoted gave me a sense of what to expect. The entire journey, literally didn't come off the phone to sponsors and advertisers. One call ended. Another was incoming straight away. It was crazy. Everyone wanted a piece of the cake. So that is the context. The Premier League is exactly that. An enormous spotlight suddenly shone on the team, the town, the players, the fans, a global spotlight that will only be shown on the winner, the loser. They get a swift kick in the down bellows, a belly full of broken dreams and it suddenly turf back to the most brutal and competitive league in the world. The championship. So those are the stakes. And we have a game. Oh games this weekend. Coventry will face up to Luton Town. Trust me, this is a game that could not be more magical, really due to the two foes lumbering up to each other who are both to be honest, fantastic stories in their own rights. And really, I think they'd be the first to admit unexpected guests in many ways in equal measure. Luton Town, the hatters who came in third, face up to Coventry, the sky blues who finished fifth. And the true wonder of this clash lies in the fact that this. Five years ago, Coventry and Luton were playing each other in League 2, the fourth tier, deep in the bowels of English football. The Premier League could not have felt further away to the meddling football on that day and the fans watching yet on Saturday. The two clubs will meet up Wembley, that jewel of a stadium and determine which of them will become the first to go from the top flight once upon a time down to the fourth tier and right back up. Luton 30 miles northwest of London. It's a surreal spot. It really is. It's close to the big city. Yes, but it's a world away. A suburb, really a working class suburb. I place most London's only think about because of the cheap flight airport that exists there. It's known as the team's nickname suggests for its historic roots in a hat industry mostly long gone. And when I think about that place, I think of Philip Larkin's line, something like nothing happens anywhere. That could almost be the town motto. Until this, the hatters on the brink of the Premier League, a team that play at Kennerworth Road, a ground that could only very generously be described as a stadium. Just 10,000 seats. Honestly, Ball Muff looks massive in comparison. And away fans. We've had this all over our social this week. Away fans enter this ground to a doorway jam between two terraced houses. They almost have to climb over residence gardens to get to their seats. It's also grimy and authentic and wonderful. And if Luton win promotion, they'll have to spend an estimated $12.5 million just to get it compliant with Premier League standards. It's truly crazy, honestly, to think that Luton, tiny Luton, could soon be coexisting with the nation-states funded sovereign welfare, likes of Manchester City and Newcastle. Luton's entire squad. The wage bill is $7.5 million. That's like one of Manchester City substitutes. And the last time Luton Town were in the top flight was back in 1992. Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You is faintly audible all over the world. Bill Clinton has just been elected president. Jay Leno, young Jay Leno debuted on the Tonight Show for the very first time. And in the intervening 31 years, that club has gone through one of English football's most soul-destroying yet borderline miraculous journeys. During the worst period of financial darkness, they come bankrupt three times. They had 40 points worth of deductions for financial irregularities. They'd experienced four relegations. And yet they persevered. Some slog up the levels. Successive promotions 2017-18, followed by a second in 2018-19, saw the club return to the championship after 12 years away. And this season, it's been propelled by bright, inventive management by Rob Edwards. He arrived in November after Southampton plot now, me manager Nathan Jones from their grasp. And Edwards is lost just twice, and full careful, pragmatic, but intelligent and aggressive football-use players like midfield, a Pelly rudder, Campanzu, who's been at the club all the way from the non-league days, along with loan signings like Aston Villa's midfielder, Marvellous Nakamba, 27-year-old striker Colton Morris is the star career best 20 league goals for him. And God bless the hatters, a team for whom this is so much more than a game. Promotion to the Premier League, it's been linked to the development of their new stadium, economic regeneration, not only for the club, but the entire town, literally optimism for thousands of Lutonians were for decades. That quality's been in all too short a supply. And a opponent's commentary, also just one game away from returning to English football's top table for them after a 22-year agonising absence of their own. They are an incredible story in their own right-main no-mistake, Coventry City, a team from a Midlands, former industrial giant of a manufacturing city, fallen on hard times. Once Britain's car industry collapsed, anyone who's watched an incredible Scar ban the specials video for Ghosttown, and if you don't know it, click on it now. We'll have a real sense of the doom that has gripped this city and the team. What a story from being fixtures in the Premier League from its launch in 92-93, and the first nine seasons after that, to a journey through the darkness of all four leagues, ownership changing hands, bankruptcy, it will lead to in 2018. Manager Mark Robbins had just arrived, he inherited the team at Chidilla at the bottom of League 1. Robbins had been a bright bushy-tailed striker, fleetingly on the Manchester United team, who won Sir Alex Ferguson, his first job-saving crucial FA Cup at United in 1919, and as a manager, he's effective, but he couldn't work miracles. The club went down to the fourth tier that season, and Robbins recently described how bad things had been there. He said it was done, it was done, you could feel everybody had given up. Everybody that would be apart from Robbins, because he began to build a well-drilled defensive outfit, a team that ultimately starred young Swedish goalscorer Victor Yacaresh, who's 21 goals and 10 