I just had fish and chips for lunch and it's made me too lethargic to do any work right now, so I figured I might do something I don't do very often and make a thread that's actually about football, with no strange analogies or MS Paint drawings or anything. We've had heated discussion on the whole Celtic-Legia debacle and now there's been a draw and Celtic will play Maribor and everyone will cheer on Maribor, and also Napoli play Bilbao, so that's pretty awesome. Let's make this thread for all things European football - Champions League, Europa League, and even other European leagues if you like. Why not. Here's that draw that happened today: please log in to view this image
The Icelandic league is about half way through: http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/association=isl/domesticleague/standings/index.html Go ÃBV Vestmannaeyjar! David James' old team
Does it matter if Maribor win? I thought we were getting Fraser after the qualifying rounds, whether Celtic went through or not.
Add also the Europa league fixtures. There are four croatian clubs in the draw: GNK Dinamo Zagreb, HNK Rijeka, NK Hajduk Split and RK Split (two clubs form my hometown of 250 000 inhabitants!) Dnipro(UKR) - Hajduk Split(CRO) Petrolul(ROU) - Dinamo Zagreb(CRO) Split(CRO) - Torino(ITA) Rijeka(CRO) - Sheriff(MDA) Rijeka has the best chances of qualifying to group stages. Dinamo is a favorite only in name, and chances for both Split clubs to go trough are marginal at best. Still, it's the first time in history that four croatian clubs are in the 4th round.
Go on Hajduk! Speaking of Croatian football I noticed the other day some guy named Soudani has scored six goals in five domestic games for Dinamo.
Hajduk Split He's an Algerian, plays for Dinamo, came somewhere from Portugal, by recommendation from Vahid Halihodžić, former Algerian manager and Dinamo coach. He's a very good striker, played at the World Cup. Dinamo failed to qualify to CL so he's probably for sale, asking price is about 6M euros and there are number of German teams interested (Hannover, Mainz)
First things first. Legia Warsaw deserved to get banned for what was blatant idiocy. To me it seems like a simple post-it note stuck to an assistants monitor would've prevented this...although the conspiracy theorist in me ponders if it wasn't intentional. Looking at the facts we have a polish club intentionally breaking the rules in order to keep Celtic in the CL and Forster at the club which can only lead me to conclude that Boruc is the puppetmaster behind UEFA On another note. It seems to me that one of the biggest issues of European football is the massive divide between the elite clubs and the rest hence why i can't understand a system which hands massive financial rewards to the clubs that need it the least. I've dismissed and made jokes about the euro league in the past but in truth the problem lies at the top where a half dozen or so clubs hold a monopoly on the system. In modern European football an underdog story is one where a club reaches the QF's before being dismantled by one of the top teams around...which hands that big club a check for its successful destruction of the underdog with which it can secure more of footballs top talents. Winning the Champions league is something every club should be striving to win for glories sake alone but at last year each team got; (W) Real Madrid - £46m (RU) Athletico - £40.2m (SF) Bayer - £36m (SF) Chelsea - £35m etc... To me it seems you could easily cut those payouts by 90% and it would still be worth it for clubs to win due to prestige as well as upturns in local tv rights, merchandise and potential increases to attendance and ticket prices subsequently to winning.
Tough tie for my beloved Athletic Club, going up against Napoli. I'd love to see them make it through to the group stages. Also, gonna mention Icelandic side Stjarnan, in their first season of European football. Saw them mentioned on /r/soccer, their fans were going crazy. They've been drawn against Inter Milan, I think I've found an underdog to support.
The Champions League is a complete dullfest, and is utterly boring for a neutral, or at least a neutral who has no interest in watching these so called bestest players (Messi's playing? Look at all the ****s I give) hence this Sky Sports 5 seems to be a load of crap. The only time it's been interesting recently is when APEOL Nicosia went on a good cup run a couple of seasons back.
Legia Warsaw request a one off play-off with Celtic to determine who should go through: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/28732601
You know what, I think that's a fair idea. They made an error in fielding an ineligble player and got absolutely hammered for it. I think this is a very good compromise. UEFA will ignore it though.
I agree, but I thought I read that apparently Celtic could have refused the spot initially, if they communicated that.
Well, interesting tweet from Legia... https://twitter.com/LegiaWarszawa/status/498463104637087744 Amused me.
Legia made the mistake not Celtic. Their argument is with EUFA not Celtic. If Celtic refused the spot, EUFA could just put Maribor through as a bye.
