Nessun Dorma Retro Football Podcast

Welcome to the inaugural Nessun Dorma Draft, in which we each pick an XI from a particular tournament, season or era. Given the name of our podcast, we had to start with a trip back to Italia 90. Martyn, Gary and Rob are joined by Mac Millings to pick their XIs from a tournament full of superstars. These are the rules: 1. Each player can only be picked by one person. When Andy Brehme has gone, he’...

In the last episode of our Euro 88 special, Martyn, Gary and Rob are joined by Jonathan O’Brien to discuss the final in Munich and the tournament as a whole. They look at whether the suspended Oleg Kuznetsov would have changed the game, why we remember the Netherlands so fondly and whether a goal as extraordinary as Marco van Basten’s can create the illusion of inevitability. This is a public epis...

Both Euro 88 semi-finals were intriguing culture clashes. The first match, in Hamburg, was loaded with historical significance. West Germany v Netherlands evoked the 1974 World Cup final and even the second world war. A good (if slightly overrated) match had a savage late twist that went straight into European Championship folklore. USSR v Italy did not have the same mutual enmity, but they were a...

By the final round of group games, Euro 88 was effectively a six-team tournament. Denmark and England were already eliminated and barely had any pride left to play for. Group A was concluded with simultaneous games on Friday night, just a week – and a lifetime – after the tournament had begun. The hosts West Germany played Spain in Munich, with the likelihood that the semi-finals wouldn’t be big e...

Euro 88 was only four days old when the second of group games began, but our old friend jeopardy was already running amok. After a nervous start, the hosts West Germany took on an ailing Denmark in Gelsenkirchen. A few hours later, also in Group A, Italy met Spain in what was felt like a de facto quarter-final. Then, on Wednesday afternoon, we rushed home from school (or, in Gary’s case, grabbed a...

Our look back at Euro 88 continues with the first round of group games. On Friday 10 June 1988, the tournament kicked off with a tense match between West Germany, the hosts and favourites, and a vibrant young Italian side. The other Group A game took place the following afternoon, a thrilling if slightly shambolic contest between Denmark and Spain. There were five goals and a fair bit of controver...

A new series of Nessun Dorma starts with the first part of our deep dive into Euro 88, the last major tournament in Europe before the big bang of Italia 90. Martyn Ramsay, Gary Naylor and Rob Smyth set the scene for a much anticipated tournament. “Whatever happens,” wrote David Lacey in his preview for the Guardian, “the 1988 European Championship should set new standards on the field.” Martyn, Ga...

Nessun Dorma returns from hibernation for a one-off special ahead of the World Cup, and a deep dive into one of the greatest matches in its storied history: the Espana 82 semi-final between West Germany and Germany. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nessundorma.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Vis...

Lee, Mike and Gary pick a couple of goals each from the legendary BBC VHS This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nessundorma.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gary Naylor chats to Tom Whitworth about his book, When the Seagulls Follow the Trawler: Football in the 90s. They get into the thrills and spills of a tumultuous decade that included the founding of the Premier League, the transformation of stadiums and Gareth Southgate disappointing us in a penalty shoot-out. Tom spoke to plenty of those who were there to witness and, indeed, to instigate the ch...

We're back for another Extra Time and with the rescheduled Euro 2020 on the way, Mike has a chat with the author of the definitive history of the tournament. Jonathan O'Brien is an editor and writer for the Business Post in Ireland, and has written the recently published Euro Summits: The Story of the UEFA European Championship 1960 to 2016. Mike and Jonathan chew the fat over the writing of the b...

Our Gary talks to the much loved Pat Nevin about his new memoir, The Accidental Footballer, already a bestseller. En route, we hear about Tommy Tuchel and the alchemy of football management, why it really was better growing up on cinder pitches in the 70s and what it was like on the other side of the whitewash when Everton played Liverpool in the 1989 FA Cup Final. And why Gary thought Pat was lyi...

It’s a shift in focus in this episode as Nessun Dorma takes a look at the bottom half of the Premier League table, and the extraordinary denouement of the 1993-94 season. Gary, Mike and special guest Scott Murray pick over the bones of a dramatic final day scrap, with five teams fighting to avoid the two remaining passes through the trap door and into Division 1.Gary reflects on a remarkable comeb...

