Tuesday evening, 11:15 p.m. A huge Champions League evening comes to an end but you still want more. There is no question of going to bed without having heard the whole world say good things (or bad things, depending on the result) about your team. You read all the tweets, even the most insignificant, about the action, gesture or controversy of the evening. Still not enough. Fortunately, there are still entertainment professionals to save you. In the football category, there are more and more of them. From Thierry Henry to Chiringuito, a little review of guilty pleasures to end a football evening.
The antics of the Henry-Richards-Carragher trio in Golazo
Imagine a successful show on baseball, with three illustrious former players on set, broadcast in the middle of the afternoon on TF1. This is more or less the story of Golazo, the high mass of soccer across the Atlantic. The show, which boasts 1.6 billion videos viewed over the 2022-23 season, is masterfully led by Kate Abdo and her three-headed footballer composed of Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher and Micah Richards. A band that she compared to a family in mid-March, to discreetly quell a controversy launched by an inappropriate remark from the former captain of the Reds on his personal life.
Thierry Henry is “the golden child who can do no wrong”, Jamie Carragher, “a chip on his shoulder, capable of saying anything to attract attention”, even if it means going too far and Micah Richards “ the little brother, everyone’s favorite. » “I believe that it only exists by and for the casting,” explains Grégory Ascher, presenter of the EDG on La Chaîne L’Equipe, very fond of the American show. It’s like a Hollywood movie, we’re going to see the latest Marvel, we’re going to see the latest Tom Cruise. We look at them because it’s them. »
There reigns in this trio an atmosphere of a football locker room doped with infectious laughter, crude camaraderie and self-deprecation, from which we emerge with just enough endorphins to last until the next show. Golazo is a small theatrical camera, with its share of characters, embodied by the thousand faces of Titi, a veritable meme factory, of which we end up wondering if they are not worked in a laboratory. “Carragher is also fantastic because he has his point of view and he doesn’t care, like during the famous controversy,” adds Grégory Ascher. Kate Abdo is great, she can be dominant with three tyrannosaurs at her table. And Micah Richards, he’s full of good humor. »
Small preference here for the former defender of Manchester City and Fiorentina, always quick to play the game of jokes or self-deprecation. His facial expressions and his infectious laughter take care of the rest, and we take pleasure in letting ourselves be drawn into his delirium. His crazy laugh on Jamie Carragher’s “Internazionale” sequence during a flash interview with Rafael Leão is a monument of sports entertainment on TV to be seen and rewatched.
Football is never far away, obviously, and we are easily lulled by the hyper-sharp palettes of the Espoirs coach when he explains how to defend against Kylian Mbappé. But the other side of the coin is that fans of the show put the athlete in the background. “Today, people stop me in the street, not to talk about my career but to talk to me about CBS,” Thierry Henry confided to The Team. I answer: “OK, I understand, that’s good… But you know, we’re not here to be funny basically.” What’s viral is the funny stuff, but that’s not even 5% of the show. » Certainly, but what 5%!
Riolo’s breakdowns in the After
We no longer present the beast, but we present it all the same. A permanent member of the After Foot safety council for as long as the show has existed, Daniel Riolo is in perpetual indignation. Even when everything is going well, there is something wrong, and his penchant for the subversive earns him a few enemies – Philippe Lucas and Pascal Dupraz for the old ones, the brother of Marquinhos for the new ones. In short, listening to RMC after an elimination in the Champions League is like witnessing a collective killing in prime time with blood everywhere and special effects. Riolo worships, it’s Tarantino.
Last year, after the Parisians’ inglorious round of 16 return, the RMC journalist lined up all of Paris in a pamphlet which spared no one, and especially not the plague victim Marco Verratti, whom he invited to return to Pescara to “eat your little skewers, stroll by the sea, see your beanbags and smoke your cigarettes. And then he’ll go play urban with his friends because I’ve been telling you for years that he’s an urban player.
If he mainly feeds on crises, Daniel Riolo is not left out during good periods, which force him to evolve on a defensive register. It is there that, confronted with his errors and his certainties by his colleagues and listeners, he barricades himself behind a mountain of bad faith. Everyone only says good things about Luis Enrique? Yes and ? Have you seen how he speaks badly to journalists? You saw his latest beef with Alex Ruiz ? Bradley Barcola is in great shape? Yeah. Not a crack, sorry, I see at least 35 better ones in every Saudi first division team. In this game, entertainment always wins.
Eric Blanc’s outbursts in L’Equipe du soir
The phenomenon is rarer on Olivier Ménard’s set, where the debate is always more courteous to satisfy the target – “the 50-year-old housewife”, as the EDS conductor confesses – despite clashes assumed. But this can change as long as Eric Blanc puts on his clothes of light. If he gets up from his chair, disagrees with anyone or starts an argument with an analogy between sports and movie actors, you can turn the sound up loud, it’s a win. His number on Christophe Galtier, Daniel Craig and Danny Boon has been so popular on the networks that we would hardly be surprised to learn that Musk and Zuckerberg pay royalties to the former rugby player.
“We know Eric by heart,” comments the master of the 6:30 p.m.-9 p.m. slot on the L’Equipe channel. The funny thing is that he doesn’t force himself. He’s a real Audiard fan, old-fashioned. He’s a Barça supporter, we know that, and when Real qualifies at City he’s not going to say that it’s the match of the year. What he said about Galtier may have hurt but it made everyone laugh and it turns out that his year in Paris was not a real success. Eric is very knowledgeable about football, he watches almost everything. He simply has a poetic and cinematic way of expressing it. » When will we see an AI capable of generating movie punchlines like Rico Blanco?
Chiringuito dramas
The height of the Pedrerol empire will forever resonate to the sound of the tick, tock of the Spanish presenter. For Grégory Ascher, there is no doubt: it is the “guilty pleasure show par excellence.” » With supporting illustration.
“ “We look at the Chiringuito like when we buy a celebrity magazine. You know it’s going to be over-the-top, you know they’re going to make a ton of it, you know it’s going to be all for the buzz, you know they’re going to play characters. From time to time you’ll take your dose because it makes you laugh to see what they did with this or that story. The tick, tock, I happened to use it in my show to make those who had the reference laugh. » »
The end of the Mbappé soap opera brought Chiringuito back into line, but while waiting for its time to come back, that is to say the day of Mbappé’s signing in Madrid, the show has resources. She proved it during the PSG-Barça double confrontation by chasing Joan Laporta to ask him if he feared Mbappé, by broadcasting images of stupid culé supporters throwing stones at their own bus, or even crying after the elimination because Luis Enrique had the audacity to commune with his players. “Luis Enrique is not one of us. A Culé does not celebrate as he did,” we could hear on set. Luis Enrique who, let us remember, had qualified El Chiringuito of “theater of evil” on Twitch.
Can you imagine the mess in the event of a final at Wembley between PSG and Real? The funeral faces of the Merengue of Chiringuito, scared to death at the idea of being destroyed on mondiovision by their future star? The overtime of Dani de Marcos, the special correspondent of the show in Paris until the transfer of Mbappé, who will camp in front of the player’s fridge to find out if the latter put the milk before or after the cereal for breakfast ‘ ? Madness. For that alone, friends Parisians and Madrilenians, give us this final.