Champions League 14/15 Draw (Monaco, 28th August 4:45 pm)

City will struggle in that group.

All the other English teams should go through.

COTR wrote:No real groups of death there. Group C is the most interesting.

yep it went from shite to super-even.

But D and E will see lots of battle as well and they're higher quality too.

Benatia plays his old club straight away

And Immobile to rape all over Arsenal.

Jaime wrote:I'm telling you, Athletic Bilbao can win Group H.

COTR wrote:No real groups of death there. Group C is the most interesting.

Yup, Group C is the most balanced.

I also agree that there is no group of death. It could have been Group E, but Bayern and City have too much quality for poor Roma. I guess Totti will have to retire with a CL trophy...

Group A - Atlético Madrid, Juventus, Olympiacos, Malmö
Group B - Real Madrid, Basel, Liverpool, Ludogorets
Group C - Benfica, Zenit, Leverkusen, Monaco
Group D - Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Galatasaray, Anderlecht
Group E - Bayern, Manchester City, CSKA Moscow, Roma
Group F - Barcelona, Paris Saint Germain, Ajax, APOEL
Group G - Chelsea, Schalke, Sporting, Maribor
Group H - Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk, Athletic, BATE

Group A - Atlético Madrid, Juventus, Olympiacos, Malmö
Group B - Real Madrid, Basel, Liverpool, Ludogorets
Group C - Benfica, Zenit, Leverkusen, Monaco
Group D - Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Galatasaray, Anderlecht
Group E - Bayern, Manchester City, CSKA Moscow, Roma
Group F - Barcelona, Paris Saint Germain, Ajax, APOEL
Group G - Chelsea, Schalke, Sporting, Maribor
Group H - Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk, Athletic, BATE

Ajax over Barca, get the hell out of here!

Luis wrote: Ajax over Barca, get the hell out of here!

A person can dream!

Liverpool - Dismiss Basle at your peril - they've scalped quite a few English sides over the years.

Jaime wrote:

Luis wrote: Ajax over Barca, get the hell out of here!

A person can dream!

Though...it could happen, Barca arent the team they were once.

Ludogorets and  Bazzle get liverpoolised already, we shall see.That Moti is bigger legend then Stevie G.

I've stated that I don't think Basel will be pushovers. At home of course we should beat them. Away could be tricky as a lot of away games in Europe can be. Ludogorets we should utterly destroy at home and win fairly comfortable away.

Bayern have the toughest group of all, but should go through despite their injury list. Pep needs to get a grip quick though.

Dortmund should qualify also, they should aim to win the group again.

Schalke are a mess currently, but they should at least manage to qualify for the second round. If they'd rid themselves of Keller and sign a proper manager (e.g. Tuchel), they could be a real force. They have a ton of potential and (currently) the best academy in the country. They could really be as good as Dortmund if they weren't run by idiots on all levels...

Leverkusen should qualify also. Expecting some great things from them this season, their new manager Roger Schmidt is great, even if a bit too radical for Europe probably. Leverkusen under him are more energetic and hungry than Dortmund are currently even, pure counter-pressing attacking mayhem. And they have a lot of talented young players.

Those groups are boring. Always the same teams. chelsea vs schalke, city/cska vs Bayern and Dortmund vs Arsenal

its like i've seen those games already 100 times.

I want the world cup back.

Antarion wrote:Those groups are boring. Always the same teams. chelsea vs schalke, city/cska vs Bayern and Dortmund vs Arsenal  

its like i've seen those games already 100 times.

I want the world cup back.    

Current UEFA country ranking:

# country 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 ranking teams

01 Spain 18.214 20.857 17.714 23.000 3.214 82.999 6/ 7
02 England 18.357 15.250 16.428 16.785 3.142 69.962 6/ 7
03 Germany 15.666 15.250 17.928 14.714 3.000 66.558 6/ 7
04 Portugal 18.800 11.833 11.750 9.916 2.750 55.049 5/ 6
05 Italy 11.571 11.357 14.416 14.166 2.333 53.843 6/ 6
06 Russia 10.916 9.750 9.750 10.416 3.333 44.165 4/ 6
07 France 10.750 10.500 11.750 8.500 2.250 43.750 5/ 6
08 Ukraine 10.083 7.750 9.500 7.833 2.000 37.166 4/ 6
09 Netherlands 11.166 13.600 4.214 5.916 1.916 36.812 3/ 6
10 Belgium 4.600 10.100 6.500 6.400 2.600 30.200 4/ 5

http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/crank2015.html

Portugal have overtaken Italy (great achievement btw.), but there is no real difference between 4th and 5th place. However, if things continue like this, Russia may finish the season ahead of France, who are currently 7th. If that happens, France would lose a CL spot (3 spots (max) currently).

Looks like that Arab oil (and other) money isn't really benefiting the league.

How do you come to that conclusion?

