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Welcome to SC Libero, the most important of the least important membership clubs

Congratulations! You have made it to the front of the line at the little window outside the stadium. You are the most important of the most important listeners and are about to become a member of SC Libero. We really appreciate your support and loyalty to the club.

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Join SC Libero

Join SC Libero

Get on the bandwagon early, before broadsheet journalists start describing us as doing 'interesting things', and join SC Libero. As a club member you'll get ad-free shows in your favourite podcast app and be the first to know about our exciting plans for SC Libero in the coming months.

Latest Episodes View All

Libero 102 | Trying To Make Sense Of The Business Of Football

PODCAST EPISODE

Libero 102 | Trying To Make Sense Of The Business Of Football

Every year football's rich and powerful gather at a West London hotel to do deals, shake hands and talk about the game in a way would be quite unfamiliar to anyone not in the posh seats at 3pm on a Saturday. Several Liberi were in attendance at the recent FT Business of Football Summit, so they found a quiet corridor to discuss what they'd overheard at the conference, as well as the detachment between those who seek to profit from football and the game itself. You'll hear from Tariq Panja, Rory Smith, Miguel Delaney and James Horncastle. There's also a fabulous cameo from The Mirror's John Cross.

P1: (00:27)

P2: (25:03)

Produced by: Tom Bassam, who apologises for the lack of proper video on this episode.

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Music: Kid Kodi - Blue Dot Sessions

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· 48 min 45 sec

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Podcast Episode

Libero 101 | Spurs In Peril... No Longer Too Big To Fail?

In recent years it has felt as if the Premier League was permanently stratified, with the poor teams unable to win and the rich teams unable to lose. But Tottenham Hotspur have the ninth biggest reven...

· 57 min 6 sec

Podcast Episode

Libero 100 | Anxious Arsenal And The Definition Of A Bottle Job

It is – it turns out – quite difficult to pin down an accurate definition of what 'bottling it' means and, therefore, which teams can be fairly described as having committed this failure of will in th...

· 1 hr 46 sec

Podcast Episode

Libero 099 | Has Jose Mourinho Burned His Bridges At Real Madrid?

Jose Mourinho will take his Benfica team back to Real Madrid on Wednesday night, trying to get through to the last-16 of the Champions League. It is now almost 13 years since Mourinho left Real Madrid...

· 1 hr 1 min 16 sec

Podcast Episode

Libero 098 | Juventus, Benfica And The Plight of Europe's Forgotten Cl...

It’s Champions League punishment round week, which means clubs who were among the biggest and best in Europe 10 years ago are slogging it out to make it through to the last-16. The question on today’s...

· 1 hr 2 min 47 sec

About Libero

A podcast about football, the least important of the most important things.

Email us getintouch@liberopodcast.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel @liberopod

Follow us on X @podcast_libero

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Follow us on Facebook @liberopod

Meet the Liberi...

John Brewin

John Brewin is a freelance writer, editor and broadcaster who can be found on the pages of The Guardian and other places. He was previously a long-serving editor and writer at ESPN. John has maybe the finest collection of band t-shirts in the business.

Miguel Delaney

Miguel Delaney has been chief football writer of The Independent since 2017 and recently saw his latest book, States of Play: How Sportswashing Took Over Football, win the William Hill sports book of the year. He is especially proud of what he believes is a current record of attending every Champions League final since 2009 - including the Covid-delayed 2020 edition in Lisbon. Miguel's favoured expletive begins with a 'C'.

James Horncastle

James Horncastle is The Athletic’s Italy correspondent. He covers what his Libero colleagues call the Dolmio league. This tends to involve gratuitous pics of whatever he is eating on his travels and a staunch defence of Lautaro Martinez from the wilful ignorance of the rest of the Liberi. James was awarded the Stella d’Italia by the Italian state for promoting cultural ties between Italy and the UK. You can call him Cavaliere.

Tariq Panja

Tariq Panja is a global sports correspondent at The New York Times, having joined from covering sports news from Bloomberg. In 2017 he co-authored Football's Secret Trade: How the Player Transfer Market Was Infiltrated with Alex Duff. Tariq lives in London but is often found in windowless rooms at the kind of hotels where sports executives like to gather.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

Jack Pitt-Brooke works for The Athletic, where he primarily covers Tottenham Hotspur and England. He is a regular on the The View from the Lane Spurs podcast and is also often found on The Athletic FC and Tifo podcasts. Jack joined The Athletic in 2019, having previously worked for The Independent since 2010. He was once called 'a little Tory beaut' on Twitter for questioning Everton's decision to sign Andre Gomes.

Rory Smith

Rory Smith is the football correspondent of The Observer and a co-host of the Men In Blazers podcast. He is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 5 Live and TNT Sports' coverage of the Champions League. He was previously the chief soccer correspondent of The New York Times and has also worked for The Times, The Independent and ESPN. He is the author of Mister: The Men Who Gave The World The Game and Expected Goals: The Story of How Data Conquered Football. He lives in a large country pile in Yorkshire.

Jonathan Wilson

Jonathan Wilson is the author of 13 football histories, including Inverting the Pyramid and The Power and the Glory, and one novel. He is a columnist for The Guardian and World Soccer, the editor of The Blizzard and a co-host of the It Was What It Was podcast. I hope you enjoy five-minute monologues about tactics born out of the Hungarian coffee houses of the 1930s.