Champions League thread

Tough luck on Celtic but they had ridden their luck for a fair bit of the game. McGeady did well for them in patches.

Liverpool: what can you say? Might still win the last 3 games and qualify but not playing well or dominating the opposition. Fantastic support by the Turkish crowd.

Chelsea clinical as usual but not impressing.

Real Madrid come from 1-2 down to beat the 10 man Greeks 4-2.

Barca failing to beat Rangers. Sum of the total not as good as the individuals although is Henry past his sell by date?

Arsenal playing really well but peaking too early?

Man U: too many frailties as the back and rely too much on Rooney. A midfield of Anderson and O'Shea wouldn't frighten even Sheffield Wednesday.

AC Milan: despite the defeat by Celtic, my tip to win it.

Chelsea may not be impressive but they got the result. Also Rosenborg beating Valencia says one of two things: either Rosenborg are better than everyone assumes or Valencia are getting worse. Either one looks good for Chelsea.

I'm not tipping any teams at this stage. As long as Chelsea and Marseille get through I'm happy.

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

Man U: too many frailties as the back and rely too much on Rooney. A midfield of Anderson and O'Shea wouldn't frighten even Sheffield Wednesday.

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Eh, Scholes and Carrick are centre mid. And I know who played there on Tuesday before you say. And it wasn't O'Shea.;)

It's between Man Utd and Barca imo. Arsenal don't have the experience, despite my sarcastic sig...

I see Jamie Rednapp has come out and said the CL is boring, which for Sky is something of an admission. I think the competition needs to be revamped but TV money is a major obstacle. More games = more money. The Knock out stage is always where the excitement is. The league format where by and large one can guess which 2 teams will qualify is jaded.

This seasons Champions League has the potential to be the worst ever.

Wouldnt be surprised to see all four English teams in the semis, if they avoid each other in the draw, obviously.

As a Celtic fan the CL is anything but boring. I think the CL means a lot more to Celtic fans than to the Liverpool, Arsenal and Man Utd in this country for obvious reasons.

For the neutral though the group stage is muck, I've stopped watching as I don't care until it gets to the knockout stages and there is a possibility of the big teams being emilinated. It really does need revamping to be honest, I'd start the CL proper with 10 groups of three, only the winners advancing to the knockout stage, with the remaining 6 knockout stage spots already gone to the champions of England, Germany, France, Spain, Holland, and Italy, who recieve byes past the first round as reward for winning their domestic league.

That way you could potentially end up with a group consisting of AC Milan, Liverpool and say Besiktas, where one of AC and Liverpool will definately go out, and so there games will be more exciting, as will there games with a team like Besiktas, for a slip up there could see them greatly increase their chances of elimination as well.

Of the 30 teams in the groups I'd break it down to guaranteed spots, besides the Champions of the 6 mentioned above, for 2 from England, Spain and Italy, 1 from France, Holland, Germany, Portugal, Greece and Scotland, with the rest being made up of all those from the qualifiers, which would include one more team from England, Spain, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, Scotland, and Portugal, as well as whoever has got through the qualifiers from the various other countries

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Originally Posted by jebus

I'd start the CL proper with 10 groups of three, only the winners advancing to the knockout stage, with the remaining 6 knockout stage spots already gone to the champions of England, Germany, France, Spain, Holland, and Italy, who recieve byes past the first round as reward for winning their domestic league.

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But that would financially punish teams for winning the league, as they'd miss out on 2 home games.

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

I see Jamie Rednapp has come out and said the CL is boring, which for Sky is something of an admission. .

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Opps, it was his dad who said it. I should have known better :rolleyes:

http://blogs.reuters.com/soccer/2007...boring-league/

Like Jamie is capable of an independant thought, tut tut.

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Originally Posted by osarusan

But that would financially punish teams for winning the league, as they'd miss out on 2 home games.

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But it would give them the advantage in their own league, so there's positives and negatives. Plus according to the word of Rafa the real money to be made in the Champions League is in the knockout stages anyway

Thought the Inter/CSKA game was class until Inter netted a fourth. The Celtic/Benfica game was kind of exciting too, given that a loss for either team pretty much guaranteed an exit.

Another couple of fairly meaningless games tonight with Arsenal and Man U already qualified.

At least RTÉ are showing Lyon and Barca for a change. I'm looking forward to it although I'm already dreading Dunphy's lack of knowledge on Ligue Une.

and hopefully they'll show highlights of rangers getting pumped! Sure as Giles says - Eamon you know all about the spanish league :rolleyes: HA only because its on in the pub on sunday evenings :D:D!!!

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Originally Posted by EAFC_rdfl

and hopefully they'll show highlights of rangers getting pumped! Sure as Giles says - Eamon you know all about the spanish league :rolleyes: HA only because its on in the pub on sunday evenings :D:D!!!

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Stuttgart are starting to get their act together, they hammered Bayern a few weks ago and won 4-1 at Frankfurt on Saturday...

I saw that, looks like they are back to the kind of form they showed last season, some very useful players, just had a bad start to the season. hopefully they're coming good just in time to knock rangers out!!!

Shocked at Gilesy's lack of knowledge regarding the Dutch 4-3-3 system that Barca play.

Not really. He doesn't now anything about football outside these islands.

he made a great point lastnight about the lack of knowledge of the game in england i think he was spot on