Episode 26: the season review with special guest Tim Vickery

The end of season special of Hand Of Pod is an epic – an hour and three quarters – for which I apologise, but there’s good reason: South American football broadcasting legend Tim Vickery was talking to us in person over a glass (okay, several glasses) of wine, and dinner, and we simply couldn’t bring ourselves to cut anything. We discuss River Plate’s relegation, where ‘Tricky’ Ricky Álvarez could fit into Arsenal’s system (if of course he does go there), our favourite players of the Torneo Clausura just gone, and the differences between Pelé and Diego Maradona as players, as well as looking forward to the upcoming Copa América. Enjoy.

Tim’s blog is linked to above, but you can also find all our own sites with these links: Sam runs Hasta El Gol Siempre, Aussie Dan is webmaster of Argentina Football World, and Seba is the head honcho at Mundo Albiceleste. English Dan is the South America editor for Goal.com. We also shouldn’t forget enormous thanks to our host, Turkish TV presenter Asli Pelit, whose Twitter profile you’ll find here.

Episode 21: Maradona goes postal, poor referees & Arsenal’s new boy

We had difficulty shutting up this week. A full 45 minutes of actually quite good stuff (if we say so ourselves) was cut, and the podcast still comes in at over an hour. Diego Maradona is the focus of much of the early part, his ongoing wars of words with AFA president Julio Grondona and Argentina manager Sergio Batista the main reasons, and his unlikely alliance with River Plate president Daniel Passarella. The latter leads us on to more dodgy refereeing in the weekend just gone, before we consider the key fixtures in the run-in as the races for the Clausura title and to avoid relegation approach their defining points. You’ll find a full diagram of the relevant bits of those tables, and the fixtures to come for each team, right here. Oh, and we run the rule over potential new Arsenal man, Vélez’s ‘Ricky’ Alvarez.

Mystic Dan’s predictions, and those all-important tables and upcoming fixture lists, are below the ‘continue reading’ line, as usual. And don’t forget you can subscribe to us on iTunes.