assists this season, highest goal contributions in the championship. Dutch Brazilian midfielder Gustavo Hamer and Manchester City Loni, 19-year-old defender Callum Doyle, but still, this club in October, when they're the bottom of the championship in the cruel winter months. But earlier this year, the club had been brought outright by a local businessman Doug King, which ended the tumultuous 15-year reign of CISO Capital Ltd. You don't need to know much about them, other than they were awful. King's brief 10-year-old, seen the club go on an incredible run of form. They've lost only two games since the end of January, and the commentary fans thrilled, giddy, all the way. Those deserve all the love. These fans, they sing all the way through their games. Songs so heartfelt, like the Beatles twists and shout. Hides the fact that it's not clear to anyone why they started singing some of them in the first place. Incredible times for all the fans who include child actor Frankie Muniz, one of many Americans who, for curious reasons, have become Coventry City fans, many old-school Premier League fans will be nodding their heads. You American soccer archivists were drawn to the Skyclad team back in the days of OG baby Eagles like South African-born Tampa Bay Rowdy and Tacoma stars striker Rui Wiggly. Of course, the inimitable Kobe Jones both have been played at Coventry in the early 90s. Back in the days, let's just say American accents at Premier League teams were not quite so common. And manager Mark Robbins has said, this game, yes, it's one for the romantics. And the form book says it could not be more even than two draws between the clubs this season. So it's also finally poised. One of these teams is going to have the perfect culmination of an epic journey up the football pyramid. And one is not both of them deserve it. Both of these teams still make you realise just how much their fan bases have suffered. They both walked arduous journeys. They both know in the darkest despairs of football and this kind of joy within touching distance. To be honest, they both deserve it. But only one will experience it. To the playoff itself, this game, I do need to note, these playoffs began a somewhat of a marketing ploy, April 1986, during a particularly fraught period of English football. When the game was really a backwater in Europe, besmirched by Hooliganism, dull footballing tactics. But now these playoffs are such a mainstay. This is incredible. Of the current 92 clubs in the top four tiers of English football, only nine have never experienced the particular trauma that is the playoffs. Unsurprisingly, five of them are top flight mainstays, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham and Everton. And these games have once become true spectacles of English football. A massive day for the fans, a massive day for the game, thousands of spectators generating huge broadcast ratings. And you can watch them all starting with this Saturday, May 27th clash, new Eastern time on the ESPN plus sign up for that magnificent platform by going to ESPN plus dot com slash GFO peak. And that's not the only English football league class for promotion at state that will play on the ESPN plus. It's also your home to watch the drama unfold for all promotion battles this weekend. Let's start with league two final Carlisle versus Stockport. Also the hatters Sunday, May 28th, 8 30 am Eastern time. Then it's the league one final, bonds Lee versus the magical back from the dead Sheffield Wednesday. Sheffield, when Stan Bull only came back from a four goal first leg deficit over Peterborough to get here. That is Monday, May 29th, 10 am Eastern time. And don't forget to watch Manchester City heard of them their quest for the treble continue to unfold as they take on Manchester United and the equivalent of the preekness stakes for them Saturday, June 3rd, 10 am Eastern in the first ever Manchester Derby FA Cup final. All of these matches are more exclusively on the ESPN plus sign up for ESPN plus today by going to ESPN plus dot com slash GFO peak. So you can watch this match. Oh, and so much more. Not every billionaire has the stamina, the dedication, the fire to become the most unpopular owner in sports. But not everyone's James Dolan, the dreaded owner of the New York mix introducing rain of error, a new podcast series that gives you court side seats for the bench clearing free for all of controversies and scandals that JD has brought on. Are you embarrassed by this? I swear, I'll embarrass. Yes. Here's a guy who inherited a fortune and a basketball team. I mean, he could be playing golf. Instead, he's made it his hobby to consistently mismanage one of the most beloved franchises in pro sports. Along the way, Dolan battles his own players, fans, celebrities, the media, politicians, even the Girl Scouts. Absolutely shocking. It's almost too bad to be true. I'm like, really? I'm David Green. Join me for rain of error. As we ask the $6 billion question, why doesn't he just sell the team? Follow rain of error wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad free on the Amazon music or Wondre app. These games, they are such peculiar entities within the British game that I wanted to bring on the jet who has had real life experience, incredible experiences from this day. A gentle, I believe, in our nation's history, is possibly America's greatest living playoff expert during his eight years at Fulham. He's been involved in three different playoff attempts. It's a joy to welcome. It's always a joy to welcome from London. A stone stroke from Wembley Stadium. It's Fulham and US men's national team, Human Wonder to Mr. Tim Reen. Thanks for having me, Raj. Back again. Oh, God. Bless. We are always overwhelmed with joy to see your face, Tim. But particularly, first and foremost, congratulations. Such a remarkable season, a career at age 35 years young. The just had with mighty Fulham soaring again, ended a course with a broken arm against Manchester City. We've got to start, Tim. Give us a health update. Arms everywhere. No problem. Look, no problem. I'm moving. I'm grooving. It's good. For those of you who are listening to this as a podcast, not