For Our Sins: The Clichés Pod Archive

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey, Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker present a new monthly edition of Mesut Haaland Dicks, in which the pod's army of listeners nominate their niche footballing fascinations and irritations. Among the Football Clichés faithful's selections are one very specific pass out from the back by a centre-back, international teams with just one world-class player, the tiny aesthet...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and Nick Miller for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda this time: the technicalities of England's hotly-disputed open-play goal drought, darts taking the concept of "the 12th man" to an unprecedented new level, "acres of time" and the language of footballing spaces and some reassuringly universal-sounding Welsh co-commentary. Meanwhile,...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker to select a lineup of players who made some unexpected, barely-computable stops in their careers. From goalkeepers who just couldn't quit, to graceful midfielders who were thrust into unenviable engine rooms and elite-level strikers who looked very odd in another club's shirt...these are the transfers that just sound so wr...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda this week: a stock-take of the remaining Erling Haaland superlatives, commentators who greet certain goals with the words "AND HOW!", the maximum range a goalscorer can "give the goalkeeper the eyes" from and a delightfully subtle corruption of the old classic "hairdryer treatment"...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for the Adjudication Panel. The latest agenda includes: the grim reality of what would be the Premier League All-Star game, whether "minimal backlift" is actually a thing or not, the practicalities of being a proverbial half-time fly on a dressing-room wall and the difference between midweek "exploits" and "exertions". Mea...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda this week: the NFL embraces the "cold, wet night in Stoke", alarming reports of ball plinths in the seventh tier, a comprehensive preview of San Marino's no-love-lost showdown with Seychelles, and the Premier League table of club badges. Meanwhile, the panel gracefully accept Adam'...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and Jack Pitt-Brooke for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda this week: dusting off the "Sacked Chelsea Manager discourse" phrasebook, David Beckham's latest Qatar tourism promo, Martin Keown's decade-long fixation with botanical co-commentary and details of the podcast's forthcoming UK & Ireland tour. Meanwhile, the panel argue over...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda this week: players who deserve to have their names used as footballing verbs, Tony Pulis' apparently exclusive phrase of "leg beaters", some alarming US TV co-commentary from Lee Dixon and an unexpected debate about "unanswered goals". Meanwhile, the panel get stuck into a bumper e...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey and Charlie Eccleshare are joined for the latest edition of Mesut Haaland Dicks by Rory Smith, chief soccer correspondent of the New York Times and author of the new book Expected Goals: The story of how data conquered football and changed the game forever. Among Rory's selections for his footballing fascinations and irritations are Premier League advertising hoardings f...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda this week: Whether or now away ends can "suck the ball into the net", a very curious usage of "rolling back the years", identifying the most "Crisis? What crisis?" team in the Premier League and an analysis of the footballing phrase "Johnny on the spot". Meanwhile, the panel decide...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and Jack Pitt-Brooke for a stock-take of all 20 Premier League clubs' transfer market identities: which precise sort of player encapsulates their transfer window habits in the modern era? And who is the most Club X player never to have signed for Club X? This journey through the transfer window and beyond includes: the England Under-21s of...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda this week: the most expensive footballer of all time not to have a Wikipedia photo, a Portuguese twist on the old "six-pointer", corners being "wazzed" in, penalties being "lashed in", and some very curious half-and-half scarves at the King Power Stadium. Meanwhile, the panel try a...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and James Maw for a journey deep into the ego of the Premier League. After 30 years of its self-declaration as the greatest - and hardest - league in the world, with its own physical, psychological and moral standards, the panel compile a lineup of players who have been tested the most by the Premier League's unique demands. From a symboli...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey is joined by Charlie Eccleshare and Nick Miller for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda this week: Conor Coady breaks the "football club" world record for his Everton unveiling, the harmless but inappropriate theme tune for ITV's EFL highlights, some textbook Peter Drury at Brentford and why goalkeepers' saves are like sausages. Meanwhile, the panel examine whether a p...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey and Charlie Eccleshare are joined by football writer, broadcaster and sociologist David Goldblatt for the latest edition of Mesut Haaland Dicks. Among David's selections for his footballing fascinations and irritations are the various emotional states of the average ball boy, the enduring presence of the word "gaffer" in British football, the decline of the football radi...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey, Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker gather for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda this week: Every layer of the backlash to the news that the BBC Radio 5 Live have scrapped the classified results after 70 years, the difference between "cat and mouse" and a "game of chess" and when to use either in relation to a football game and David Seaman at the National Cat Award...

The Football Clichés Quiz returns ahead of the new season. Reigning champion James Maw aims to become the first to retain the title as he takes on challenger Michael Cox across five rounds of niche footballing knowledge, including YouTube football compilations, Guess the football men from their introductory videos on Cameo, the potential Charlies of Bournemouth and, once again, Premier League shir...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey, Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker form the Adjudication Panel once again. On the agenda this week: the mandatory elements of the Lionesses' Euro 2022 glory, some scandalous kitspeak from Fulham, new twists on the "cold night in Stoke" concept and the most footballery description of a wedding of all time. Meanwhile, the panel discuss the difference between a "pass" and...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey, Charlie Eccleshare and David Walker are reunited for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda this week: the footballing implications of the phrase "whisper it (quietly) but...", the Big Premier League "Manager or Head Coach" Quiz for 2022-23, the slightly fictional-sounding ex-Serie A journeyman now playing in the tenth tier of English football and the definitive "breath...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey, David Walker and Nick Miller gather for the Adjudication Panel. On the agenda this week: the sad demise of the football/politics analogy, the sensational story arc of William "Worst Miss of All Time" Akio, Lisandro Martinez - the last remaining footballing "butcher", this week's Transfer That Just Sounds So Right and the most successful footballing full name of all time...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey, James Maw and debutant Ajay Rose mark 10 years since Team GB cobbled together a men's football team for London 2012, one of the most curious one-offs in modern football history, by asking: what would that team look like today? Mark Noble or no Mark Noble? What other Olympic sport should someone called "James Ward-Prowse" be competing in? And which manager would lead thi...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey, David Walker and James Maw form the latest Adjudication Panel. On the agenda: Can Denmark's Pernille Harder be Denmark's "talis...woman"? Breaking down every element of the greatest miss in football history, the definitive list of footballing "merchants", Aidy Boothroyd's new job in India, some very economical co-commentary from Mark Bright, and what it means to "meet"...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey, David Walker and Nick Miller convene for the Adjudication Panel once again. On the agenda: Champions League football coming to the BBC, the Barry Davies World Cup 2002 commentary we all thought was lost forever, Mickey Mouse leaving Disney on a free, and players who have two "unfinished business" transfers in a row. Meanwhile, the panel decide the likely football career...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey and Charlie Eccleshare are joined by Guardian Football Weekly host and former Soccer AM ace Max Rushden for the latest edition of Mesut Haaland Dicks. Among Max's selections for his footballing fascinations and irritations are unnecessarily violent Sunday League opponents, the nostalgic glory of the target man, banal football questions posed by official social media acco...

The Athletic's Adam Hurrey, Nick Miller and James Maw are on this week's Adjudication Panel. On the agenda: another blow for those who still call it "the Premiership", whether Gabriel Jesus to Arsenal counts as a "transfer coup", Marseille and Real Betis going head-to-head in...Chesterfield and the podcast's most disturbing montage yet. Meanwhile, the panel recall some iconic but long-lost comment...