Soccer Sense Podcast

Karan, Vishal, and Tareque convene one last time for this season to look back at the Champions League final, and discuss how Luis Enrqiue's joyful football philosophy put the spark back in Soccer Sense's own footballing funk. 

Karan, Vishal, and Tareque are back for a full panel pod about the joys of finishing on the pinnacle of English football positions: 8th, 9th, and 10th. We talk about the beauty of the three Bs - Bournemouth, Brighton, and Brentford - who finished there and why these clubs in and of themselves are fascinating case studies of what the essence of football truly is. 

Tareque and Karan bring you a special follow up episode to our last week's Serie A roundup episode because apparently drama that would have even Lenin shook was packed into one weekend and affected all parts of the table. 

Tareque and Soccer Sense's Calcio Correspondent Karan make up the panel this week that gives you the Soccer Sense season primer of the Serie A season - which Milan is annoying Juve fan Karan the most, and how is Gasperini like Ethan Hunt, and will Serie A see the holy vacation trifecta in it next season? All of these, answered. 

Vishal and Tareque get together to question Karan's conspicuous absence of reaction on the epic that was the Barca v Inter semifinal, and train the Soccer Sense Meter on the tie, with some surprising insights about age and experience from Vishal himself.  

The panel convenes to elect a new pope seek the sense in how Liverpool put together a title winning run, and what Arsenal need to do in their Champions League semifinal second leg. 

A sense busting throwback Thursday from Manchester United who party like it's 1999 and our panel tries to recalibrate our Soccer Senses to understand their dramatic elimination of Lyon. Also featuring, a primer on your new fav Norwegian football team. 

Was Pirlo on the PS5 controller when Rice stepped up to take the freekicks against Real Madrid? Are Bayern Munich cut out for an Italian Job? And will Villa Park be metal enough in the second leg? All these and many more questions tackled in our Champions League Quarterfinal Reviews as Tareque and Soccer Sense's European Correspondent - Karan - take the mic. 

This week, the panel - none of whom are even capable of filing their own taxes - pore into the financials of Manchester United and discuss the dilemma of how a big football club can balance commerce, community and conscience while dealing with an existential crisis, and figure out if there are indeed sensible ways to think about their current position. 

This week there was heist in Paris, and next week there could be a Cinderella story happening in Lille. It's all happening in the Champions League as the panel, led by European Correspondent Karan, break down the Round of 16 Leg 1s and look forward to Leg 2. 

After Liverpool's 2-0 away win at the Etihad, the panel addresses the non-addressing of the Manchester City decline, and also discusses why Arsenal seem to be manifesting poverties they don't suffer from and enquires if there are buses being hired in advance in the city of Liverpool yet?

This week, the panel grapples with the existential question - if a cup was won with no one around was a cup still won? Football's expansionary push and its potentially devastating consequences are put under the SenseMeter, with a little help from Ted Lasso. 

This week, much like Manchester City's midfield, we put in only 2/3rd of the effort, as partial panel Tareque and European Correspondent Karan break down the sense and nonsense of the pulsating Champions League encounter between Real Madrid and City and look ahead to the return leg. 

This week the panel reflects on how Arsenal carved Manchester City apart to serve them a 5-1 beatdown, and wonder how to separate sense from nonsense in the tactics and the turmoil when the stakes and the emotions run as high as they did at The Emirates. 

This week, the panel gets philosophical about football managers and their role in the modern game where they seem to be pulled in different directions by forces of commerce and chaos. We explore what rock bands can tell us about the football manager, and what lemons life may chuck at Arne Slot who at this point may be forgiven for thinking that the PL and the UCL are easy peasy, lemon squeezy. 

The panel convenes to wrap their heads around the new fangled UEFA Champions League format, and how it resembles March Madness, or even worse, the Baseketball format. What sort of unintended consequences hath UEFA wrought? We look at the dynamics. 

It's that time of the season when in the Premier League the panel turns its attention to North London, partly for the comedy (this time it even features Monty Python!) and partly for the enigma and how to separate the sense from the nonsense if you are an artillery themed football club. 