visibly tuning in, imagine Tim doing the worm, just some incredible break dancing moves going on here. No cost. Mr. Roboto, whatever you want to call it. No, it's great. I'm back out on the grass. Yeah, I was running this this past week. Just a hard plastic splint on it to make sure I can't rotate my forearm. But all good. It's just slow going. Regrowing bones is just not conducive to playing football. That's for sure. How long will it be before we do see you back full blood data on the field again? Unfortunately, it'll be another five weeks. Yeah, no. It's not great. I was told strict orders, no contact training for six weeks total. So I'm hitting three weeks tomorrow. So I still have another three weeks of no contact. And then after that, it's basically the first day of preseason that I'm back training full out. There will be rules of joy and relief across Mexico with June the 15th. First approaching as they hear this news. Our loss Mexico's game. But we are here to talk about the championship playoff a singular game of football. And first off, Tim, big picture. The stakes of this one match take all the epic environs of this game. The lesser footballing expert than the Italian genius John Franco Zola, who managed Watford in the game. He described the experience as less championship, more like playing a world cup or a euros game than a league match. How would you describe it? It's mental, but we're literally mental. I mean, there's there's a reason they call it the most expensive game in world football. I've heard. So the winner go the spoils, right? And everything surrounding it, the build up, the anxiety, the pressure, the kind of life changing career changing trajectory that it puts you on is it's hard to understand unless you've done it. And it's hard to wrap your head around what it actually means to not just the players, not just the club, but but to fans. And like you said, I've had a couple of different experiences, three attempts. And it's something that again, changes the course and the trajectory of a club and of a career. Yeah. Also this, you are playing for a place in the Premier League, the big time. But you also attempting to achieve it to secure it with football that empowered you to come near the top of the championship, which is a close but no cigar league. And it's a brutal mud slog of a battle. Can you describe how different that competition is tactically to the Premier League? Listen, the championship is a war of attrition. It really is. I mean, you think 46 games, plus your cup games, the teams that are near the top usually do very well in the cup. You look at, you know, a Sheffield United this year going all the way to the semi-final in an FA Cup. Most years you're looking at 50 games for a championship club. Then you throw in the three playoff games. So you're looking upwards of 53 games. And at the end of it, you're thinking, okay, well, Premier League teams, some of them play 60. Yeah, of course. But there's not the tactical element so much in the championship. It's just you play, you recover, you rest, you repeat, and it's just over and over and over and over. And squads aren't huge. You know, the guys that 11 to 15 are pretty much who you're relying on through the course of those 50-some odd games. And it's difficult. I don't think there's ever a moment after the first month where you feel 100% fresh going into any match, at any point from, like I said, from September to May. So I mean, they took about the first World War history. It's a 20th century technology, 19th century tactics. I don't know why I'm thinking about that as you describe the championship, but you are all as you approach this, shattered emotionally, physically. And bear that in mind listeners, as Tim enters playoff football for the first time at the end of 2016-17 season, just your second campaign at the club. And spoiler alert, Fulham was knocked out at the playoff semi-final stage, hard-fought pair of games against Reading. Can you talk about how galling it feels to lose in these things? Your club had finished six. So last in terms of the playoff teams, do you enter them playing with house money? We got nothing to lose. We came six. Or does it feel like an agony so close to the promised land of the Premier League, but left just outside, never to enter like footballing Moses? That agony of getting just to that last step and falling short is just awful. It is horrendous. And then that game that we end up losing the Reading with the handball and the way it just happened is just it was a horrible, horrible feeling. And you actually look at it and you look at these teams and thankfully we were not one of them, who go and they lose in the playoffs and then the next year they have that hangover and it just drags them. It's a weight that just drags them down. And you see it every single season, at least one of the teams who were in the playoffs the previous year and lose, they struggle the following season. I mean, that's fascinating. So when you finish, you are not in the locker room being well done, lads. We gave it a fair shake. You guys are like, oh my God, we came so close. Now we have to do this all again, starting from zero. There's an agony in the wake of this that lasts so much longer than we could imagine. Honestly, it really does. And unless you're in that moment, unless you are in that changing room, you don't understand that feeling, that feeling of close, but too bad, you're not close enough and you had that rug pulled right out from underneath you. And you know, like I said, it can go one of two ways that next season. Good teams, good character teams, you know, you put yourself right back in that position, but in that immediate aftermath, it's all for not. It's all for nothing. And you think what a waste. You've absolutely wasted a season by losing in the playoffs. Another night in Suck City, that's what I hear when you experience failure in these things. But the next season, 2017-18, Fulham demonstrated true, bounce-back ability third in the table behind Wolves and Cardiff. Third, I should add agonizing league. You finish the season. You still on the lead by this. You finish the season on an incredible