Ranks FC - A Football Podcast

Hello Rank Squad! We're now comfortably into the period of double international competitions, so it felt only right to do an episode that spent some time looking at what's happening on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean - picking out three big questions so far on both the Euros in Germany and the Copa America in the USA.  We start with the Euros, where we're discussing whether we think Spain are the...

Hello Rank Squad!  By the time you're listening to this, every single team in Euro 2024 would have played, and we asked our ever-brilliant Patrons for the questions to help shape an episode around what we've learned so far in the tournament.  We kick things off by discussing Kylian Mbappé's broken nose in the France-Austria game, how many games he will miss, and if it opens up an opportunity for y...

Hello Rank Squad! After last week's European Championship preview shows, we've taken a plane across the Atlantic Ocean to take you on a whistlestop guide to the teams at this summer's Copa America, which will be taking place across the United States.  We examine each of the 16 teams in the competition, their chances of getting out of the groups (and going all the way), and how we think everyone is...

Hello Rank Squad! It's time to get stuck into this summer's international football, so here's the last in our series of Euro 2024 Preview Shows! We begin today with Group E, which includes Belgium's first tournament under a new head coach, Ukraine's Girona-powered attack, Slovakia's impressive left-hand side, and Romania's youth-injected underdogs.  Then it's onwards in Part Two to discuss the las...

Hello Rank Squad! It's time to get stuck into this summer's international football, so here's the second of our series of Euro 2024 Preview Shows! We start with Group C, which include England's Three Lions who got to the final of the last tournament, a pessimistic Serbia looking for a bright end to a talented core, an ageing Denmark side who have opted for experience over change, and underdogs Slo...

Hello Rank Squad! It's time to get stuck into this summer's international football, so we're kicking things off ahead of the Euros with less than 10 days to go until the first game gets underway. We start with Group A, which include hosts Germany, the Tartan Army of Scotland,  wily old Switzerland, and dark horses Hungary.  Then it's onwards in Part Two to discuss holders Italy, perennial challeng...

Hello Rank Squad! It's that time of the year again - the club football finale in Europe, as the Champions League Final is upon us. This year's showpiece event is at Wembley, between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, and we're here to break it all down for you.  We start by picking out three reasons why each should be optimistic about winning this final - Dean (as usual) goes in to bat for Real Ma...

Hello Rank Squad!  We thought it was a good time to put together our End of Season Awards Show, so here we are. We take some time to reflect on an incredible campaign, and discuss which players are in the running for our Player of the Season, Rising Star, Most Improved Player, Resurgence of the Year, Goal of the Season, Team of the Season, and Melon Team of the Season for good measure - looking ac...

Hello Rank Squad! The domestic club season is drawing to a close. The continental league titles have mostly already been lifted, the Premier League title will be decided this weekend, and whilst there are still some important bits to figure out - the European continental competitions, the domestic cup finals, the fights for survival and the locking in of next season's European places - the season...

Hello Rank Squad!  Champions League Takeaway is back to take a look at the second legs of the UCL semi-finals, where we saw Real Madrid beat Bayern Munich 2-1 and Borussia Dortmund win 1-0 in Paris to set up a clash of Yellow and White in London next month!  We start with Wednesday’s action, with Real Madrid's late, late show yet again to beat out Bayern and send the Bernabeu wild. Dean waxes lyri...

Hello Rank Squad!  It's time to go Continental for this week's episode, building a European Team of the Season from the big six leagues on the European mainland. There were a few more teams, players and contenders to analyse compared to last week's Premier League edition, so it's a dig into the depths for Jack to try and build something special from this season's standout stars.  We take a look ac...

Hello Rank Squad! Champions League Takeaway is back to take a look at the first legs of the UCL semi-finals, where we saw Borussia Dortmund 1-0 PSG & Bayern Munich 2-2 Real Madrid.  We start with Wednesday’s action, with Dortmund's win. Dean showers some love on Jadon Sancho, who dazzled down the right hand side for Borussia Dortmund - this is the man we loved the last time he was in the Bundeslig...

