The Champions League Discussion Thread

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And the unthinkable happened... twice. United out and Lyon overcoming an 8 goal deficit to go through? Wow. This CL has been full of surprises so far. APOEL and Basel have proven to be the surprise packages of the group stages, hopefully they do well in the knockout stages.

lets be honest they'll probally draw rmadrid and barca and get destroyed :P
 
Kudos for Lyon, the frenchies showing real skill with their recoveries! Marseille yesterday and today Lyon with even harder one !
 
So Arsenal face off against either: Napoli, CSKA, Basel, Bayer Leverkusen, Lyon, Zenit, or AC Milan. We have to avoid AC Milan or Napoli imo and we should make it into the Quarters hopefully.
 
I feel sorry for man city fans. Thinking that they beat one of the best in europe, looking at the napoli scoreline, and being heart broken.
 
Who says the groups stages are boring and predictable?

City will be back stronger simply because of the players they have. I have no idea what happened with United, sounds like defensive errors cost them and failing to be clinical up front meant they were chasing the game for over 70 minutes.

The reason I'm upset over tonights results is mainly the England co-efficient. It's taken a hit and I'm assuming that the two clubs will simply throw the Europa League (I don't understand why personally) meaning that Spain will most likely end this campaign ahead of England in the co-efficient.

The biggest let down of the night was Garrido, I would be hugely shocked if he is still in charge in January. He's lost the fans, the players and the board. To set up to draw with Napoli at home is not good enough, his tactical naivety is just astounding at times.

It's going to be an interesting Champions League to say the least this year, if APOEL draw Basel the winner would be the ideal choice to play in the quarter finals that's for sure. With respect to what APOEL have done, they played a poor Porto team and an underachieving Shakhtar. Basel will get hype off of tonights game but nothing that we didn't know before, a lot of top quality young talent across the park and they play without fear. If you sit in and frustrate them they will crack, if you open up a game with Shaqiri/Frei/Frei/Streller in it you are in trouble.

Not sure what we can read into this about the state of English football, all I am taking away from the two Manchester clubs going out is could either one beat Barcelona? United I would say no. City on their day would be more likely but still not 100% certain of beating Barcelona by any stretch. As long as no one reads into this too much we should be able to behold the English teams in the Premier League and watch an open Champions League, we shouldn't forget that in differing variations all 4 of the English teams in this years Champions League are in transition. The 4 English teams will come back a lot better next season.

Chelsea/Arsenal going in as group winners have some fairly easy fixtures on the horizon (I would say both re 90% guaranteed to reach the Quarter finals at least). The 2nd placed teams I would want to avoid is Zenit/CSKA simply because of the travel, Napoli in the New Year will be a different prospect all together especially in a 2 legged tie. All of the other 2nd placed teams I would fully expect Chelsea/Arsenal to be too much for.
 
Channel 5
and ITV 4 set to launch new Manchester-based reality show TOWIE - The Only Way Is Europa
 
Qualified teams by country:

Italy (3): Napoli, Inter and Milan.
Russia (2): Zenit and CSKA.
Spain (2): Barcelona and Real Madrid.
France (2): OL and OM.
England (2): Arsenal and Chelsea.
Germany (2): Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich.
Cyprus (1): APOEL.
Portugal (1): Benfica.
Switzerland (1): Basel.

Looks like Italy is getting their fourth CL spot back :P
 
Why didnt man city score an extra goal to match my prediction? Tymoschuk played well looks like bayern ar finally starting to get over the massive void left by schweinis injury
 
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Liverpool man utd didnt get anywere near their minimum expectations but man city did really well considering the group and it was their deput.
 
Qualified teams by country:

Italy (3): Napoli, Inter and Milan.
Russia (2): Zenit and CSKA.
Spain (2): Barcelona and Real Madrid.
France (2): OL and OM.
England (2): Arsenal and Chelsea.
Germany (2): Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich.
Cyprus (1): APOEL.
Portugal (1): Benfica.
Switzerland (1): Basel.

Looks like Italy is getting their fourth CL spot back :P

Sadly not.

Not for the next 3 years at least, unless all 3 of those teams reach the semi's in the next 2 years.

Poor performances in the Europa by Italian teams don't help, in the summer Germany was ahead Italy not much will have changed. Co-efficients are calculated over a period of seasons not just one.

So if we assume the English teams get no further the 80.66 league co efficient will only drop by a minute amount. A Europa League run by an English team will really help cushion the blow, but in the scheme of things Italy are 4-5 years realistically away from reclaiming a 4th CL spot and that's dependant on German Football slipping.

France really needed this though, this seasons performance should be enough to push it close to Portugal who it lost it's place to this year. I would like to see Portugal being restricted back to 2 spots and their 3rd qualifying spot going to either the Bundesliga or Serie A. That would be a good thing to do for competitiveness in the CL.
 
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