ripping 23-match unbeaten streak, which came to end at the very last, a shock 3-1 loss to Birmingham City. Had you won, your team, do I need to remind you, your team would have been automatically promoted? Is this still piss you off this, Tim? We still talk about this to this day. It's still discussed. We obviously lost. We had a 23-game unbeaten. We were going for 24. We had guys being sick on the pitch, you know, throwing up. It was that warm and Birmingham at the time. And we said afterwards, you know, we saw the scores kind of coming in and Cardiff only had to match our result. And they would be automatically promoted. And again, like I said, we still talk about this to this day. And we think, why couldn't we have just done it? Why couldn't we have just won? And then we say to ourselves, well, had we won, Cardiff would have won. I love you. Magical thinking, slash delusion. Yeah, that's just the way it goes, right? So on the last day against Birmingham City, had you won again, not to drill this in, Tim, but for the listeners, if full-amoured one continued their 23-game unbeaten streak, the team would have been automatically promoted right in, none of the agony, none of the trauma, none of the ordeal, instead Cardiff, Pip, you were at the last. I imagine that mental stage at the final whistle of the Birmingham 3-1 defeat, you're like, you're looking at each other like, we are still alive, we are still in this, we can do this, we have a lifeline, we can phone a friend, or is it just agony that instead of being in the heaven of promotion, you are back, you are in the purgatory of the playoffs again? No, it wasn't that feeling. It wasn't the feeling of purgatory. It wasn't the feeling of agony because we had been there. We had the experience. We knew what it could and what it would take. We were obviously annoyed at ourselves for laying an absolute egg in the final day of the season, but had we won, again, the trajectory of the club and trajectory of careers would have been different, which is, I think, is an interesting, for me, a neat way to look at things. Obviously, we go back down the M4 and down to M25, back to the Alumna. We think about what could be, but it was actually really light, the feeling, which was, I think it was more because, like I said, guys, we're being sick on the field in the middle of that game. We had something to kind of laugh about. Once you're in the playoffs, how important is what you've done immediately before? The full, you're like the 23-game unbeaten run, or you're just like, this is complete one-offs, anything can happen, and you feel more to fail? It's complete one-offs. Everything you've done up to that point, of course, everything is important, but what you've done to that point does not matter one bit. You look at playoffs every single year, and there are things that happen that you're like, that wouldn't happen during the 46-game regular season. That just doesn't make any sense. The semi-final is obviously two legs, you know, home and away. You take those as the first leg is one half, and the second leg is a second half. And there's the saying, again, that we have is that you can't win it in the first leg, but you can definitely lose it. Now, I said this the other night, and this didn't apply to the championship, but it applied to League One, and you have Sheffield Wednesday go down 4-0 of Peterborough, and they obviously come back and win it in penalties at their own place, and you're like, okay, so then that saying doesn't actually make sense because they lost it in the first leg, but these playoff games, they're one-offs, and anything can happen. So, tactically, you were facing Derby County in that first round, two legs, the first round. The playoff approach. Do you play your game to win tactically? Or because of the stakes, is it more about setting up not to lose in these games? No, you play to win, because if you set up and you play to not lose, they're not going to fare very well, because it's hard to get it back. Once you, you know, set yourself up that way, it's difficult to, if things start to go wrong, to get out of that. And so, we did exactly what we'd done for the 23 games unbeaten. A lot of people had written us off. I remember, oh, they lost the Birmingham, they're going to lose to Derby. Cool. Which was crazy, because we just gone 23 unbeaten, and all of a sudden, now we're being written off again. The English tabloid mentality. Yeah. Right. So, no, it was definitely we went to play to win. Obviously, we didn't. We lost 1-0, but there was no panic without a doubt. There was no panic, because we knew there were still 90 minutes to go. Yeah. And you did come back in the second leg to clip Derby, but as in life, so in football, double negatives don't work. Do not approach the game, not to lose. And you did that and faced Aston Villa in the playoff final. The Villa of a young Jack Greeley, still so raw. He still had human-looking calf muscles. And can you talk about the build-up, the days up to the game? You mentioned already, there's an anxiety that surrounds this. As a player mentally, going into it, is there excitement, or is it more fear, just the stakes kicking in? For me, it was more excitement. For me, it was a chance to play in a huge game. One of the biggest games that you could potentially play in, the biggest crowds you could potentially play in front of. And I think we were all, obviously, riding very high from beating Derby the way we did. And again, I remember the different media tabloids, the things they were saying, how Villa deserved to go to the playoff final, and they deserved to win. And they had an issue with the way we celebrated after beating Derby. And so it was just kind of, for me, it was excitement. It was okay. Let's go prove, once again, prove to everyone why we belong here and what the team and what the club is about. I remember there was one guy who was, it was Ramadan, so he was fasting. I remember coming down with a little bit of a sore throat and a child's cold that I got from my kids from being in school. And so these things were like popping up and you're like, come on, like this isn't going to happen. Really, guys are going to