Ultimate Football Heroes Podcast

England went to Croatia and won 7-0. It is the biggest defeat Croatia have ever had: 2 goals each for Harry Kane and Bukayo Saka, and Jude Bellingham scored 1 and set up 3 more.

Issy and George settle last week's predictions, including Manchester City Women coming from 2-1 down to beat Arsenal 4-2. The table is the closest it has been all season: George 10, Issy 9.

Then 3 things from the weekend: London City Lionesses winning 6-1 at Tottenham with 2 goals from Alexia Putellas, Manchester City sitting top of both the Premier League and the Women's Super League, and England's 2-0 win in Czechia.

This week's quiz is Who Do They Play For? We name 6 players and you name the club: Harry Kane, Lauren Hemp, Désiré Doué, Mary Earps, Bruno Fernandes and Alessia Russo.

The Premier League is back this weekend, so the predictions are Greece v England for the Lionesses, and Manchester United v Tottenham.

Coming soon in audio from Ultimate Football Heroes: Désiré Doué at the end of October and Bruno Fernandes in November.

Who is your ultimate football hero? Grab an adult and send us a voice note or an email: [email protected]

New episode every Tuesday.

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England were 2-1 up against Spain at Wembley when Harry Kane slipped taking a penalty and hit the bar. Spain came back to win 3-2.

Issy and George settle last week's predictions, then 3 things from the weekend: Arsenal Women's 20-game unbeaten run ended by Chelsea, Luka Modric scoring for Croatia at 41, and Manchester City Women making it 4 wins from 4.

Plus a brand new game: Football By Numbers, where every answer is a number. How many goals were in Manchester City 5-3 Sunderland, how many World Cups have Brazil won, and what year did Stamford Bridge open?

There is still no Premier League football this week, so the predictions are Croatia v England and Manchester City Women v Arsenal Women.

Who is your ultimate football hero? Grab an adult and send us a voice note or an email: [email protected]

New episode every Tuesday.

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Every club in the Women's Super League is more than 100 years old. Except one.

London City Lionesses did not exist in 2018. They split away from Millwall Lionesses in 2019 with no badge, no stadium and no fans, and they are now in the top division with Alexia Putellas as captain and Mary Earps in goal. They are also the only club in the league with no men's team.

Plus the football quiz flips round. Last week we said the sponsor and you named the team. This week Issy and George say the team and you name the sponsor, and one of the 6 is a trick.

Issy and George also settle last week's predictions. Chelsea Women beat Birmingham 2-0, and Brighton beat Arsenal 3-0 to end a run of 7 straight wins. Then 3 things from the weekend: 8 goals at Manchester City, a hat-trick for a player who still lost, 7 second-half goals for Tottenham Women, and a 95th-minute equaliser that took Arsenal Women to 20 games unbeaten.

There is no Premier League football this week, so the predictions are England v Spain at Wembley and the Merseyside derby at Anfield.

Who is your ultimate football hero? Grab an adult and send us a voice note or an email: [email protected]

New episode every Tuesday.

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Manchester City played with 10 players for more than an hour, and Erling Haaland still won them the Manchester derby.

Issy and George settle last week's predictions: Chelsea Women beat Manchester United 5-0 with 5 different scorers, and City beat United 1-0 after Phil Foden was sent off. Then 3 things from the weekend, including Lewis Dunk scoring from a long way out and Arsenal Women going 19 games without losing.

Plus a brand new game: What's On The Shirt? We say the sponsor on the front of a football shirt and you shout the team. 6 sponsors, 6 teams, and one very confusing moment about the chips inside your phone.

And why Stamford Bridge is older than Chelsea Football Club. It opened in 1877 as an athletics ground, and when 2 brothers bought it to build a football club, they offered it to Fulham first. Fulham said no.

This week's predictions: Chelsea Women v Birmingham City at Stamford Bridge, and Brighton v Arsenal. George leads 6-4.

Who is your ultimate football hero? Grab an adult and send us a voice note or an email: [email protected]

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Hull City were in the Championship last season. Three games into the Premier League they have not conceded a single goal.

Issy and George open with a bumper catch-up on the prediction game, settling four matches in one go and revealing the table for the first time this season. Chelsea's 5-2 win over Real Sociedad, Hull's win at Coventry, the Women's Super League opener, and Arsenal against Chelsea. One of them called two exact scores in the same week.

Then the Weekend In Three: Hull's three clean sheets, Arsenal on nine points out of nine after beating Chelsea, and the Women's Super League returning with London City Lionesses winning the opening game and Crystal Palace beating Everton.

There is also a brand new game. Name the Nation is the quickest one they have played. Six players, one word each, just shout the country. Erling Haaland, Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Son Heung-min, Luka Modric and Sadio Mane.

Plus predictions on a Manchester Sunday: Manchester United Women against Chelsea Women at midday, and the Manchester derby in the afternoon.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome back
00:12 Predictions catch-up: four games scored and the table revealed
04:05 The Weekend In Three: Hull City unbeaten, Arsenal perfect
05:26 Name the Nation: the quickest football quiz we have played
07:22 The answers: Haaland, Salah, van Dijk, Son, Modric and Mane
08:54 Predictions: Man Utd Women v Chelsea Women, and the Manchester derby

Ultimate Football Heroes is the podcast for young football fans, based on the bestselling Ultimate Football Heroes book series. New episode every Tuesday.