PSG has scored many points for France so far. In their Cl return they got 5 wins and 1 loss. Last season they got 4 wins 1 draw and 1 loss. It has been on the other teams in France that have been messing up. Also the other rich team, Monaco, is only starting Cl now. They have a decent group where everybody can qualify. I'm not sure you can blame PSG or Monaco for the decline of Lyon which began before the new money. Nor can you blame them for Lille consistently finishing last when they were in the Cl and this time they couldn't even qualify. Nor have they been snatching the best players from their rivals, a la Bayern.

I think it is too early to tell because it will depend on how Monaco can contribute to what PSG does because PSG is saving France at the moment by reaching the quarterfinals two years in a row and being very close each time to the semi. They are the first French team I could realistically see winning it.

PSG's rise is obviously at the expense of the other clubs in the league. When Lyon were similarily dominant in the noughties, the other Ligue1 clubs were at least doing pretty well, Ligue 1 used to be amongst the top five most of the time. But now, they've become canon fodder.

PSG need a lot more than just money to become a real contender for the CL title. See Manchester City.

Why is this obvious? You can't just observe correlation without proving causation. As I said before it might well be that without PSG France would have done even worse.

And PSG is the best bet for a future French Cl winner. Much more likely than Lyon ever was. In their first 2 Cl seasons since they got money, they have reached the quarters twice and been quite close both times. City on the other hand has choked massively in their first two Cl seasons.

Because the strength in depth of the league is total pants now, everything seems to concentrate at the very top. Unfortunately though, PSG haven't been nearly good enough in Europe so far for the league to have any kind of benefit from this very lopsided situation.

PSG may well be the most realistic 'future CL winner' in French football, but define 'future'. And at what cost? I know your bollocks swell everyime you see pure, unadulterated market capitalism at work, but in sports, it's not desireable to have monopolies.

Because the strength in depth of the league is total pants now, everything seems to concentrate at the very top.

Looking at transfermakt.co.uk I can see PSG has been sucking the French league dry buying a grand total of 4 players from France since 2011/2012 when they got rich.(plus one player on a free transfer)

Lyon on the other hand would routinely use the Bayen strategy of buying up players from other teams(including big players from their rivals) in the league. And if you want to talk monopoly, Lyon consolidated their dominance this way and made it the most boring league in Europe for 7 years straight. If what you are saying is true then you should hate Lyon because they concentrated the best players of the league yet France still did well in Europe relative to now by your own admission. In any circumstance it is too early to see what the new money of PSG+Monaco means for the league. Monaco might need a couple of years to get used to Cl football and who knows if one of Lille/Marseille can get it together.

It sounds more like you're just using the last couple of years of poor results in France to bash big money without there necessarily being a connection.

I don't necessarily like Lyon either, but the fact stands that when they were dominating Ligue1, the other clubs at least were competitive in Europe. Didn't set the world alight, sure (when was the last time a French club did?), but weren't total pants either. Nowadays it's PSG and not much else. It remains to be seen how the other financially doped team Monaco will do in Europe this year.

I don't need to wait for anything to happen to bash "big money". It's not the money, it's how it was 'earned' that stinks. That and my strong dislike for Arab autocrats trying to buy their way into European football as a means of improving their image, which is as bad as it is for very good reason.

blutgraetsche wrote:Because the strength in depth of the league is total pants now, everything seems to concentrate at the very top. Unfortunately though, PSG haven't been nearly good enough in Europe so far for the league to have any kind of benefit from this very lopsided situation.

PSG may well be the most realistic 'future CL winner' in French football, but define 'future'. And at what cost? I know your bollocks swell everyime you see pure, unadulterated market capitalism at work, but in sports, it's not desireable to have monopolies.

There is nothing capitalist about PSG, they are owned by the Qatari government

But you are automatically conceeding that buying the best talent from the league won't make the league weak in Europe since this is what Lyon did.
Ironically the charge you levelled against PSG is not true as they have hardly bought from the league. So how is PSG making the other teams worse?

Looking at the facts it seems more obvious that the league is doing worse despite of PSG or I suppose you could argue that Lyon putting money in other French clubs is what helped. Either way it is flimsy to argue that PSG is the reason France is in decline. And as you say Monaco is just now starting to contribute so it is silly to cast judgement on the influence of foreign money on the French league.

I could be mistaken but you seem to be looking for a connection that isn't there.

Champions league seeding system to be changed

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2737823/Premier-League-winners-seeds-Champions-League-seeding-revamp.html

Looking forward to Romagetting knocked out by a 3rd rate east euro side in the Europa next year.

The seeding changes are good and bad I guess.

I mean City have no right to be in pot 1 really, they've had no history in this competition other than embarrassment so far. But then it is the Champions league and City are champions of England.

But then Arsenal have done pretty much fuck all in this competition since its inception yet have always been in the competition so should they be in pot 1?

Champions league won't be the same without man utd

RedDevil wrote:Champions league won't be the same without man utd

Yep it will be less humorous.

BoBo Vieri 32 wrote:Benatia plays his old club straight away

And Immobile to rape all over Arsenal.

Kosceleiwywy is a joke. Arsenal won't win the EPL/UCL with Ramsay/Wilshere in midfield.