start feeling this way, but staying in the hotel right next to the stadium, you see the arch, you know, over Wembley, you're right there and you just feel the kind of atmosphere that and the buzz around the place. It was, I mean, I was ready to go days before it even happened. Wembley, this venue for a championship club, the out of ordinary experience of playing one of the world's true footballing temples, how daunting a prospect is it the roval era match that? I didn't find it all that daunting. I was actually, I was just more kind of taken it all in and making sure I remembered every, you know, just about everything I possibly could about it, you know, and walking into the stadium and you see everybody and all the fans are out, you know, walking up the stairs and just the march and just, I mean, the amount of people, the sheer number of people to fill that stadium and have everybody and all of them be around the stadium, it's a sight, let me tell you. I mean, the streets, the buses could hardly move through the streets because of the pubs and the bars. Is that energizing, Tim? You know, seeing your fans there, oh, is it like, oh my God, all these people, we can let them for me is energizing for sure. I think some guys, it could potentially feel that way. Oh, I don't want to be a let down. But for me, seeing everybody knowing that they were coming there to watch again, like I said before, the richest game in football was something that obviously I'd never experienced and something that I was like, well, I'm not going to let this one slip through my hands, right? And so obviously we walk into the changing room and the club or the, I don't know who it was, they put up all these pictures in different, you know, different quotes and pictures of ourselves from the matches throughout the season and almost like a mural in the entire changing room. And it was just, you walk in and you're like, this is like, let's go, let's get out. I'm ready to go right now. Let's go. Come on, we need to get out. Let's go for the warm up. There's few things in my life that's less motivating for me than a picture of myself. So I love that. It was more like not just now just yourself, like the celebrations and team pictures and yeah, I love it. One of us is a deeply athletic winner. One of us is not, it's just the door that you do that. And I just like tearing your shirt off like, let's go. I mean, tactically, how much can you prepare in the time you have you? Your manager has the experience of already having played the same opponent at least twice that season. How much are you really prepared for this individual game? Are we just like with strengths that got us here? We're going to ride them. How much is an individual game player? I think it's both. I mean, teams very much evolve over the course of the season and you play a team early and you play a team obviously in two halves of the season. And when that playoff semi-final is finished, you have 10 days. You've got 10 days to prepare. And like I said, a team evolves over the course of the season. We were the same. We were horrible in the first half and then the second half obviously, we changed our way. We played a little bit and go 23 on beaten and Villar, we're no different. But we felt that we had the mental edge over them because we had just beaten them, I think two months prior. And I want to say it was March. And so it was, obviously you work on the tactics, but at the same time, at the end of the day, tactics only take you so far and we have to go out and we have to perform. And you can prepare all you want, but you can only prepare until you get hit in the face and then what happens. And obviously, that's what happens. You red card, yellow cards, subs, injuries, those 10 days were quite the buildup in order to get there. And I think the 10 days are worse in terms of the buildup and the building of the media and the hype and everything that the game brings. They're worse than the actual match day and actually playing for me anyway. When you go out down that tunnel, Wembley, are you self aware as players that you are playing a game or a balance a player game that can change your career? I was. And it was, it's something that to this day, I've only played maybe a handful of games that they give me that feeling of goosebumps, right? That feeling of like that little bit of a buzz, like excitement, but also like, this is special, right? This is special. And I remember walking out and seeing what was the white wall is what it was advertised as the club asked everyone to wear as much white as possible off to one side. And I remember walking out and just seeing our side of the stands 45,000 people just in white. And it was just, it was filled. I absolutely filled to the brim. And you're like, this is, this is different. This is something. And it was like, for me, I realized that again, winning this game is a career changer. It's a defining moment in a career. And, you know, thankfully, you know, I recognize that, you know, I recognize that in, you know, games and in moments and to be able to feel that even the warm-ups. I mean, just walking out for the warm-ups. I was like, this game is something. This is going to be fun. Like, this is going to be fun. Over 85,000 people there. Does that add to the nerve? So, you're all just tuning that out, like, you know, second, the game kicks off. You're just like, well, it suddenly just evaporates. It goes away. And you all just revert to a game of football and a task at hand. I think you just revert. I don't remember seeing or looking at anybody and thinking, right, he looks a little bit nervous. And maybe I was, I was younger, obviously. I was early 30s at the time and not fully aware of that. Like I am now when I can look at guys and be like, I can see the anxiousness in their eyes. But you just go out and you do. You just play. Again, the media had talked about all the experience of Villa, how much experience they had, how many guys they had had that had played in the Premier League, that have had promotions. And they were all saying, you know, Fulham had very little. I think we had one guy who had ever played at Wembley. But at the same time, I