Hand Of Pod

This week, Sam, English Dan, Santi and Andrés catch you up with last weekend's league action but spend the bulk of the podcast talking Libertadores, and in particular going over the eliminations of Boca Juniors, who reacted by firing Sebastián Battaglia, and River Plate, who (unsurprisingly) did not react by firing Marcelo Gallardo. Vélez Sarsfield, Talleres(!) and – confirmed after we finished recording – Estudiantes are Argentina's three representatives in the last eight, but they'll have to fight their ways past five Brazilian sides to taste glory.

After a planned week off followed by an unplanned bout of COVID for Sam which forced a second week off (hard to record a podcast when you've got a slight fever and your throat hurts too much to talk), Sam, Santi and English Dan are back – over Zoom – to look back on the four rounds of Liga Profesional action we've missed and the start of the rounds of sixteen in the Copas Libertadores and Sudamericana.

This week Sam, English Dan, Santi and Andrés look back on the opening weekend of the 2022 Liga Profesional and Racing's shocking (but not really that shocking, perhaps) Copa Argentina exit against Agropecuario Argentino. We also talk about Santi's experience last week at Wembley for Argentina v Italy and look back on Argentina's 5–0 win over Estonia, in which Lionel Messi scored all five goals, going past Ferenc Puskás in the all-time international goals list and Pelé in the all-time goals in official matches list in the process.

This week, Sam and English Dan look back on South American champions Argentina playing European champions Italy off the Wembley pitch on Wednesday night in the revived Artemio Franchi trophy match, look at the last sixteen draws of the Copas Libertadores and Sudamericana, and celebrate the fact that the long Argentine winter break is over after all of twelve days since the Copa de la Liga ended, because the Liga Profesional started a few hours before this episode was uploaded!

This week, Sam and English Dan look back on the semis and the final of the Copa de la Liga, which saw Boca Juniors lift the trophy but NOT, after all the fuss at the start of the competition about how it would count as a league title, being crowned the champions of Argentina for some very AFA reasons. We also look back (and into the present, as we were recording) on the final round of matches in the group stages of the Copas Libertadores and Sudamericana, and if you don't know how Boca did on Thursday night and whether or not they've qualified you'll want to keep listening after the end theme music.

The Copa de la Liga knockout stage has begun, and after Tuesday's two matches brought the expected home wins for Racing and Boca Juniors, who'll meet in the first semifinal on Saturday, Wednesday saw two shock results, as Argentinos Juniors outplayed Estudiantes before putting them out on spot kicks and Tigre took advantage of a howling defensive error to beat River Plate, in spite of a Puskás Award contender from Enzo Fernández. Sam, English Dan, Santi and Andrés are on hand to talk you through it all.

This week, Sam and English Dan look back on last week's action and (most of) the midweek Sudamericana and Libertadores results, as well as looking forward to this weekend's last group stage matches in the Copa de la Liga.

This week's HOP sees the return of a prodigal son, as Sam, English Dan and Andrés welcome Seba back to the studio, and it's an epic chat taking in Racing's fine form, the Estudiantes machine, racism in Argentina (including a very brief history lesson on the colonisation of Patagonia) and more.

We've got plenty of catching up to do now Sam and Dan are back from their (separate) holidays, and they're joined by Andrés, Tony and Santi to dive deep into the waters of the Copa de la Liga, including Racing's magnificent form, a surprising win for Talleres against River Plate and Independiente's deep, abiding, lustful love of a sweet, sweet draw.

This week, Sam and English Dan review the weekend of clásicos, which saw away wins for ... well, quite a lot of teams actually, including Boca Juniors over River Plate and Racing over Independiente. We then switch our attention to Thursday night's upcoming CONMEBOL WORLD CUP QUALIFYING FIGHT TO THE DEATH which, erm, actually probably won't finalise things, but Uruguay v Peru should be tremendously entertaining for the neutral all the same.