- What's up guys, and welcome to B/R Football's breakdown of every single Easter egg
and reference in The Champions Season 6. Let's get into it with Episode 1.
- What happens when 800 of the world's most elite footballers and their managers
live together under one roof?
Players stop being polite and start getting Real.
This is The Champions.
- A lot of things come easy to me.
Scoring goals, getting paid...
and looking like a Viking had a baby with a Ken doll.
- France is my home, Turin has my heart,
and Manchester…is a medium-sized city in the northwest of England.
- So yeah, my coaching career is on the same trajectory as Dele Alli's playing career.
Oh no...I'm going to end up at Everton after Lampard gets sacked.
- Has any other team won the Champions League title, spent 100 million on a striker and actually gotten worse?
Please say yes.
- So we start off with the taglines. Erling Haaland looks like a Viking, that's pretty easy.
Paul Pogba has a lot of love for France as it's his home country, and Turin from his time at Juventus, but not so much for Manchester, because…well, yeah.
Poch is worried he'll end up on the same career path as Dele Alli, who he helped nurture into one of the world's best young players at Spurs,
but is now struggling to get a game at Everton.
And finally, Romelu Lukaku. It's been a tough year.
- [Snoring]
George Washington. John Adams.
- We begin with Chelsea, who are still wiped out after celebrating their Club World Cup win,
a reference to how their '21-22 season kinda fell apart after they won that trophy,
losing the Carabao and FA Cup finals to Liverpool and falling away from the top two in the league.
Christian Pulisic is muttering the names of the first U.S. presidents in his sleep, because, well, Americans.
- OK, boys. It's time for the 'Pool party!
- Next, Jurgen Klopp cleans up the pool, just like Liverpool cleaned up their act this season, and the pool party begins.
- Yay! - Oh yeah!
- I'm a shark! Dun dun dun dun dun dun.
- Arturo Vidal uses his ever-changing hairstyles to be a shark,
Wojciech Szczęsny has a cigarette in his mouth, which is a reference to how he's been caught smoking before and after games in his career,
while Unai Emery dives in wearing a scuba suit in reference to Villarreal being called the Yellow Submarine.
- [Grunting]
- Marco! - Asensio!
- Sergio Ramos is testing out the goalkeeper skills of his PSG teammates Donnarumma and Keylor Navas,
a reference to PSG having two elite goalkeepers on their squad,
while Real Madrid play "Marco Asensio" instead of Marco Polo. Oh, and Eden Hazard is that one kid who doesn't wanna take off his shirt. Sorry, Eden.
- I am not seeing your desire to swim!
- We cut to Jack Grealish being coached by a typically intense Pep Guardiola.
Grealish learns to swim with floaties on, a reference to Grealish being…a bit out of touch with normality sometimes.
- A what? - [Reporter:] An encyclopedia of football.
- I don't know what that means.
- And then we see he's actually floating thanks to his world-famous calves that caught the attention of the world during Euro 2020.
- [Grunting]
- Whoa! Ah, help!
- No.
- Finally, we see a typical Atlético Madrid training session with Griezmann and Felix going all-out in hand-to-hand combat.
True to style, Diego Simeone doesn't throw Felix the life ring.
At Atlético, you have to learn to fight for yourselves.
- I know, right? More like Pochetti-no thank you.
- Mmhmm. - The man is speaking truth.
- Hey guys. I brought this steak.
- Ugh, Leo, come on, man. Now we've got too many mains. Look...
I brought hamburgers. Donatello brought hot dogs.
More meat just ain't gonna round out the meal.
- I brought a side salad that your wife made.
- See, that's useful!
- But they are world-class. I bankrupted Barcelona to get these.
- Well, they do look well-aged. Tell you what? Why don't you just throw them on the bench?
- Aw.
- So in this section, we see a ton of references to PSG as they bring food for the party—
but first, check the Bayern players in the background using their many Bundesliga shields to help them tan.
If you look closely, the towels are labeled 1 through 10, a reference to how they've won the last 10 Bundesligas in a row,
and it's a reference to the cliché that Germans on vacation always get their towels down by the pool first
to reserve the best spots in the resort.
Ángel Di María brought Ángel Wings because obviously, while Neymar makes a joke about not wanting Pochettino at their club.
Mbappe is reading a Madrid Travel Guide as a reference to his rumored transfer to Real Madrid,
where he basically led both PSG and Madrid on for almost a year before he finally agreed to stay in Paris.
Leo Messi shows up with some steaks, a staple dish from his native Argentina.
But Neymar and Mbappe both brought meat dishes too—a reference to PSG having too much of the same type of forward,
a luxury player who doesn't do much defending, seen most clearly when they were beaten by Man City in the Champions League this season.
The food is lined up in PSG's 4-3-3 formation to show how, realistically, there's no room for Messi.
Donnarumma's cake is also modeled after the PSG goalkeeper kit.
Mauro Icardi drops in with a "salad that your wife made," a reference to his, well, history of stealing wives from teammates.
Just look up Maxi Lopez and Wanda Nara.
Messi says his world-class steaks bankrupted Barcelona,
a reference to the fact that he's only at PSG because Barca couldn't afford to keep paying his huge wages.
Mbappe calls them "well-aged," a subtle dig at Messi entering the final stages of his career,
and tells him to throw them on the bench with Gini Wijnaldum, who struggled to break into PSG's team after leaving Liverpool in 2021.
- Hey, you wanna have a good time in Greece? I know some places.
- Next we cut to Manchester United's section with a few quick references.