think it allowed us to just go and do us and be us and not, not worry about that extra pressure of winning or having that experience. Sometimes, you know, the lack of experience can be a benefit. And for us that day, without a doubt, it was football is a romantic game, Tim. But it's also a job. Are you all also aware of your contracts, you know, and the bonuses and the wage increases? I'm not asking this to be cynical, but it is fascinating. The motivators are you like all running around at times mumbling 350 milli 350 milli. I distinctly remember some guys were, yeah, not talking about what specifically, but yeah, talking about what it would mean. Again, when I say changes, changes in life, it changes a career, changes a trajectory. This is what I mean. It's not as part of it. It changes your life because your contract changes. You're now able to do different things. You're now able to to set up a foundation or find a new place that you can, you know, you can buy or rent out. So, yeah, these are things that are very much real. Not everybody has the same increases, of course, but it is, like I said, it was something that was discussed. So if we do this, like, you know, everybody's going to be in a better off position. They're going to be better off in life. They're going to be better off in retirement. And I think that was, you know, not the end all. It wasn't the be all. It was a part of it. It's a piece of that pie, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, it's part of football game, part lottery win. Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what it is. You hit the lottery, but you actually have control over it, which is actually even better. You know, you have a little bit of a say in the outcome, which for me, that takes away the anxiety. If I have no say in it, like my anxiety through the roof, I'm thinking that I can't, I'm sweating. I'm like, I can play no part. I can do nothing. I have no effect. I have no, you know, I can't do anything to help the outcome. But yeah, being able to play in it takes away that worry of relying on other people. In the game, Fulham took the lead. First off goal from Captain Sensation, Tom Kearney, assisted by then teenage star boy, Ryan Sess in yarn. But in the 70th minute, you sent a back partner, Dennis Adoy sent off for two fouls. Oh, I'm villas, DJ Greel's Jack Greelish. And the last 20 minutes you're holding on with 10 men at Villa Enslaw, but you hold them off to seal victory in front of that enormous crowd. What's that feel like in those last 20 minutes to be so bloody close to the dream, but so aware that darkness can descend at any moment. Are all the emotions enhanced in the game? I mean, we were holding on for dear life, because we knew what what it would mean. But I mean, that was quite the karate kick. I'll give him that much. And I wasn't sure that he would ever come back if if we lost that. And I can we can say this now, if we had lost that game, I don't think Dennis's career or time at the club would have ever come back. That would have been it. But thankfully for him, for us, we obviously pulled it out. But I just distinctly remember looking around at everybody and saying, not even saying, but just like that look in their eyes where you could see, okay, sometimes there's anxiousness, sometimes there's worry, sometimes there's like, Oh, here we go. Like this is not going to end well. In that particular moment, everybody just looked each other and like, all right, let's do it. Here we are. Like just we have nothing, nothing else to lose. So it's get everybody behind the ball. If we encounter attack, great counter attack, we were very good at keeping the ball that year. We were very good at moving the ball around and creating chances. And in fact, I think we had a couple decent ones, even down to 10 men. But we could, you know, we practiced, we worked on being down to 10 men and moving the ball and playing possession in our training sessions. So, you know, we knew that we could hold out. It was just a matter of, you know, could we hold out for long enough? Could we hold out for the 25 minutes? Obviously, like you said, the 70th minute, but then there was going to be five to six minutes extra. But yeah, it was confidence. You could just see the confidence in guys. And I remember the one tackle that I remember from that game. And I actually just I watched this not long ago was Ali Norwood's tackle in the box where you think if he doesn't get that right, Connor, who her hand probably puts the ball in the back of the net. And that tackle actually put Connor out. It hurt your, his ankle or his knee, the tackle was that strong. But if he doesn't get it right, he either puts it in the back of that or it's a penalty. And I thought at that moment, all right, we're not breaking down here. Norwood gave himself so that Fulham could live. Why are we watching it? We just bored one night and thought, you know what, I'll give myself a bit of a Tim Reem, great memories. No, it was, I think they were, they were replaying it on on Sky not not too long ago because of the playoff starting. So they they'll replay these games, you know, periodically throughout throughout the course of the season. And as it's coming to play off time, they replay the games as well. And you just casually leave it on for your kids. Oh, is that that? Is that that? Yeah, that's exactly it. They're like, Oh, dad, you played in this one, right? Yeah, let's let's put it on. And so you do you put it on and you reminisce and you know, think about and watch some of the things that happen and some of the things you just completely forget and others you're like, I mean, I remember it clear as day, you know, the kind of order of events and how it all how it all happened. You played World Cup Games, Tim, you played in the global spotlight. The spotlight here, the stakes, how does this game compare? How do you contextualize it for us? It's a little bit different. Obviously, you go to a World Cup and a World Cup is something that as kids, we dream of playing it. It's a dream to represent your country, but it's a dream to represent your country at the very highest level. This game is is you have