Tifo Football Podcast

Jon Mackenzie and Alex Barker are joined by Tom Williams to explore “modern” French football through the narrative of Va Va Voom, Tom’s new book… What prompted Tom to write the book? What was his process? What is the “modern history” of French football? Is Paris Saint-Germain good or bad for French football? What impact did financial crisis have on the league and its identity? Va-Va-Voom: The Mode...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Sammy Lander to explore the idea of a substitution coach and the general concept of substitutes. What does the day in a life of a substitution coach look like? What are the edges that can be found in coaching substitutes? Why do certain players succeed as substitutes? What are the things that make coaches good at making substitutes? This episode of the Tifo Football Podc...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Thom Harris to explore some of the under-the-radar coaches in La Liga and discuss their eventual career pathways… How does Michel’s fluidity at Girona work? Who are the players Girona brought in to make the difference? Can Garcia Pimienta make it at the elite level after Las Palmas? How has Ernesto Valverde’s time at Barcelona influenced people’s ideas of him? This episo...

On this bonus episode of the Tifo Football Podcast, Mike Zimmermann is joined by Alessandro De Piero. What is the most memorable moment from his Juventus career? Reliving the World Cup triumph in 2006. How is he helping to grow Serie A in the United States? What are the expectations for Italy heading into Euro 2024? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Aaron Moniz and Kees van Hemmen to revisit this season from a Manchester United perspective and explore what it was that meant we got Man United so wrong this season… How would you tell the story of Man United this season to someone who hasn’t followed it? What is the tactical reason that this season has gone so horribly wrong? Once things started going wrong… was there...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Josh Williams to explore the role that data has played in Liverpool’s revolution under owners FSG and to think about what the future of the club looks like from a data POV. How much of the success of the last decade doesn’t come without FSG’s purchase of Liverpool? When FSG arrived at the club, what were their intentions with regards using data? Why is Michael Edwards so...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Mark Carey and Liam Tharme to explore the ideas of some up and coming managers (Still, Motta, Fonseca) and to dig into the deeper question of how do we decide if a manager is *good* or not… What is Will Still’s tactical approach? What is the correlation between Thiago Motta’s deep build up with strong defensive numbers?  Why is Paolo Fonseca’s Lille so good on the ball?...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Martin Rafelt to explore the idea of patience as a category within football, particularly in relation to positional play - before then digging deeper into where football tactics is right now. What is positional play? Exploring the contradiction between “winning mentality” and “positional play”. How can impatience be bad for teams who rely on intense counter-pressing and...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Nathan Clark to reflect back on the last 6 months of Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs and look forward to the future. What has happened in the first six months of the Postecoglou era? Has anything changed with Ange Postecoglou’s tactical approach? What are the tactical weaknesses in Postecoglou’s system in the Premier League? Can Postecoglou get Spurs competing for the Premier L...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Stephen Ganavas and Llew Davies to explore what youth development looks like in the 21st Century and to give some examples of exciting up-and-coming talents in various age groups. What is the purpose of youth development? We’re seeing teams letting promising youngsters go. How bad is this for the development of players? What is Scouted Football? Most exciting players: U-...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Kris O’Hare to explore the role that psychology plays in coaching and find out more about some of Kris’s methodologies in his role as a coach/psychologist hybrid at Villarreal. How did he end up in football coaching? How many teams use this sort of approach in their coaching structure? Is it becoming more popular? What are the benefits of this approach? Are Spanish clubs...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Thomas Gronnemark to trace his career trajectory and get a better understanding of the role of throw ins within the modern game. Where did his focus on throw ins come from? How did he end up working with Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool? What does a training session look like? Where are teams lacking the most in terms of their approach to throw ins? This episode of the Tifo Fo...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Abel Meszaros and Danny Corcoran to explore the idea of Xabi Alonso as Liverpool manager, looking back at his managerial history, what Liverpool need from a manager right now, and looking forward to speculate what Xabipool would look like. Who is Xabi Alonso, the coach? What do Liverpool need from their next manager? Is the Liverpool job a bit too early in the timeline f...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Simon Goodey to give the audience a better understanding of what the coaching pathway looks like and a sense of what it’s like to coach in Spain. What do the early doors of a coaching pathway look like? Are there obvious differences between the way that coaching sessions are structured in each country? How important is it to talk to players about tactics in training cont...

