The Sweeper Podcast

📺 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘 📺 🇪🇺 Contenders for UEFA's 56th member 🇪🇺 🇲🇨 Monaco: Unwilling to take the big plunge 🇻🇦 Vatican: Challenges of world's smallest state 🇬🇱 Greenland: Rejections by UEFA/CONCACAF 🇯🇪 Jersey: Victory at CAS, rejection at Congress ❓ Others: Basque Country, Catalonia & more

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Fourth-tier Fleetwood Town have eliminated reigning Premier League champions and Champions League finalists Arsenal from the League Cup to reach the quarter-finals of the competition. The respective squad market values: €2.8 million versus €1.4 billion!!!

📺 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘 📺 🇦🇽 The rise & fall of IFK Mariehamn 🇦🇽 ℹ️ Lowdown: 🇸🇪-speaking but part of 🇫🇮 📈 'Finnish Leicester': The miracle of 2016 📉 A decade on: Veikkausliiga relegation 🏝️ Other island champions across Europe 🚨 Geography quiz: Island club or not?! Watch or listen on Spotify, Apple or YouTube! 🤩

🎙️ NEW BONUS PODCAST 🎙️ 🏆 189 teams? The bonkers U15 World Cup ❌ The 22 FIFA members not taking part 🇨🇦 Forge FC's Canadian Championship win 🇺🇾 Uruguay's electronic red & yellow card trial 🇩🇪 Germany's Over-80 World Cup triumph Sign up at patreon.com/sweeperpod 🤩

🎙️ NEW BONUS PODCAST 🎙️ 🇦🇺 South Melbourne's Australia Cup triumph 🌏 Continental competitions: AFC or OFC? ↕️ The bid to change "closed shop" A-League 🇰🇮 Kiribati's 47-year wait for international win 🇲🇭 The Marshall Islands' '212 jersey' launch Sign up at patreon.com/sweeperpod 🤩

🇧🇴 For our next episode, we're running a simulation: What if Bolivia hosted the World Cup? (At 4,000 metres altitude) To that end, we have published a free post on Patreon where you can vote on how you think Bolivia would fare. Check it out and cast your vote ⬇️ bit.ly/BoliviaAltitudeSimulation

📺 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘 📺 🇦🇱 Albania in focus 🇦🇱 🔟 Skenderbeu’s record UEFA ban - 10 years! 🆕 Intro to our new partner: Futbology 🧨 Live report from the capital derby in Tirana! 🏟️ Air Albania Stadium: Yachts & hair transplants 🥧 Seeds v pies: Football food across Europe

🇦🇿 UEFA Champions League debutants Sabah and their ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’-winning coach Valdas Dambrauskas have won a match on Europe’s biggest stage for the first time ever, beating Slavia Prague. At 9 years old, there cannot be many younger clubs in UCL history to have won a match!

UEFA: 21/55 ✅ 🆕 ALBANIA 🇦🇱 🇦🇹 Austria, 🇦🇩 Andorra, 🇧🇪 Belgium, 🇨🇿 Czechia, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England, 🇫🇷 France, 🇩🇪 Germany, 🇬🇮 Gibraltar 🇭🇺 Hungary, 🇮🇹 Italy, 🇱🇻 Latvia, 🇱🇮 Liechtenstein, 🇱🇹 Lithuania, 🇲🇹 Malta, 🇵🇱 Poland, 🇷🇴 Romania, 🇸🇲 San Marino, 🇷🇸 Serbia, 🇪🇸 Spain, 🇨🇭 Switzerland #ad

🇦🇱 Full-time in the Tirana derby: FK Partizani 1-3 KF Tirana, who were deserving of the victory. Full story about the match, the visit to Tirana and the Albanian club serving the longest ban in UEFA history - all on the next episode 🔜

🌻 No1 football food in Albania: sunflower seeds! 😋

📍 Air Albania Stadium 🇦🇱 Derby day in Tirana! It’s FK Partizani v KF Tirana - Albania’s biggest football rivalry. Huge, huge police presence. But we’re in - and we’re under way!

🇦🇺 South Melbourne have become the first-ever non-A-League side to win the Australia Cup! It will now be interesting to see what happens next as the cup winner usually qualifies for Asian (AFC) tournaments, but South Melbourne already play in Oceania as an inaugural member of the OFC Pro League!

Thanks so much for the nice message. We’re really happy you decided to join us on our audio journey around the football world! ☺️

📍 Air Albania Stadium 🇦🇱🏟️ Opened in 2019, the 22,500 seat arena will host the Tirana derby between FK Partizani & KF Tirana on Sunday. Boasting a 112m high tower in one corner, it also features a bizarre array of shops where you can buy everything from a yacht to a hair transplant.

A few years ago, I got into the Indian and Chinese domestic football leagues, and still follow Romanian players in the latter. Always wondered why the leagues/national teams aren't good. Highly recommend this Sweeper episode, which does a fantastic job analyzing this question.

📺 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘 📺 🇩🇴 Hispaniola's first derby in 13 years 🇭🇹 ↔️ DR & Haiti's tense neighbourly relations 🏟️ Bottlenecks & broken stadium property 🗣️ Wilson Isidor's sovereignty claims? 🏝️ Rarest shared island derbies worldwide 📈 The Caribbean's diaspora-induced rise

Hello, Albania! 🇦🇱🤩

📺 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘 📺 🔎 India & China 🔎 👥 2.9b people: The world's largest countries 🏆 One World Cup appearance between them 💥 Two domestic leagues in total disarray 🇮🇳 India: Brazil glamour game > FIFA ASEAN Cup 🇨🇳 China: 0-3 to New Zealand, 0-5 to Palestine

🎙️ NEW BONUS PODCAST 🎙️ 🇫🇷 10th-tier Coupe de France cupset ❌ Quirkiest tournament eliminations 🇦🇮 Aedan Scipio’s double hair pull 🇴🇲 Oman’s almost costly celebration 🇨🇭 Hells Angels COVID certificates Sign up at patreon.com/sweeperpod 🤩

🇽🇰 Kosovo are Europe’s newest country and UEFA’s newest member. Now we can say we’ve finally seen them live 🤩 Join us on Futbology to track your live matches. Comment ‘app’ below and we’ll send you a free download link. #ad

❌ There are currently seven banned pairings in UEFA. Could Ireland-Israel become the eighth? 🇮🇪🇮🇱 Want to hear our investigation using the same criteria UEFA used for Albania-Serbia? Then comment ‘podcast’ below and we’ll DM you a link.

🗣️ Why Russia has been banned but Israel hasn’t, according to UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin… Comment ‘podcast’ and we’ll send a DM to the show straight to your inbox via DM.

📺 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘 📺 🌍 Global round-up 🌍 🗣️ Čeferin's comments on Russia's ban 🇮🇪 Ireland's dramatic day in a Debrecen hotel ❌ The FAI's request to avoid playing Israel 🆚 UEFA's 7 banned international pairings 🇽🇰 Kosovo: FIFA's newest member country live Watch or listen on Spotify, Apple or YouTube! 🤩

🏝️ It’s shared island derby day in the Caribbean: 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic v Haiti 🇭🇹