Ranks FC - A Football Podcast

Hello Rank Squad! 

Just four teams remain in each of the UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, and so we thought we'd get our competition ranking caps on to discuss which teams are favourites to lift those trophies in their respective competitions at the end of May and the start of June. 

We start with the Champions League, with Dean examining Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund as contenders to lift the most coveted prize of all amongst the European elite. Are Real Madrid unstoppable? Could Tuchel go out with a...

Hello Rank Squad!

Champions League Takeaway is back to take a look at the second legs of the UCL Quarter Finals, which took place across both Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  

We start with Wednesday’s action, looking at Real Madrid's defeat of Manchester City on penalties - discussing how City fans shouldn't be too disheartened with what was a dominant performance, how Jude Bellingham has a perfect understanding of Real Madrid's off-the-cuff nature already, and why Los Blancos are now favourites to win this whole things again; as well as Bayern's 1-0 win over Arsenal - t...

Hello Rank Squad! 

After Cole Palmer's star turn on Monday night against Everton, we got thinking about the players who have used this season as a platform to thrust themselves into the spotlight, and become some of the star names in their respective leagues. 

We start in the Premier League, where Dean has a ranking of his three breakout stars - a flying fullback at Liverpool, Manchester United's midfield metronome, and the aforementioned Chelsea sensation now joint-top of the scoring charts. 

Then it's off to Europe for Part Two, where Jack guides us on...

Hello Rank Squad!

Champions League Takeaway is back to take a look at the first legs of the UCL Quarter Finals, which took place across both Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  

We start with Wednesday’s action, looking at Barcelona's topsy-turvy win over PSG - discussing how both managers were able to influence the game with their substitutions, the strange nature of PSG's struggle at defending set pieces, and Barça's excellent mix of youth and experience starting to shine; as well as Atletico Madrid's 2-1 win over Borussia Dortmund - talking Atleti's early intensity and how...

Hello Rank Squad! 

The talk of the football world right now seems to be the fact that Liverpool are reportedly closing in on their next manager - Rúben Amorim of Sporting CP, who became the leading candidate once Xabi Alonso made it clear that he planned on remaining at Bayer Leverkusen for at least one more season. 

Amorim is a young coach with a high pedigree, and someone we talked about a little bit on our recent episode ranking young up-and-coming managers, but we wanted to go into a little bit more depth this tim...

Hello Rank Squad!

Something a little bit different today, and we hope you'll find it as fun a listen as we found it to record. Dean put together a list of seven potential rule changes that he thought could improve the game of football immediately - we discussed everything from stopped clocks to goalkeeping handballs over the course of a manic main ranking. 

We also took some suggestions from our brilliant Patreon community in part three, chatting through some of the best (and worst) suggestions that came in via our brilliant community! 

Before th...

Hello Rank Squad!

It's time for us once again to turn to a positional ranking - having covered the best centre-backs and centre-midfielders in the game, we're switching our attention to wingers, wide forwards and those stars who shine the brightest on the flanks. 

Again, we'll be splitting it into categories - this time shearing the ranking down the lines of those who play on the right and the left, and examining both with a top five and some honourable mentions. There's one particular player at the end too, who doesn't quite fit naturally into e...

Hello Rank Squad!

It's time for the weekly excerpt from our Monday Postbox episode on Patreon, where we take questions from our community to look back across all the action from the weekend just gone. 

This is the segment on the USMNT's 2-0 victory over Mexico in the final of the CONCACAF Nations League, marking three times in a row that Gregg Berhalter's side have won the competition - with a performance that was a night and day contrast from the US' struggles against Jamaica in midweek. 

We discussed what that means for th...

Hello Rank Squad!

And...breathe. After the drama of the last few weeks across so many different competitions, men's club football has come screeching to a halt for the last international break of this season, which gives us a chance to take stock and examine all the drama to come. 

Let's be real - there's so much drama to come. We've picked out five different elements that we think could provide the most heart-racing finishes to the season - starting at the top of the Premier League table, and then racing through the Champions League f...

Hello Rank Squad!

It's time for the weekly excerpt from our Monday Postbox episode on Patreon, where we take questions from our community to look back across all the action from the weekend just gone. 

This is the segment on Manchester United's win over Liverpool in the FA Cup on Sunday, with Erik ten Hag's side coming from behind in extra time to end Jurgen Klopp's farewell quadruple dream - there will be no more stops at Wembley on the Goodbye Tour. 

We discussed how important that is for Ten Hag's chances of re...