Relgated teams and C.L Teams

Some quite big clubs have been relegated this year in Europe:

Italy: Sampdoria, Brescia, Bari
Spain: Deportivo la Corona, Hercules Alicante, Almeria
France: Lens, Arles and (Monaco, Nancy, Caen, Valenciennes, Nice, Brest, or Auxerre)
Germany: Eintract Francfort, Sankt Pauli
England: West Ham, Blackpool, Birmingham

There is still one day to go in France and several clubs are in danger, like Monaco which is currently 18th or Auxerre (12th with 46 points). If one of these club goes down it is not going to be a good news for la ligue 1, after Lens got relegated (which has the best supporters).

Alicante has done pretty much the same as Arles, which is buy tons of new players, some of them being quite good (Portillo, Trezeguet, Tiago, Drenthe) buy it just didn't work. Arles, whihc is one fo the worst teams ever to be playing in la ligue, won only 3 games. They took tons of ex glory hunters (Pavon, two greeks than won the euro 1876) but they were so so poor.

Qualified Directly to the C.L

Italy: Both Milans, Napoli
Germany: Dortmund, Leverkusen
England: Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City
Holland: Ajax
Spain: Barca, Madrid, Valencia
France: Lille, Marseille

Qualifying Round C.L:
Italy: Udinese
England: Arsenal
Holland: Fc Twente
Spain: Villareal
France: Lyon
Germany: Munich

Missing out: Lazio, As Roma, Juventus, Liverpool, Tott, P.S.V, Galatasaray (what happened to them, why are they only 8th??/). FC Sevilla, Atletico Madrid, P.S.G, Wolfsburg, Bremen, Schalke.

Gosh what happened to the Bundesliga: Hamburg (8th), Stuttgart (12th) Bremen (13th), Wolfsburg (15th).

So in brief, next year's C.L will be interesting with some newbies (Man City, Lille, Dortmund), the U.E.F.A will again have big teams. Some big clubs will have to sell their best players because they are either relegated or not playing europe. It's going to be an interesting summer.

Alive and Kicking wrote:
Gosh what happened to the Bundesliga: Hamburg (8th), Stuttgart (12th) Bremen (13th), Wolfsburg (15th).

That's basically business as usual in the Bundesliga. If anything, only us (Werder) had an 'unusual' (means extremely crappy) season in the sense that we sucked everywhere, in the league, Europe and Pokal. For almost a decade, we were amongst the top three in the league and in the 2009 season, when we finished 10th, we won the Pokal and made the UEFA cup final at least. It's the most even of the top leagues which makes it the most unpredictable, every team can beat the other.

The Bundesliga loses a big club in Eintracht Frankfurt, but on the other hand, Hertha comes back. Expect Frankfurt to come back after a year in Bundesliga 2, too. Maybe it's about time to introduce 20 team league, at the expense of the winter break. 18 teams in the first division simply doesn't seem enough considering the size of the country and the number of big clubs with huge fan bases. Realistically speaking, there are around 25 clubs in Germany that are 1. Bundesliga material, but many of them have become "Fahrstuhlmannschaften" ('elevator teams') stuck somewhere in between the two leagues, 1. and 2. Bundesliga.

As far as Europe is concerned, Dortmund's young team is very talented and with the exception of Sahin, who is a great loss, they have managed to keep it together for the most part. His replacement Gündogan is a promising prospect. They need to add some depth and strengthen their team in certain areas, which they will hopefully do, but ultimately, their team lacks experience on the international stage. Hopefully, they learned a thing or two from their rather unlucky Europa League campaign this season.
Leverkusen have an excellent squad, but likely will lose key players like Vidal this summer, too. On the other hand, they will further improve with youngsters like Schürrle, who is a German international already and one of the league's most promising talents. It remains to be seen how their new coach, Robin Dutt, will do. He is a promising, modern and tactically astute young coach who made Freiburg punch over their weight for years, but he lacks European experience.
Expect Bayern to qualify for the CL and actually do well next season, especially if they finally strengthen their defence like it seems they will. Heynckes is a very experienced coach who won the competition with Real Madrid already, and he has the backing of the fickle Bayern board. Bayern are one of the best teams in Europe going forward, they just need to add some balance, need better players at the back and defend better as a team. Heynckes can teach them that.

As far as the Europa League is concerned, things are very similar. Two smaller clubs lacking European experience, Hannover and Mainz, coached by two young and promising coaches, Slomka (Hannover) and Tuchel (Mainz). Slomka managed to reach the CL 1/4 final with Schalke a few years ago, and his counter-attacking Hannover side may be suited to cup competitions, but it's very difficult to say how they will do. Tuchel is the most promising coach of his generation and his side surprised everyone in the first half of the season. But Mainz will lose key players like Schürrle and Holtby this summer, replacing them won't be easy for a relatively poor club like them.
Schalke qualified for the Europa League through the Pokal. Rangnick will need to rebuild his team to a certain degree, losing key players like Neuer, for example. On the other hand, Holtby will be back and most of the team are young and have potential. I expect them to do well.

blutgraetsche wrote:

Alive and Kicking wrote:
Gosh what happened to the Bundesliga: Hamburg (8th), Stuttgart (12th) Bremen (13th), Wolfsburg (15th).