Joe Devine is joined by Jon Mackenzie to explain the data gathering process Jon has been undertaking with Premier League strikers. Jon decided to log a bunch of data about PL strikers… why? Did Jon learn anything about players from timing? Why is Haaland a high volume finisher? Which players get their shots off the quickest? This episode of the Tifo Football Podcast is presented by Joe Devine and...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Jack Elderton and Cal Goodall to explore the idea of a midtable club and the potential progress they can make through the perspective of West Ham. Are West Ham a midtable side? Have West Ham dropped the ball in the last few seasons? What should or even could West Ham do to break into the elite group of Premier League teams? What does the future look like? This episode of...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Stuart Reid to discuss what a set piece analyst and specialist does. Why should people be excited about set pieces? How do teams communicate around set pieces? How important is squad composition to set piece success? How does complexity in plans change with the quality of the teams in question? This episode of the Tifo Football Podcast is presented by Jon Mackenzie, prod...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Alex Stoyel to give the audience a better understanding of what it is that a sports psychologist does. What is the difference between other psychologists and sports psychologists? What role can psychologists play in regard to helping with the process of communication between coaches and players? How does a psychologist balance helping maximise performance with the wellbe...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Maher Mezahi and Alasdair Howorth to preview the upcoming AFCON tournament. Why is it called AFCON 2023 if it’s in 2024? Why should people be watching this tournament? The tournament is being played in Cote d’Ivoire. How will this impact the tournament? Which are the groups that they’re particularly excited to see play out? Who are the players to watch? This episode of t...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Stephen Russell to discuss the most important aspects of rest defence. What is rest defence? Why is it important? Why do coaches worry about it? What tactical shifts have prompted this? What are the two key variables of rest defence? This episode of the Tifo Football Podcast is presented by Jon Mackenzie, produced by Mike Zimmermann. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privac...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Carlon Carpenter to discuss what a performance analyst does. How did he get his foot in the door at University of Virginia? What are the biggest differences between the analysis processes at the different levels? Are preconceived biases a thing in video/performance analysis? How much of the analysis is of what the coaching staff want to see vs. highlighting things they s...

Joe Devine is joined by James Graham, writer of “Dear England”, to discuss the cultural revolution under Gareth Southgate. How has Gareth Southgate changed the character of the England squad and the sport? Are results really the most important thing? What is it that football actually does? What does it mean to belong to a nation? This episode of the Tifo Football Podcast is presented by Jon Macken...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Josh Williams to explore the recently-emerged Liverpool 2.0 that we’re seeing - Klopp’s rebuilt team. Looking back in hindsight, what was it that actually went wrong? What was the summer transfer strategy? What have been the good aspects and what have been the poorer aspects? Are Liverpool title contenders? This episode of the Tifo Football Podcast is presented by Jon Ma...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Liam Tharme and Alex Barker to introduce the tactical revolution taking place within Ligue 1 and explore some of the reasons why it might be happening. Is youth development the reason why the league wasn’t exactly tactically interesting for a long time? What impact has the Qatari Sports Investments purchase of PSG to be their flagship football club in the European contex...

Jon Mackenzie is joined by Jaleel Tapper-Gray, of The Football Purist, to discuss the evolution of tactics of Barcelona under Xavi. To what extent does the conversation about Barcelona still find itself situated in the context of the Pep Guardiola era? What were the in-possession benefits of the box midfield? How much has the playing squad affected Xavi’s tactical decisions during his time? What d...