David De Gea and Bruno Fernandes are playing volleyball, but De Gea dives the wrong way,
a reference to United conceding so many goals this season.
McTominay and Fred are living their best life in a McFred ring,
Jesse Lingard is blowing bubbles, a reference to his loan spell at West Ham where he definitely had more fun than he had at United,
and Harry Maguire is creating his iconic lean pose from the 2018 World Cup.
Maguire also says he "knows some places in Greece to have fun,"
which is a reference to his arrest in Mykonos while on vacation in 2020.
[loud engine] - Siuuuuuu!
- Hey Cristiano? Not to be a negative 'Nandes, but I think your jet ski is too big for this pool.
- Maybe this pool is too small for my jet ski.
- That's the same thing.
- Great, same page. See? We're an excellent team.
- Shhh, check it out!
- Cristiano Ronaldo arrives to a trademark "Siuuu" celebration with a quick reference to him being too big for Manchester United nowadays
and him not really jelling with his teammates this year.
- Sadio Mane and Mo Salah are having a diving contest.
[Excited exclamations]
- Yo, Mo's always been a good diver, but Sadio might low-key be as good.
- They're rivals and international opponents, but they still love and respect each other. It's so progressive!
- [Flailing] - Oh wow.
- Here we see Mo Salah and Sadio Mane going up against each other in a diving contest,
a reference to their rumored rivalry at Liverpool and the fact that people call Salah a diver.
Suárez references how they've been rivals on the international stage at AFCON and the World Cup qualifiers,
but the fact they still love and respect each other makes this a very 2022 kind of rivalry.
After their dives, Mane gets a 10 and Salah gets an 11, a reference to their shirt numbers at Liverpool.
- Hey, look at our rivalry! Messi vs. Ronaldo, right? Greatest of all time?
All of my teams used to cater to my every whim.
And now I'm just expected to mesh with people? Ugh.
- Sometimes it feels like the only reason I'm here is because no one else could afford me.
- Now we set up the premise of the series as Messi and Ronaldo realize that their rivalry might not be as exciting as it used to be.
Messi's line is especially true—PSG pretty much were the only team who could afford to pay him when he left Barcelona.
- Stupid 20-somethings. Fast bodies. [Angry stuttering] Ugh!
- Hey Cristiano. Are you trying to get it over the wall, or...?
- No. - Ohhh.
- Out in the back, Ronaldo is taking his anger out next to the dumpsters—
filled with Barcelona kits, a reference to how their season was pretty trash this year, especially under Ronald Koeman.
Messi asks if Ronaldo is trying to get it over the wall and Ronaldo says no,
a reference to how Ronaldo's free-kick taking in the last few years hasn't been as good as it was when he was younger.
- I understand. And I relate.
- You know, it's funny. It used to bother me how much people talked about our rivalry.
Now it bothers me that they don't.
- Ronaldo and Messi both take shots at Salah and Mane, but not before Messi shows off his skills a little more.
- Oh, I think I felt something.
- I wish my team would cherish me as much as I cherish myself.
- I wish my team had less strikers.
- I wish more department stores would carry my underwear brand!
- I wish I could be the GOAT forever!
- Messi and Ronaldo take out their frustrations on players who have been stealing their limelight this season
before their final shot collides on Maguire's legendary slabhead and causes the universe to implode.
- Uh, is that normal?
- How would I know what normal looks like? I have a $25,000 wax figure of myself in my own house.
- Yeah, he really does.
- Ah! No, no, no, no!
- Aaaaaaaah!
[thud]
[fart]
- Huh, that was weird.
Anyways, wanna go troll Lewandowski?
- Sure, let's go grab some of our Ballon d'Ors.
- After Messi and Ronaldo crash back down to earth, they can't resist a quick troll of Lewandowski,
who missed out on the 2020 Ballon d'Or because they canceled it and then in 2021 because Messi beat him to it. Damn.
- Ah, Charles Dickens and double-decker buses.
Another six-year contract? Sign me up!
No need for a buyout clause. I love playing here!
- Ugh, gross, who let Spurs in here?
[camera clicking]
- Yes, work those retro kits.
We're a football club, but more importantly, we're a lifestyle brand.
- Wait, Arsenal? OK, what the actual f--k is going on?
- Messi and Ronaldo walk into a much more futuristic version of the mansion, and we start to see some hints that things aren't right.
The walls are filled with half-half scarves of major rivalries, a craze that most football fans hate.
There are also paintings on the wall of Florentino Perez, Andrea Agnelli and Stan Kroenke,
the Real Madrid, Juventus and Arsenal directors who all pushed for a Super League in April 2021.
They walk past Spurs, who weren't in this season's Champions League, and they're still managed by Pochettino
and still have Eriksen on the team. Harry Kane happily signs a new six-year contract.
This is a reference to his last contract with Spurs, which he reportedly wishes he never signed,
as it stopped him from getting a move to Manchester City.
We then see Arsenal in the mansion.
Arsenal and Spurs were the two teams not in the Champions League who would have been in the new Super League, so we know something isn't right.
They're doing a photoshoot with another retro kit, a reference to the fact Arsenal always seem to bring out custom kits and fashion ranges.
Bukayo Saka is riding the unicorn that went viral during Euro 2020.
- Hey, Cristiano? I don't think we're in UEFA anymore.
- [Gasping]
- And then, finally, it hits.
On the wall is the slogan that the Super League used when they announced the project,
including the 12 teams that signed up originally. Looks like a multiverse situation, huh?
- I swear, if this is a multiverse situation, I am going to be so pissed.