Hello Rank Squad! You've seen the debates raging on Twitter, so we thought it was worth putting our two pennies worth into the mix. Here is our attempt at creating our Premier League Team of the Season, examining the best players across the course of this campaign and working them into a formation (and a unit) that would actually function.  We start between the sticks and work our way through to o...

Hello Rank Squad!  Just four teams remain in each of the UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, and so we thought we'd get our competition ranking caps on to discuss which teams are favourites to lift those trophies in their respective competitions at the end of May and the start of June.  We start with the Champions League, with Dean examining Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Pari...

Hello Rank Squad! Champions League Takeaway is back to take a look at the second legs of the UCL Quarter Finals, which took place across both Tuesday and Wednesday nights.   We start with Wednesday’s action, looking at Real Madrid's defeat of Manchester City on penalties - discussing how City fans shouldn't be too disheartened with what was a dominant performance, how Jude Bellingham has a perfect...

Hello Rank Squad!  After Cole Palmer's star turn on Monday night against Everton, we got thinking about the players who have used this season as a platform to thrust themselves into the spotlight, and become some of the star names in their respective leagues.  We start in the Premier League, where Dean has a ranking of his three breakout stars - a flying fullback at Liverpool, Manchester United's...

Hello Rank Squad! Champions League Takeaway is back to take a look at the first legs of the UCL Quarter Finals, which took place across both Tuesday and Wednesday nights.   We start with Wednesday’s action, looking at Barcelona's topsy-turvy win over PSG - discussing how both managers were able to influence the game with their substitutions, the strange nature of PSG's struggle at defending set pi...

Hello Rank Squad!  The talk of the football world right now seems to be the fact that Liverpool are reportedly closing in on their next manager - Rúben Amorim of Sporting CP, who became the leading candidate once Xabi Alonso made it clear that he planned on remaining at Bayer Leverkusen for at least one more season.  Amorim is a young coach with a high pedigree, and someone we talked about a littl...

Hello Rank Squad! Something a little bit different today, and we hope you'll find it as fun a listen as we found it to record. Dean put together a list of seven potential rule changes that he thought could improve the game of football immediately - we discussed everything from stopped clocks to goalkeeping handballs over the course of a manic main ranking.  We also took some suggestions from our b...

Hello Rank Squad! It's time for us once again to turn to a positional ranking - having covered the best centre-backs and centre-midfielders in the game, we're switching our attention to wingers, wide forwards and those stars who shine the brightest on the flanks.  Again, we'll be splitting it into categories - this time shearing the ranking down the lines of those who play on the right and the lef...

Hello Rank Squad! It's time for the weekly excerpt from our Monday Postbox episode on Patreon, where we take questions from our community to look back across all the action from the weekend just gone.  This is the segment on the USMNT's 2-0 victory over Mexico in the final of the CONCACAF Nations League, marking three times in a row that Gregg Berhalter's side have won the competition - with a per...

Hello Rank Squad! And...breathe. After the drama of the last few weeks across so many different competitions, men's club football has come screeching to a halt for the last international break of this season, which gives us a chance to take stock and examine all the drama to come.  Let's be real - there's so much drama to come. We've picked out five different elements that we think could provide t...

Hello Rank Squad! It's time for the weekly excerpt from our Monday Postbox episode on Patreon, where we take questions from our community to look back across all the action from the weekend just gone.  This is the segment on Manchester United's win over Liverpool in the FA Cup on Sunday, with Erik ten Hag's side coming from behind in extra time to end Jurgen Klopp's farewell quadruple dream - ther...

Hello Rank Squad! Champions League Takeaway is back with a bang, as we take a look at the last four games of the Round of 16 stage, which took place across both Tuesday and Wednesday nights.   We start with Wednesday’s action, looking at Atletico Madrid's defeat of Inter on penalties - discussing how much braver Atléti were in possession today, why it's a shame that one of these two sides had to e...

Hello Rank Squad! It's a Champions League week, so we thought it could be fun to throw up something a bit more evergreen whilst still linking into the action, so we're here to rank our favourites of a very exclusive list.  We walk through the top 20 goal scorers in European Cup & Champions League History - which Erling Haaland has just catapulted himself into - and each pick out our three favourit...