other dreams, right? And club is is very much you're with these guys who you have this every day you're you're in you're almost with them more than than your family, some weeks, and you have this this created, you know, culture, this bomb, this, this same kind of end goal. And to be able to go through something like that with with a team that you know, you're seeing every day that that become this this really tight knit kind of family, you know, it's it's different than meeting up with a national team and going to a World Cup. I wouldn't say one is better than the other. They're just they're they're different. You know, you have this connection of being American and going to a World Cup and representing a country and playing for a crest and listening to a national anthem. And then you have this other this other team, this club, this this kind of family unit that you're you're going through hell. You're going through thick and thin, you know, over the course of a 10 month season. But also it's a I'm not I'm not money motivated, but it is a life kind of a life-changing, you know, situation. It's a life-changing game. So without the final whistle, you're physically shattered. You were overwhelmed by a sense of achievement. The trophy lift, truly an amazing accomplishment. You're all back in the big time. But at the same time, you know, as you look around that squad, not everyone will be part of that all. There's a ton of lone players who power almost every championship team for you guys, including Mitrovich, then a Newcastle player, Matt Target, then of Southampton, as well as championship caliber players who will be sold. Is it also a sense of doubt? Transition is about to occur. Transition brings uncertainty that you'll all be part of the way who've just made it to the Premier League. Yeah, there is that there's there's that feeling that, you know, there's going to be a lot of change. I think with the way that things have gone over the past probably 10 years that clubs have to change, they have to add, they have to subtract to add and players get pushed to the side and moved on to to bring in other players to try to compete at the Premier League level. And so in that moment, I didn't think about it too much, but over the coming, you know, couple of days after that, you know, you think about, okay, this guy's on loan, he's going to be going. This guy's on loan, he's going to be going. We've had conversations amongst the team that they want this this one to come back where they want this one to come back. But some guys are out of contract and moving on. And so yeah, you you you you appreciate again, kind of what you've gone through as a as a group, because you also realize that it doesn't happen. It's hard to get promoted. It's so hard to get promoted. It's hard to be promoted twice. Three times is it's crazy to think of. And so, you know, when when guys and the team kind of separates and new pieces come in and older pieces, you know, leave and there's there's just kind of this this change. And you do you come to appreciate maybe a little bit too much after the fact, you know, what what you had as a group. But you do realize that you're all connected in a way you're connected through promotion through through taking a club from one division to the top division and putting them in a better place for the future. Subsequent season Premier League, not one for the books, three managers at the club, 19th place, relegation right back into the championship, Tim, stay with me at ends. Well, you know, you're back there. You end fourth playoffs, not promotion, but life. This was COVID football. So 368 days after the season had begun, you made it back to the playoffs. Beat Cardiff, a back at Wembley, a West London Derby with then still unfashionable sleeper team Brentford played behind closed doors. But it's still Wembley, still soaked in law, goalless 90 minutes. And I mentioned, what's it like as a defender down the stretch, high stakes, one mistake can end it. Do you get more confident, more resilient or more fearful? I get more confident. You may as well not fear there. There's nothing really to fear. I mean, you've done it before. That was a very strange game. You know, we've we've done it a couple ways. I think I've done it every way possible now with fans without fans and automatic and and that one was was the strangest of all the fact that you could hear yourself speak inside Wembley for a playoff final. But I enjoy the pressure. I think it's it brings out the best in in me personally. But I mean, what's what is there to fear? You're either going to win or you're going to lose at the end of the day. So, you know, obviously we didn't we didn't want to lose, but you know, you can't win everything. And so for me, it was like, let's just go. Let's just let's just see what we can do. And you know, it's it's a London Derby in Wembley. It's just a shame that it wasn't with the fans because I think it would have been even crazier with, you know, that that second time around than it was the first time you head into extra time. But it does any part of you start to dread penalty shootouts at all, even though you did the very possibility you let as a play like, Oh crap. Yeah, listen, like not to cut you off, but the penalties are just penalties have to be the worst way to decide again. And maybe maybe it's because I like I don't enjoy them personally, but I don't I don't know anybody who would who would prefer to do penalties over or just keep keep playing and see who falls down and can't run anymore and you're crawling and just heading up all over the line at the end of it. Just keep playing on those bleeding stump slugs. It is it's a it's a hard one to take because at at that point, you're again, you're relying on not 11 guys, you're relying on on a shooter and a goalkeeper. 