We’re back with another Extra Time, our little offshoot that takes a broader look around the world of football culture. This week our guest is David Hartrick – publisher, podcaster and author of a fantastic new book, Silver Linings: Bobby Robson’s England. Mike sits down with David for an extended chat about the writing of the book, and an overview of Robson’s time in charge of the national side d...

25 years after that night at Anfield; Lee, Mike and special guest Scott Murray consider Keegan, Evans, Collymore closing in and all the other kamikaze football that formed perhaps the greatest match of our lifetimes. We reflect on the match's impact on the title race as well as our personal remembrances alongside an almost minute by minute admiration of the sheer quality on show. As usual we also...

Having looked at the Villa players individually, Lee, Gary and Mike return to discuss what they achieved collectively. The hors d’oeuvre is Villa’s first league title in 71 years, achieved after a Homeric tussle through the 1980-81 season with Bobby Robson’s Ipswich and using just 14(!) players. Follow that, as they say, and oh boy, did they. Villa then won the European Cup at the first time of as...

Once upon a time in the Midlands, there was a moneyball miracle. Come and join Lee, Gary and Mike as they travel all the way back to 1980, one of the outer markers of the Nessun Dorma time period, to look at Aston Villa’s epic achievements at the start of that decade. In part one we take a look at how that team was assembled by manager Ron Saunders, running the rule over players like Allan Evans,...

In 1983, Ajax decided not to renew the contract of Johan Cruyff, reasoning he was past it at the age of 36. So Cruyff, in the highest possible dudgeon, signed for their bitter rivals Feyenoord – and then won the Double with them, despite an 8-2 defeat at Ajax along the way. Rob talks to Andy Bollen, author of Fierce Genius, about that extraordinary final season and what it tells us about one of th...

In Part Two, Keegan goes into full Keegan mode, with the smiles broad as England take a 2-0 lead against Portugal in their first group match. The panel reflect on why David Beckham was right in his belief that it was a precarious lead as Portugal eventually cruised to an easier victory than the 2-3 scoreline suggests. After a 1-0 win over a ponderous Germany in which Keegan’s lack of tactical nous...

Kevin Keegan - England manager? What a loser! Lee, Rob and Gary unwrap that reductive statement and conclude that while Joseph Kevin Keegan may have lost, he was no loser. In Part One, the initial focus is on the optimism that beamed out of little KK, striding out at Wembley in the sunshine, basking in the love of a capacity crowd, Poland seen off in a Euro 2000 qualifier, a Paul Scholes hat-trick...

Gary, Rob and Mike are back to discuss the transformation of Arsenal during Arsène Wenger’s first full season. We take an in-depth look at two Premier League classics, as Arsenal chin Manchester United home and away. The latter of those at Old Trafford was part of one of the most Homeric runs in English football history, as Arsenal went unbeaten from Boxing Day 1997 until 3 May 1998 to rip the lea...

Arsène? Who could ever forget him. Yet in September 1996 Arsène Charles Ernest Wenger was a relative unknown in the UK when he left Nagoya Grampus Eight in Japan to take charge of Arsenal. Gary, Rob and Mike discuss his early impact at the club, from broccoli to booze restrictions and how boring, boring Arsenal would eventually become breathtaking. We then take in the early part of their 1997-98 s...

We’ve arrived at the last eight in France, and Gary, Rob and Mike have much to discuss. Settle in for a chat about two of the greatest World Cup matches of the modern era, one of the most celebrated goals in the history of the tournament, the bombshell story that broke just before the final and a Petit goal that’s anything but. We also reflect on the tournament as a whole, picking our favourite mo...

That isn’t a misprint – we really have spun the thick end of two hours out of one round of World Cup football. Gary, Rob and Mike return for a review of the last 16 in France. We look at a devastating performance by Ronaldo, the World Cup’s first ever golden goal and there’s an extended segment on an epic tussle between England and Argentina that goes on almost as long as the game itself. Around t...

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, then you're Nessun Dorma's target demographic. We're back, and to open season four we're focusing on the last World Cup of the twentieth century. Part 1 of our review of France 98 takes in the group stages - Brazil as a Nike product line, the Blanco hop, Des Lynam wondering why you're not at work, Ivan Zamorano's energetic singing, Sunday Oliseh's half-...