The Soccer Sense panel convenes to discuss the 2-2 draw between Liverpool and Manchester United and what it means for a Man U team in turmoil and their manager, who was *gasp* born (b. 1985) after the release of Return of The Jedi (1983), a fact causing grave concern for the panel (about their own mortality). 

Vishal, Karan, and Tareque are back with a new season, beginning with a look back at 2024, and seeking the sense behind Nottingham Forest's rise and City's fall. And on a cold Wednesday night, somewhat removed from Stoke, Karan tries to explain Juventus' strange unbeaten Serie A run. 

Tareque and Vishal are back after a long hiatus - older and wiser - about how they fell a little out of love with the game and how they are reconciling themselves to fall in love with the game again. And oh yes, somehow Manchester United are still crap :/

It is time for our European Correspondent to spike his hair up, dust off his notebook, and set off on a cross continental adventure with his do-- oh wait, that's Tintin. In this week's episode we have Karan, Soccer Sense's european correspondent giving us the full preview of the UEFA Champions League, the last of its kind in terms of the 32-team format.

Tareque, Karan, and Vishal are back again with a new instalment of searching for Soccer Sense amidst all the madness this week of France and Australia's penalty theatrics literally spilling over into a theater, and a Premier League opening weekend that answered a lot of questions but raised many interesting ones. 

Soccer Sense's resident women's football correspondent joins us for a special preview of the Women's World Cup where we discuss who to look out for, the strides the women's game has made, and the steps it still needs to take, and how you, the listener, can be a part of the revolution that is sweeping women's sport! You can follow Radha on Twitter @radhalathgupta and her women's sports coverage project She Talks Ball here and on Twitter @SheTalksBall There are great previews of the World Cup available that cover much more of the richer details but here are a few you can refer to 1. The most comprehensive player guide! 2. The astonishing story of Haiti and how they made it that we referred to in the middle of the episode. 3. A good primer on the ACL injury epidemic that seems to be there in women's sport. 

This week, the full panel returns to talk about the podcast's designated Devil's Advocate, Jose Mourinho, and his shenanigans after the Europa League final, and also look ahead to the Champions League final which Karan desperately wants Inter to lose.  

The full panel of Tareque, Karan, and Vishal is back to look at the trends that have emerged from a chaotic season of football in Europe, assesses the last decade of this podcast and sets a direction for the future. 

Soccer Sense finally makes a comeback, having slumbered through Argentina's World Cup triumph, but we sure as heck are not going to miss the Napoli Narrative. Tareque and Karan take a look at the state of affairs in the Serie A, and pull the lens back to try and catch the throughline between Napoli's current position and their last Scudetto, back in 1990. 

A special kickoff to season 11 of Soccer Sense, as we talk to Radha Gupta, a women's sports advocate and founder of She Talks Ball, which looks at advancing conversations and content on women's sport. Radha talks of how to break the chicken and egg situation in women's sport, of her affinity to Chelsea football club and we preview the Euro 2022, where at least 6 teams have a realistic shot at the title in what promises to be a pulsating tournament. 

Vishal and Tareque kick off a new season of the pod and the Premier League by training the SoccerSenseMeter on the four key title contenders this season - the two Manchesters, Chelsea and Liverpool - and wonder if Pep already has a bag of excuses in place. 

Tareque, Vishal and Karan celebrate the Azzurri's win in the Euro final, and put Gareth Southgate and Roberto Mancini's tactical battle under the SoccerSense Meter, and ask - where do Italy go next?

It is a full panel episode again as Vishal, Karan and Tareque break down the two semifinals, talk about how Italy pulled off a win against Spain by not panicking, and ask whether England finally have been able to summon mental fortitude for the crunch situations.

The full panel of Soccer Sense convenes - Tareque, Vishal and Karan are on the same pod for the first time in over a year to review the quarterfinals at Euro 2020 through the Soccer Sense SenseMeter and look forward to two fascinating semifinals. 

Tareque and Vishal try to make sense of how and why the thrilling Round of 16 manifested in the Euro 2020, Vishal presents a secret theory about Gareth Southgate, and the Soccer Sense panel looks ahead to the Euro quarterfinals. 