5 1 1 1. Really? You're relying on your goalkeeper and not that you can't be confident in them, but the advantages to the taker. Let's be real. I think we all know that due prep penalties in the run up to these things. Oh yeah. Personally, the team have a sense of who will take them. Yeah, we we practice them. I think we practice them every every single day. So those 10 obviously the 10 days between the semi final second leg and the playoff final. We practice them every day. What's a Tim Reed penalty technique? No, I can't say that all out. He won't, but I can. It's a penneker every time it's a penneker. I don't have them for that. I don't have no way. I don't have the finesse. He's bluffing. I have finesse. I do have finesse. Don't go. I know, but no, I don't have the finesse for that. I don't have not my locker. It did not go to penalties. Joe Bryan, now alone at least, netted twice, hundred and fifth, hundred and seventeenth minute. And at the close, in this one, fanless football, no journey up to the stands to the Royal Box. The players received the trophy on the field, just ecstatic in front of 90,000 empty seats. Teary-eyed Scott Parker in one of his singular puffy Taylor jacket combos, talked about the psychological misery of the past year, just the mindset, the mentality of the players. The truth is, it's a weird thing. Let's be candid. I think I have a full mug from this victory, a coffee mug. If the full on players jumping up the trophy, there's the streamers. But you didn't actually win anything. You didn't come first. You didn't even come second. It's a very weird thing to get a trophy. It is strange, yeah, because you think, okay, you've won a mini tournament, right? But at the end of the day, you've actually come third. But you could have been six place and you've come third. It's strange. But I guess they've got to give something, right? They've got to give something for the winners. Coffee mugs themselves. We need closure. We need closure to the job. But when you do look at that trophy, when you do lift that trophy, what does it symbolise to you? Can you put it into words as a competitor who sets goals for himself once to win things? And you didn't win the championship. You didn't get automatic promotion. But bollocks to all of that, you got what you set out to do on day one. When you look at that trophy team, when you lift it, what do you experience? As players, we all want to win trophies. And I know we just joked about it being a strange situation to come third and get a trophy. But that can't be taken away. It's a trophy given. It's a trophy earned. It's a trophy won. Not everyone wins trophies. This is the way we're going to put it. Not everybody gets the opportunity to win a trophy. Not everyone gets an opportunity to win a tournament. Not everybody gets an opportunity to be promoted. And it's hard. It's difficult. It's grueling. And at the end of it, we're there to win trophies. That's what we want to do. So to be able to win that, it's a symbol of all the hard work that was put into the season. But also, it's a symbol of, OK, you've now taken another step. It's a step into the Premier League. You've stepped through the door. And now what's next and what is to come. And for me, that's what it is. It's a step into the next level. But it's also the lives have changed in that moment. Listen, a lot changes. I remember that the villain game I actually was in tears. Hugging the manager, Slavisa. And you realized that you've changed a little bit as a person. You've learned things over the course of the season. You've grown. You've been knocked down. You've gotten back up. Things didn't always go to plan. Things didn't always work out. But it was just a hard couple seasons. And it's always a hard season to get through that. And to know at the end of it, you've reached your goal. You've grabbed it. You've taken it in. It's an important step. It's an important game. It's an important moment in a career. And that's what it was for me. Tim, we are about to watch Coventry face off against Luton Town in this weekend's final. Incredible stories, both romantic, unexpected. And you've been in two of these species, these finals. What would your advice be about the unique specifics, the experience of the game to both hatters and sky blue players listening? I think the biggest thing is take every little bit in. And this will obviously come from a non-playing standpoint. But the befores, the afters, whether it's good or bad, take it all in because you don't know when you're going to be back there again. Look at everything. Enjoy the moment. Embrace the moment because at the end of the day, you don't want to have regrets. Just go for it. Don't be scared. Don't be afraid because as soon as you think, OK, this moment's too big, you've lost. Enjoy it. Embrace it. And who knows? One of them will be obviously playing in the Premier League next year, which is crazy to think considering where the two have come from over the over the past five years. Tim Raim, to you, to Fulham, to your healing. And my Everton, please Lord, be in the championship playoff next season. I'd bite your arm off for that, to be honest. Big, big love. Thank you. Thanks, Raj. Carriage. At Tim Raim Panenka, I'm going to keep working on making that happen, America. Do not fear. Until then, roll on Saturday for this championship playoff final, which you can watch May 27th, noon Eastern time ESPN plus sign up. How? By going to ESPN plus dot com slash G F O P slash G F O P. And remember, it's not the only English football league class with promotion at state that you can save her on ESPN plus also your home to watch the drama unfold for all promotion. Gripple Grapples this weekend lead to final Carlisle versus Stockport madness. Sunday, May 28th, 8th, Eastern time, bonds, leave versus Sheffield, went in at one for regional rumble. Monday, May 29th, 10 a.m. Eastern time. We will be back tomorrow with another episode of Vamos with my mate Hercules Gomez, a special, beautiful interview with Fay and order Mexican scoring sensation. Santi Jimenez, do not miss it. Until then, next time did your FOP's workout, who you supporting on Saturday? Sophie's choice of football. Honestly, save at every moment, as Tim Reem would tell you, says Rodge, send you big love and courage. Hey, prime members, you can listen to Men in Blazers ad three on Amazon music, download the Amazon music app today. Or you can listen ad three with Wonder E plus in Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wonderry.com slash survey.