That's basically business as usual in the Bundesliga. If anything, only us (Werder) had an 'unusual' (means extremely crappy) season in the sense that we sucked everywhere, in the league, Europe and Pokal. For almost a decade, we were amongst the top three in the league and in the 2009 season, when we finished 10th, we won the Pokal and made the UEFA cup final at least. It's the most even of the top leagues which makes it the most unpredictable, every team can beat the other.

The Bundesliga loses a big club in Eintracht Frankfurt, but on the other hand, Hertha comes back. Expect Frankfurt to come back after a year in Bundesliga 2, too. Maybe it's about time to introduce 20 team league, at the expense of the winter break. 18 teams in the first division simply doesn't seem enough considering the size of the country and the number of big clubs with huge fan bases. Realistically speaking, there are around 25 clubs in Germany that are 1. Bundesliga material, but many of them have become "Fahrstuhlmannschaften" ('elevator teams') stuck somewhere in between the two leagues, 1. and 2. Bundesliga.

As far as Europe is concerned, Dortmund's young team is very talented and with the exception of Sahin, who is a great loss, they have managed to keep it together for the most part. His replacement Gündogan is a promising prospect. They need to add some depth and strengthen their team in certain areas, which they will hopefully do, but ultimately, their team lacks experience on the international stage. Hopefully, they learned a thing or two from their rather unlucky Europa League campaign this season.
Leverkusen have an excellent squad, but likely will lose key players like Vidal this summer, too. On the other hand, they will further improve with youngsters like Schürrle, who is a German international already and one of the league's most promising talents. It remains to be seen how their new coach, Robin Dutt, will do. He is a promising, modern and tactically astute young coach who made Freiburg punch over their weight for years, but he lacks European experience.
Expect Bayern to qualify for the CL and actually do well next season, especially if they finally strengthen their defence like it seems they will. Heynckes is a very experienced coach who won the competition with Real Madrid already, and he has the backing of the fickle Bayern board. Bayern are one of the best teams in Europe going forward, they just need to add some balance, need better players at the back and defend better as a team. Heynckes can teach them that.

As far as the Europa League is concerned, things are very similar. Two smaller clubs lacking European experience, Hannover and Mainz, coached by two young and promising coaches, Slomka (Hannover) and Tuchel (Mainz). Slomka managed to reach the CL 1/4 final with Schalke a few years ago, and his counter-attacking Hannover side may be suited to cup competitions, but it's very difficult to say how they will do. Tuchel is the most promising coach of his generation and his side surprised everyone in the first half of the season. But Mainz will lose key players like Schürrle and Holtby this summer, replacing them won't be easy for a relatively poor club like them.
Schalke qualified for the Europa League through the Pokal. Rangnick will need to rebuild his team to a certain degree, losing key players like Neuer, for example. On the other hand, Holtby will be back and most of the team are young and have potential. I expect them to do well.

Similar this in France, some people say it's better to play with 18 teams, less games but less revenues, and also there is one spot less to get relegated. Some other people complain because there are too many games.. Don't know which way is better. 20 clubs is probably better because you can see the 20 biggest teams. Although some German clubs haven't done that well, the Bundesliga is still very healthy... One problem is to deal with some players who've tasted to C.L games and want to play some more.
Some guys like Diego, Grafite, Ibisevic, Salihovic, Cacau, Probrenyac might want to go elsewhere to play Europe...

I think Valencia and Villarreal will both give a good accounting of themselves in the CL but without some significant investment neither probably will advance beyond the 1/8 finals.

Deportivo, well, they have been in trouble for some time now. Hard to believe they were beating Man Utd in the CL 1/4 finals within the last decade. Unfortunately they have no money and so their transfer policy has basically been 'get the least sh!t players available for free' + add one or two loan signings. Their best defender is out of contract and their best player from last year was on loan. Probably will have to sell Guardado and maybe Aranzubia. They don't really have a lot of desirable assets. All in all, it could be a while before we see them back in the first division.

AS Monaco have been relegated to Ligue 2 after a 2-0 home defeat to Lyon.

Yes, it's been 34 years than Monaco have been playing in ligue 1... It's quite a surprise because they were a big team a few years ago, but they have been rather poor these last 3-4 years. The prince of Monaco used to invest tons of cash in the club from all casinos, but he has stopped doing that.

The ligue 1 is getting poorer and poorer, there are now 3 ex league winners in second division (Lens, Nantes and Monaco)... Not good at all.