Champions League/Europa League 2020/21

First topic message reminder :

Draw just completed for the group stages of the Champions League.

Group A: Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, Red Bull Salzburg, Lokomotiv Moscow
Group B: Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Inter Milan, Borussia Monchengladbach
Group C: Porto, Man City, Olympiakos, Marseille
Group D: Liverpool, Ajax, Atalanta, Midtjylland
Group E: Sevilla, Chelsea, Krasnodar, Rennes
Group F: Zenit St Petersburg, Borussia Dortmund, Lazio, Club Bruges
Group G: Juventus, Barcelona, Dynamo Kiev, Ferencvaros
Group H: Paris St-Germain, Man Utd, RB Leipzig, Istanbul Basaksehir

I suppose the main headline is Ronaldo v Messi in Group G. Other than that, none of the groups really set the pulse racing.

Three English clubs - Liverpool, City and Chelsea - should qualify quite easily. Manchester United will have an uphill task on their hands to squeeze past one/both of PSG and Leipzig.

City get through with the aid of some beneficial decisions and a cracking goal from Foden. First time past the QFs for them in a few years.

No daring comeback from Liverpool.

PSG v City
Madrid v Chelsea

Three billionaires play things in the semi final, the Champions League is just a circus now.

I don't think Madrid are much cop. They are fine, but Chelsea shouldn't be worried about them. PSG vs Chelsea final, why the hell not.

I much preferred the CL when it was dominated by teams up to their eyeballs in debts to banks.

Or when Jeep paid for Ronaldo to join Juve, thats the right way to do things

Or Bayern's approach of buying out the best players of anyone who ever threatens to disrupt their domestic dominance

JDizzle wrote:I don't think Madrid are much cop. They are fine, but Chelsea shouldn't be worried about them. PSG vs Chelsea final, why the hell not.

I think Chelsea should be favourites for the Madrid tie, they've been revitalised since Tuchel came in which, of course, makes things look worse for Frank Lampard's managerial career. That said, Madrid have also been on the up recently, entering a three-way race for La Liga and their form has been mostly good this side of New Year.

PSG/City for me is a 50-50 coin toss. Both teams have the attacking resources to blow the other away.

Tuchel has certainly been shrewder and more pragmatic than Lampard (it is bizarre Lampard never tried playing with wing backs when the wheels were really coming off - especially as he utilised it well in his first season) but at the expense of some attacking prowess. Chelsea have only scored more than 2 once under Tuchel so far and he is no closer to unlocked Werner, certainly, and Havertz.

Chelsea are also quite a soft and naive team at the moment. Which meant I was surprised as to how well they handled Atletico and Porto - two absolute nightmares to play against. Real another step up in experience and ‘know how’ though.

Narrow advantage to Chelsea after the first leg with a 1-1 draw. However they should have won the away leg as they were vastly superior to Madrid, but spurned a number of good chances. Might have cause to regret that if Madrid respond well in West London.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56915346

"Real Madrid defender Marcelo could miss the second leg of their Champions League semi-final at Chelsea because he has been called up to monitor a polling station during local elections."

Has to be one of the more bizarre stories I've seen. Surely Real will find a way out for him?

Chelsea 2-0 Madrid. Absolutely slapped Madrid. Could have been 5-0. Fingers crossed we get a good final.

Very weak period of European club football right now

Not overly surprised with the outcome, given Chelsea are still riding the Tuchel wave. Similar to Liverpool v Spurs, it’s not the most exciting match up, given it’s another all-English tie.

Good results for Chelsea and City, but it's been a crap Champions League this year. And a few of the glamour ties have been influenced by key absentees - PSG missing Mbappe yesterday, Bayern missing Lewandowski, Real missing Ramos in the first leg etc.

Hope Chelsea win the final, if only for the reason that it'll be unbearable to hear the Pep love-in for weeks on end. Pep, of course, has done nothing in his managerial career other than take teams that are already super and successful to success.

UEFA proving that they are no better than the breakaway clubs announcing the Champions League final will take place in Porto rather than the England. The justification being that sponsors would have to quarantine upon arrival, so ultimately putting money ahead of the fans of both teams, football is truly broken.

Fair play to the government for not buckling and making exceptions.

Villarreal win the EL on pens. Woeful final.

De Gea misses the decisive penalty. Thought OGS was really poor during the game, in not changing it up.

Villarreal win the Europa League 11-10 on penalties v Man United. I think the longest penalty shootout I've ever seen live.  

Ole showed the most horrific in-game management I've seen since Roy froze v Iceland in 2016. 90 minutes up and Villarreal had subbed off five players. Ole didn't make any changes. His team were absolutely knackered and it still took him until the 100th minute before he made one solitary change, which involved putting on a player who was too injured to start. Any remaining changes were left until five minutes from the end, including the slightly bizarre choice to take Pogba off. United being exhausted lost them that final. They were on top for the vast majority of the 90 minutes, but didn't have the energy to sustain that control in ET.

What sort of message does that send, from Ole, to his bench players? Yes, we're gasping for air out there, but I'd rather play that lot exhausted than you lot fresh.