Tareque and Soccer Sense's European correspondent Karan sit down to take a quick look back at the Euro 2020 group stage and look forward to some mouthwatering clashes in the Round of 16. 

Vishal and Tareque finally get around to recording an episode in a difficult season, only because the beauty and purity of Leicester's FA Cup triumph made them hopeful enough to do so. Also, an assessment of Pep Guardiola's seminal English season. 

A tragedy of Liverpudlian proportions has befallen the defending champions in the Premier League over the last 8 weeks. Vishal and Tareque train the Soccer Sense Meter at Liverpool and try to make sense of the unravelling. 

Vishal and Tareque are back mostly to say we told you so on the bursting of the bubbles of many a title challenger (including the defending champs) and to talk about how Manchester City avoided that fate. Also, our City-Liverpool preview. 

Soccer Sense finds its resident Spurs fan as we chat with young designer Sneha Nanavati, who fell for the North Londoners in the Pochettino era and revels in every moment of watching football. We talk to her about her football doodles (available to view on Instragram.com/bubblegum.factory), making sense of Jose Mourinho, and above all, a sensible, kind and humane way to enjoy the beautiful game in all its drama laced glory. 

As the title race in the EPL gets crowded, confusing and compressed, Tareque and Vishal look at how Chelsea managed to find themselves out of it, and also look forward to one of the highest stakes Manchester United - Liverpool clashes in years. 

It's time for our annual around Europe episode with Soccer Sense's European correspondent Karan, as he and Tareque look at what's going on in the other European leagues and how Serie A is doubling down on its drama. 

This week our SoccerSense Meter is trained squarely on Manchester United as Vishal, the resident Red Devil, assess their title challenge credentials, while Tareque wonders if Spurs are reverting to Spursy again. We also gingerly mention another North London team. 

Vishal and Tareque are back after a hiatus to look at Tottenham's trajectory to the top of the table and look forward to the top of the table clash as Mourinho and Klopp face off just before festive fixture pandemonium sets in. 

With the Premier Table going all topsy turvy, Vishal and Tareque turn their attention to one quietly humming team that seems to have its plans coming together very nicely as the others' best laid plans have Jordan Pickford sized disruptions running through them. 

Vishal and Tareque try to process the shambolic performances dished out by Manchester United and Liverpool over the weekend in this howler in the form of a podcast episode. 

Vishal and Tareque break down the astonishing results for Chelsea and Manchester City, critique Jurgen Klopp's high line and take a look at a certain other Merseyside team's impressive manager and his progress. 

It started in a frenzy, and to tactically breakdown that madcap game that was Liverpool v Leeds, Soccer Sense's resident tactician Vishal joins Tareque as we usher the new season in. 

Karan and Tareque look ahead to the 2020/21 Premier League season where, while the chasing pack has brought in reinforcements, the champion and the contender will have to deal with that nasty thing called regression to mean. 

Vishal is back as he joins Tareque to analyse how Bayern Munich will match up against PSG in the Final of what has been a protracted Champions League season but may have one final intriguing encounter still left in his tank. 

Tareque and Soccer Sense's European correspondent, Karan, unpack the absolute madness unleashed by the last two quarterfinals in the single elimination format, the X-factor that Leipzig might bring and ponder whether Pep and Barcelona's meltdowns are symptoms of deeper systemic issues. 

Our European correspondent, Karan, joins Tareque to break down the ousting of Juventus and Real Madrid from the Champions League and look forward to whether Manchester City and Pep Guardiola can finally land that elusive white whale that is a Champions League semifinal appearance.

This week, Soccer Sense lets its hair down as it invites three Liverpool superfans - Karthik, Apurv and Anish - to discuss the title winning run and share their unbounded joy at ending a thirty year long wait. 

Vishal and Tareque convene to put Liverpool's title win under the Soccer Sense SenseMeter and provide a reality check for how challenging defending the title might be. But they also have time to stop and smell the flowers of the romanticism that is Leeds United's re-entry into the Premier League.