Hello Rank Squad!

It's time for Champions League Takeaway, your midnight feast of Champions League content after the main meal was served up on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights by the new 36-team competition.

We start with Tueday's games, opening on Aston Villa's already-famous win over Bayern Munich, where Unai Emery hurt Bayern again, and we saw a repeat scoreline of the 1982 European Cup final, only this time with Jhon Duran the man of the moment. Then we discuss losses for both of the Madrid sides - Real Madrid to Lille for their first loss in 36 games, and Atleti's dismemberment at the hands of a newly-resurgent Benfica.

Next, it's to Anfield to look at Liverpool's 8th win in 9 games under Arne Slot - this time a 2-0 win over a stubborn Bologna, and then on to Germany, where 10-man Juventus proved their mettle with a 3-2 comeback win in Leipzig. We round up the rest of Tuesday's action by peeking at Dinamo Zagreb's 2-2 draw with Monaco, Christos Tzolis' stunner leading Club Brugge to a 1-0 win over Sturm Graz, an absolutely ludicrous encounter between Girona and Feyenoord that ended 3-2 to the visitors, and Atalanta's comfortable win over Shakhtar Donetsk.

Then in Part Two, we're onto Tuesday's action, which begins with a look at Arsenal's weirdly comfortable 2-0 win over a very pedestrian PSG at the Emirates, then onto Dortmund's 7-1 dismantling of Celtic and their early optimism in the competition, Leverkusen's hard-nosed 1-0 win over AC Milan at the BayArena, and Barcelona's almost picture-perfect night as they beat Young Boys 5-0 in Catalunya.

We finish with a roundup of the rest of the Tuesday games - Manchester City going to Slovakia and strolling to a 4-0 win over Slovan Bratislava that saw their academy players come to the fore, a brilliant game between the Dutch and Portuguese Champions as PSV and Sporting played out a 1-1 draw, Brest's brilliant start continuing with a 4-0 thrashing of Salzburg away from home, Inter's rout of Crvena Zvezda in Milan, and a hard-fought draw between Stuttgart and Sparta Prague.

It's Ranks!

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?

Hello Rank Squad!

In the wake of the injury to Rodri that looks set to keep him out for the majority of the season, it got us thinking about a topic that's been a bit of a Ranks staple down the years - who is the most important player for a variety of teams across Europe?

We start in the Premier League, examining options for Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool, before turning our attention to the continent to discuss the contenders for that crown for PSG, Milan, Inter, Juventus, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich.

There's plenty of debate across almost every club, which is natural for a topic as subjective as this one, but we dive deep into the options as we try and work out not who is the best player at each of these European giants, but who is the one that they simply could not live without.

It's Ranks!

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?

It's time for The Truth!

Sam Tighe and Dougie Critchley take a look back through the annals of history to analyse the career of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and ask the question - was he a world class striker in the pantheons of the all-time greats, or just an excellent player in his day?

Zlatan has long divided opinion, even in a world before the hyper-sensationalisation of social media that we see today. From dancing through players on his debut, scoring some of the best goals that the game has ever seen, referring to himself exclusively in the third person, needing to be the lightning rod for whichever team he played for, and constant references to lions and gods, there is no denying the man was pure entertainment. But entertaining and being one of the greats are two different things.

So is Zlatan right up there with the greatest ever to play the game? Or was his own perception of himself bigger than his legacy on the pitch?

The Truth is somewhere in the middle...

Hosts: Sam Tighe & Dougie Critchley
Production & Editing: Jack Collins
Studio Recording: Footwork Media

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?