Bruyneel and Martin describe UAE man as “unstoppable" but they don’t mean Tadej Pogacar

Isaac Del Toro’s late-season surge didn’t just pad a palmarès, it potentially showed what the future of cycling looks like. Across Italy and beyond, his acceleration has started to bend races to his will, and the implications for 2026 and 2027 are already being debated. The conversation around transfers, super-teams, and how to beat Tadej Pogacar suddenly has a new center of gravity. That was the thrust of Spencer Martin and Johan Bruyneel’s latest breakdown, which used Del Toro’s streak as a prism to examine UAE’s depth, the spiraling price of talent, and the uncertain logic of some headline moves.

Start with the numbers and the mood around UAE. “Number 95 for UAE, 95 wins this year. It seems like yesterday we were talking about whether they’d beat 85, the record of HTC High Road.” In one breath you get the scale of it; in the next, the ceiling: “They're probably not going to get to 100, but what a season for UAE.” Add Del Toro’s individual arc and the discussion shifts from tallying victories to plotting futures. “These races, he's so explosive… when he goes and Pogacar’s not there, it's difficult for anybody to follow.”

That explosive punch has already turned second-tier Italian one-days into launchpads for a much bigger ambition. The panel reminded listeners that these aren’t soft touches, “Those races in Italy, they’re hard. It’s extremely difficult to win those races.” Stack multiple wins in that cauldron and you invite loftier comparisons. One line, delivered without hedging, captured how fast Del Toro’s reputation is rising: “He’s a better one-day racer than Pogacar was at the same age.”

Which leads to the inevitable roster question during an era defined by one outlier: how does a phenom grow inside a team that already houses the sport’s most dominant rider? The debate came in two clean, opposing sentences, both plausible, both revealing the pinch point at UAE. On one hand, “We're probably going to start to see an Isaac Del Toro who gets really ambitious and maybe will have to look for another team if Pogacar’s there.” On the other, “If he's smart, he just stays with Pogacar and waits until Pogacar retires and then he's the man.” Either path has precedent, neither is straightforward inside a squad hoarding options and objectives.

Overlay that with the carousel of transfers and the market risk spikes. “If the amounts are true, personally I think it’s too much. It’s exaggerated.” In their view, the Remco Evenepoel deal is the case study everyone will use when this window is judged in hindsight: “If it’s true they paid €7 million for Remco with one year left, Christmas came early for Soudal. That’s €11 million net operations in one year. Huge.” In short: headline signings soothe a sponsor’s anxieties today, but they also rewire budgets, recruitment, and expectations tomorrow. Or, as they summarized it, “It’s a big risk, a huge investment.”

Against that backdrop, the sport itself is still rearranging its furniture. The merger saga that’s dragged across the autumn calendar isn’t just a footnote; it determines where riders with contracts actually land on January 1. The pod didn’t dress it up, “They are merging. They filed an official request now with the UCI. Intermarché is done.” If you’ve followed any consolidation in cycling, the next lines felt familiar, weary, even: “It’s not straightforward. There’s a lot of negotiations to be done still.”

Even the Pogacar schedule speculation was handled with useful caution. Talk of the Giro, Roubaix, and how to split leadership with teammates may fill columns, but the show reminded listeners that the calendar still starts with the course in hand. “I haven’t seen anything about him doing the Giro. Skipping Roubaix, it’s not confirmed, but they’d like him not to do it.”

Then the reminder that agency matters with riders of this stature: “They may ask him not to do it, but if he wants to, he’ll still do it.” And finally the line that explains why plans remain fluid until route presentations hit the stage: “I think it’s too early, everyone’s waiting for the Grand Tour routes. But I can guarantee you Pogacar already has the Tour de France course in his possession.”

Thread all of this back to Del Toro and you get the real takeaway. This isn’t just a hot hand in the autumn; it looks like the start of a multi-season problem for anyone not on UAE’s bus. The pod’s clearest long-view line on the Mexican prodigy didn’t need qualifiers: “16 wins for a rider like that, imagine if he still improves and gets a bit stronger, what we're going to see next year.” And then the sentence that will echo through team buses during winter planning: “If this progression keeps going from next year on, he’s becoming a big problem for a lot of riders in Grand Tours.”