I feel very sorry for Rashford. He's being run into the ground and having his career ruined by a clueless clown of a manager who's playing him constantly through injury. Bruno and Greenwood could also go the same way re: burnout.

Also feel sympathy for De Gea. Penalties is always a cruel, stupid and pointless way to lose a final (just share the trophy or invoke a form of judging), but to lose it on the 22nd kick from someone who isn't even an outfield player is farcical.

I have no idea what OGS was playing at, once they equalised the game was there to win by 2 or 3 but the team based on his direction didn't do anything and because of that lost on penalties. Will say it made little sense not substituting De Gea for Henderson, he has a truly woeful penalty record, 21 without saving a single one in real match play.

I think to be fair to Ole overall, he's done a reasonable stabilising and improving United. But that can't be confused with turning United into contenders, and they're still miles off that. But then Ole is another symptom of the real problem at United.

Don’t really agree. He’s been aided by the fact Liverpool went AWOL this season, and Chelsea are still relatively poor performers in the league. He’s spent £200m or something, and won no trophies in two or three seasons. Mourinho finished second and won the EL, so I don’t really see where the improvement is, other than a side being carried by Bruno Fernandes. If he’d honestly taken United to another level, they would of taken a relatively poor Villarreal side, who finished 7th in Spain, apart.

Zidane, Allegri or Conte available this summer, if United did want a change.

Yes, there's hasn't been any improvement under Ole, but United have drastically overachieved in the league two seasons in a row due to Bruno (without him they'd be closer to 10th than 1st) and other sides underachieving.

It was time to get rid of Ole about 12-18 months ago, as it's evident he's nowhere near being a top-level manager, though it's always tough to move away from a fan favourite. I think there's actually a small window of opportunity to move on from Ole after the diabolical showing yesterday, and get a competent manager in like Allegri, Conte or even try to get someone like Hasenhuttl or Potter, but it's unlikely to happen.

I think to be fair to Ole, he's done a reasonable job stabilising United, and theres a decent crop of talent coming through to the first team. Doubt he's gonna bridge the gap to City and likely a resurgent Liverpool next season but equally I don't think any manager could do that at United with the current set up. Ole getting the job to begin with was a symptom of United's issues

Duty281 wrote:Yes, there's hasn't been any improvement under Ole, but United have drastically overachieved in the league two seasons in a row due to Bruno (without him they'd be closer to 10th than 1st) and other sides underachieving.

It was time to get rid of Ole about 12-18 months ago, as it's evident he's nowhere near being a top-level manager, though it's always tough to move away from a fan favourite. I think there's actually a small window of opportunity to move on from Ole after the diabolical showing yesterday, and get a competent manager in like Allegri, Conte or even try to get someone like Hasenhuttl or Potter, but it's unlikely to happen.

This shows a startling lack of insight in to the club and the views of its fans, in light of recent events I find it surprising.

The team have improved massively under OGS and whilst inconsistent are capable now of performances they haven't been since Ferguson. The football played under Mourinho and Van Gaal was slow, turgid and in no way enjoyable to watch, again it's not consistent but Man United have produced scintillating performances this season, the semi final being a prime example. The manner of how the team plays is just as important as winning.

Juve appointing Allegri because the only new idea they've had in the last decade was the superleague

Away goals rule set to be scrapped. Good news.

Chelsea 1-0 up at half time. Havertz scoring the goal. Could’ve been better for the Londoners if Werner had been wearing his goal scoring boots...
On the whole a very enjoyable half of football

Nasty clash between Rudiger and de Bruyne, the latter went off with apparent concussion

City pretty woeful tonight and now De Bruyne off injured. Might be one of those nights for City.

Can’t really get my head around Chelsea potentially being champions of Europe.

Haven't Chelsea now played in three champions league finals having changed manager mid season?

Pep made a colossal error in not starting Fernandinho. Meant that City were unbalanced, couldn't control the midfield, and Chelsea took advantage in the first half. Would have been more than 1-0 if Werner could have remembered how to finish.

All of City's illustrious attackers had a poor night, while Stones had a error-strewn evening in defence. Chelsea's defence was strong, especially James at right-back.

Delighted for Chelsea. Deserved winners on the night, but a very odd up-and-down season for them. If only Terry hadn't slipped they'd have won three Champions Leagues in 13 years. City end up with just the PL and the League Cup for the season, which probably represents overall disappointment.

The oh so great Pep Guardiola bottles it, the fawning from pundits over his ability to manage a billion pound team is hilarious.

Chelsea win the champions league and it was throughly well deserved. Guardiola was throughly out thought by Tuchel.
N’Golo Kante is a phenomenal player. Priceless.
Tuchel also buried the woes from last season.

The oh so great Pep Guardiola bottles it, the fawning from pundits over his ability to manage a billion pound team is hilarious.

Jeff Navarro wrote:Chelsea win the champions league and it was throughly well deserved. Guardiola was throughly out thought by Tuchel.

Three wins out of three for Tuchel v Pep this season.

Soul Requiem wrote:Haven't Chelsea now played in three champions league finals having changed manager mid season?

Yep. Grant, Di Matteo and now Tuchel.

Away goals rule will be scrapped