YouSaid · the spoken record

James Montague

lines on the record: 59
first: 2022-11-21
most recent: 2022-11-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“He did seem quite lonely, but it was one of the things we sat down and he said, Yeah, sit down, have some food, we'll talk. And, you know, it was quite interesting seeing the kind of psychology of an elite player because the pressure that elite players are under to perform is incredible. If you think about the kind of pressure that a football player has to kind of go through, and especially someone in his position, as well as being the captain of the French team, as well as being, I think he was captain of the French team. Anyway, but World Cup winning player playing at the very highest level, you know, a leader, you know, that pressure is just magnified. And what he wanted, what he craved more than anything, what could have said to me was, you know, the pressure was off. I could earn what I earned in Europe, but no one's asking me to stop Fulham getting relegated or getting a”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And Pep Guardiola was nowhere to be seen, probably was a bit naive then to believe that he was. But anyway, he didn't turn up. But Manfred did. And the next day he told me where Marcel would be. And so I turned up at his training ground. And it was bizarre because at Chelsea, you wouldn't be able to get within, you know, 500 meters of him without being kind of broken in half by a security guard. And, you know, I just walked into the stadium. There was no one on reception, walked into the cafeteria, and there was Marcel Dessai sitting there eating kind of on his own, separate from the other players.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, they'd got rid of a kind of a censorship ministry anyway. They were building institutions. And, you know, that was very uncool compared to Dubai, which was, you know, like, you know, like Manhattan. And so you'd go and visit there. It was just, you know, it was just a really kind of quiet, nice, fairly dull place, very small place. But a kind of a bit of a backwater, but had the kind of reform-minded leader in Emir Hamed, who Altani, who was then the kind of leader of the country. But anyway, one of these was one of these big plans was to get the national team to qualify for a World Cup, which it never had done. They brought these players in. The idea was that they would rub off on all the other players and bring the standard of the league up. And so I found out about it. And I managed to contact Manfred, and he arranged for me to come and meet Pep Guardiola to interview him. I mean, he'd only recently left Barcelona. And I turned up in Doha.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and so they'd at the time, they'd just rebuilt all their stadiums as well. And there was one, there was like a mini replica of old Trafford. And so I turned up in Catalogs. I found out about this and I went there and it's really difficult to kind of let people understand how today Qatar has almost treated like the Death Star, right? It's got such a bad reputation, especially in the Western world, especially in the UK and the US, like there's certain nefarious plays plotting to take over the world. But then it was completely different kind of atmosphere. Like you had the UAE and especially Dubai, which was this thrusting capitalist Western-facing place where dreams happen like the New York and the desert and all this kind of stuff. And Catal's is kind of very quiet place that was undergoing a kind of cultural revolution, but a political revolution as well. I mean, they had, they just brought in Al Jazeera. Censorship had been banned effectively.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Marcel Desie, the De Boer brothers, both of them turned up. Gabrielle Battastuto was there, although he didn't want to talk to me when I spoke to him, he hang up on me. But Marcel Desailli was probably the big one because he was playing for Al Garafa and kind of playing as a kind of not a striker, but kind of a...”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hired a guy called Manfred Horner, who is this kind of German journeyman coach, who was brought in as a technical director to try to revamp Qatari football and tried to make the national team strong enough to qualify for a World Cup and to do well in the Asian Cup, which is the equivalent of the European Championships. And they came across this plan, Manfred Horner's plan, which was to get all the kind of like best players in the world that were like a year before retirement, pay them stupid amounts of money, and bring them to Qatar for one or two seasons to play in the local league, which, you know, was one of the weakest leagues in Asia. So, you know, makes it one of the weakest leagues in the world. But Manfred Horner was, I mean, I met him several times. He was an incredible man. He actually found out he died a few years ago, sadly, but he was so successful. He managed to get Pep Guadiola there. He managed to...”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I first wrote when Friday comes, it came out in 2008. And I moved to the Middle East, I moved to Dubai. It was like my first job in journalism. And so I started kind of seeing all these crazy little football stories. I mean, they seem to be emblematic of some quite wider, bigger, important kind of issues in the Middle East, but also something emblematic of the country that they came from as well. One of the things that was quite interesting is that it also, if you could have quite good access to places that sounded like would be impossible to get to, for instance, like Yemen or Syria, you go to Damascus, there was like a low-cost airline, you can go visit it and go for a nice weekend there. And one of the things that came up was Qatar. I mean, no one really went there because it was such a, it was quite a boring place. There wasn't a lot going on in Doha at the time. But what had happened in like 2004 is that they had hired the kind of Olympic committee.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Today on the podcast we're joined by journalist and author James Montague, who first began covering football in the Middle East two decades ago. Drawing on his book When Friday Comes Football War and Revolution in the Middle East, he discusses the intersection of football politics and global power. Our host for the conversation is Joey Durso, investigations writer for the Athletic UK. Here's Joey with more.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hi everyone, Connor here. If you don't know already, we have launched Intelligent Squared Premium for bonus content, early access listens, and exclusive extras, just head to IQ2 Premium.supercast.com, or see the link in the episode description. And if you're an Apple podcast person, hit subscribe for the bonus extras from your podcasts app too. Thanks again for all your support. Welcome to Intelligent Squared. I'm Connor Boyle, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar has officially kicked off, but not without controversy. Ever since Qatar was awarded the tournament in 2010, making it the first country in the Middle East to do so, there has been scepticism from the West around the decision with critics citing human rights violations, LGBT rights, and possible corruption within FIFA.”
2022-11-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Road to Qatar, with James Montague · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT