Bah Gawd! That's Bayern's Music!

This week: Easter football, Champions League clues & NEC Nijmegen

One of the glorious things about football in this country is that Easter brings two quickfire slates of games: one on Good Friday, then another on Easter Monday. I spent Monday at Vicarage Road where I saw Watford and Charlton each score a cracking goal in a 1-1 draw, met some...interesting people in the world of football, and was asked if I'd consider ghostwriting the autobiography of a man who I'd met 10 minutes beforehand.

That's English football for you.

For many, the Champions League actually, truly, finally began this week, as the quarter-finals ensued. I joined Gab Marcotti, Julien Laurens and Mark Ogden to form an ESPN panel discussion on the big talking points from the games.

Stick or sack? Slot’s Liverpool future dominates UCL talking points

Was Wednesday’s 2-0 loss Liverpool’s worst performance under Arne Slot? ESPN’s Mark Ogden, Julien Laurens, Gab Marcotti and Sam Tighe weigh in on that and all the other moments that mattered from the UCL quarterfinal first legs.

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One of the above talking points centred around how good Bayern Munich look (and have looked for most of this season). Dougie Critchley & I then dove deep into that subject for this week's episode of The Truth podcast, analysing why they're so good, and asking if they were the team to beat (PSG may have something to say about that soon).

If you prefer audio only, listen here.

The Premier League have launched an official archive. It offers highlights for every game since the division's inception in 1992, often in 3-, 8- and 20-minute variants (plus a bunch of selected full 90s).

This is both a) phenomenal and b) terrible, because there's a distinct chance you will now load up some highlights of a game 20 years ago, featuring players you remember fondly, and realise...they were pretty terrible by today's standards.

I've done this with Martin Laursen already, so please! Tread With Extreme Caution.

This weekend should be bags of fun for me, as I'm hopping over to the Netherlands to watch NEC Nijmegen vs Feyenoord in the Eredivisie.

NEC are on the cusp of their most successful ever season; if they win they'll leapfrog Feyenoord into second place (an automatic Champions League spot) in the table and they have a cup final the following weekend.

Stay tuned for an ESPN feature on them, exploring the rise of this modest club, with a 12,500-seater stadium located in a forest, thanks to an all-out attack, borderline-kamikaze playing style!

Thanks for reading!