Who is your ultimate football hero? Grab an adult and send us a voice note or an email: [email protected]

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Lamine Yamal is 19 years old. He has won the Euros and the World Cup, and he holds more records than most players manage in an entire career.

Issy and George go deep on the Barcelona and Spain forward: youngest player ever to play for Spain, youngest ever to score for Spain, youngest ever to start a Champions League match, youngest ever to play in El Clasico, and youngest ever to appear at a European Championship. All of it before he turned 18. They also look at the summer that surprised everyone, when he played 8 games at the World Cup, scored once, and still ended up a world champion.

There is also a brand new game. Higher or Lower gives you a number, then asks you about something else. You say higher, lower, or the same. Six questions on the Women's Super League, England's women and men, the World Cup, Wembley, Alan Shearer and Harry Kane, and one sneaky one that catches everybody out.

Plus predictions on the opening weekend of the Women's Super League, with London City Lionesses hosting Manchester United after signing Mary Earps and Alexia Putellas, and Arsenal against Chelsea on the Sunday.

CHAPTERS
00:00 A new season of football chat
01:24 Higher or Lower: our brand new football game
04:59 The answers: Wembley, Harry Kane and the WSL
08:48 Lamine Yamal: every record he has broken
12:24 Predictions: London City Lionesses v Man Utd, and Arsenal v Chelsea

Ultimate Football Heroes is the podcast for young football fans, based on the bestselling Ultimate Football Heroes book series. New episode every Tuesday.

Who is your ultimate football hero? Grab an adult and send us a voice note or an email: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Premier League is back, and so are we.

Hull City were not even in this league last season. On day one they beat Manchester United 2-0, and both goals came from defenders. Issy and George pick through an opening weekend that also saw Pep Guardiola leave Manchester City after ten years, Brighton score four past Aston Villa inside 31 minutes, and Liverpool rescue a point at Newcastle with a penalty in the 99th minute.

Then it is game time. Football By Numbers is brand new for this season: six questions, every answer is a number, three options each. Play along at home and see if you can beat Issy and George.

The prediction competition starts again from nothing and runs all the way to February. This week: Chelsea against Real Sociedad in the Women's Champions League on Wednesday, and Coventry against Hull on Saturday.

One for the diary: the Women's Super League is back on Friday 4 September.

Tell us who your ultimate football hero is, and why. Grab an adult and send a voice note or an email to [email protected]

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Issy and George share an exclusive chapter from the Ultimate Football Heroes audiobook on Jude Bellingham. One of the five best players of the 2026 World Cup.

First, the numbers. Bellingham scored seven goals and got an assist across 616 minutes at the tournament, the most an English player has ever managed at a major finals. Gary Lineker and Harry Kane both stopped at six. Alan Shearer got five at the Euros. Even the Lionesses' record-setters, Ellen White in 2019 and Beth Mead at Euro 2022, topped out at six. Jude got seven.

Then comes the chapter itself: "Hagley's Next Football Hero." Long before the Bernabeu and the World Cup, there was a five-year-old boy on a muddy touchline in the West Midlands, watching his dad. Mark Bellingham was a policeman Monday to Saturday and a goal machine on Sundays, a sharp-shooting non-league striker who banged in 47 goals in 47 games for Leamington, firing the club into the Southern League Premier Division for the first time in 24 years. This is the story of how young Jude went from a boy who would rather pick the ball up and throw it, to a boy who had well and truly caught the football bug.

Want the rest of the story? The full audiobook, Ultimate Football Heroes: Bellingham, is out now on all major platforms, including Audible and Spotify. And you can still buy the book the old-fashioned way, from all good bookshops.

The Ultimate Football Heroes books are the bestselling football biography series for kids, over 50 titles covering everyone from Messi and Ronaldo to Aitana Bonmati and Lauren James. Find them wherever you buy books.

Got something to say? Send us a voice note or an email at [email protected]. Name, age, who you support, joke if you've got one.

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That's a wrap on the World Cup! Spain are world champions after beating Argentina in the final, which means Lionel Messi's last World Cup ends just short. England didn't quite make it, losing a nervy semi-final to Argentina, but Issy and George celebrate a bronze medal and England's best World Cup in 60 years after a bonkers 6-4 win over France in the third-place play-off. They crown Kylian Mbappe's Golden Boot, salute Cape Verde's 40-year-old goalkeeper as the story of the tournament, and finally finish their Ultimate World Cup XI - Barcelona's young star Pau Cubarsi takes the last spot, with Bukayo Saka on the bench for "UFH United". The prediction game finished dead level, so the whole series comes down to rock, paper, scissors. Thank you for every prediction and voice note all summer long. Who's in YOUR Ultimate XI? Send it to [email protected] (ask a grown-up first!).

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