2013-14 Club Soccer/Football Discussion Thread

[Keystone Phil]

The draw for the CL Playoff round fixtures is tomorrow. I'm hoping Milan get an easy opponent. We need three Italian teams in the CL this season. Schalke must lose.

It's the PSV.

Congrats, Phil !

Grrrrr

Well, it's still possible and probably likely. Hey, at least it isn't my team! Meanwhile, Lief's Arsenal didn't get it easy either (though I want to see them there. I just don't want four Spanish teams. I didn't want four German teams but I don't know that I can root for Metalist).

[Keystone Phil]

The Bundesliga and Ligue 1 start today. Hope Dortmund can win back the title in Germany and PSG fails miserably in France.

[Tender Branson]

Bayern vs. Borussia Mönchengladbach today.

I predict a 2-0 for Bayern.

[minionofmidas]

Has Frankfurt had to sell a lot of their players?

Hah, no.

Instead Sebastian Rode will leave us for the Bayern bench next year for free (just like Lewandowski, then, except he's a much more humble and intelligent young man and accepted the club's decision meekly). And Schwegler has one more year contract, too and had an exit clause for this year and some much better offers - and of course an Eintracht offer for more money in exchange for a longer contract as well - and decided to do exactly nothing, to serve out his old contract and see what happens. And Jung's contract, too, ends next year (and just like Rode he's young and promising and exceedingly local...) but for this year, no at all core player has left and the team's 'depth' has been upped.

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Indeed. We bought two of them (tho' Rosenthal was a free transfer, actually.)

Surprisingly "doable" draws for the 3 Austrian EL teams:

* Rapid Vienna vs. FC Dila Gori (from Georgia)
* Red Bull Salzburg vs. VMFD Žalgiris Vilnius (from Lithuania)
* Pasching vs. Estoril Praia (from Portugal)

So, the CL qualifier game between Austria Vienna vs. Dinamo Zagreb might actually be the hardest game of those 4.

Well duh, Rapid and Salzburg were seeded, and, let's face it, there've been an unusual number of upsets in early EL qualifying and the unseeded list looked mighty exotic. Austria were actually very lucky in their draw; best non-seeded team (in the minor leagues' champions' half of this thing) going up against the weakest seeded team. They could have just as easily gotten Basel or Celtic.

Speaking of exotic... Frankfurt win a trip to Azerbeidjan.

[Keystone Phil]

PSG conceded the first goal. Bwahaha!

Napoli playing Benfica in some Friendly. We debuted our cheerleaders today. Haven't seen them yet but I'm not a fan of gimmicks in Soccer.

[Tender Branson]

15 minutes in and Bayern already destroying M'Gladbach in the Bundesliga opening game.

2-0 already.

[Tender Branson]

Ughh ... Bayern own-goal by Dante.

2-1

[Tender Branson]

Now 2 extremely good saves by Ter Stegen (Gladbach keeper).

[Franknburger]

Has Frankfurt had to sell a lot of their players? I know Freiburg has, which is unfortunate, and I'm worried that both will crash out of the Europa League because of it.

Yeah, I am also not sure about both of them. Eintracht Frankfurt played a superb first half of season, but did not do that well in spring and were lucky to make it into the EL. Considering that they still played 2nd division two years ago, I am not sure they are already ready for the EL, even with the team having remained intact.
Freiburg is a similar case. They have a superb coach who saved them from relegation in 2012/13, and lead them into the EL last year. The loss of certain players, especially Max Kruse, is definitely going to hurt them, but they have a good youth (Under-21 German cup winners in 2012), and their success is anyway more a team issue than depending on individuals. Nevertheless, they don't really belong onto the international stage. The last two times I remember them playing internationally, they did not make it very far on the European stage, and were relegated to the second division at the end of the season.

Speaking of exotic... Frankfurt win a trip to Azerbeidjan.

You do realise that it is not unproblematic to call Karabagh a part of Azerbaijan, do you ..

[minionofmidas]

a) The club plays in Baku. The city of Agdam was wiped off the map for good by the Armenian ethnic cleansers. The former population largely lives in Baku now too.
b) Agdam was never a mainly Armenian town in any way (though the area it is situated in once was Armenian - Tigranakert is just around the corner. Agdam only emerged as a town in the 18th century). It was not even between Nagorny Karabach and Armenia, but just east of it (but is within the not internationally recognized Republic of Karabach, aka the part of Azerbeidjan under Armenian occupation.)

[Tender Branson]

Salzburg will have its first Bundesliga Derby today since 1972 !

Red Bull Salzburg will play Grödig (which is in the Bundesliga for the first time).

The last Salzburg Derby was in 1972 when Austria Salzburg played SK Bischofshofen (which later was relegated to a lower league).

Back then, the Bundesliga wasn't even called Bundesliga yet, but Nationalliga.

[Lief 🗽]

Berlin is back in the Bundesliga with a 6-1 victory, putting them at the top of the table for the first week (unless someone wins by even more tomorrow). At the very least, Bayern won't be in first place for the entire season this year now, unlike last year.

[Tender Branson]

In the first Salzburg derby in over 40 years, the outsider Grödig currently leads Red Bull Salzburg by 1-0 after the first half.

We are talking about a team from a town with just 7000 inhabitants that is playing their first Bundesliga season ever !

They are also on top of the Bundesliga table right now after 4 rounds played !

I think I have a new favourite team ...

[Tender Branson]

In the first Salzburg derby in over 40 years, the outsider Grödig currently leads Red Bull Salzburg by 1-0 after the first half.

We are talking about a team from a town with just 7000 inhabitants that is playing their first Bundesliga season ever !

They are also on top of the Bundesliga table right now after 4 rounds played !

I think I have a new favourite team ...

OK, in the second half Red Bull Salzburg woke up and turned a 0-1 into a 4-1 !

[Keystone Phil]

Berlin is back in the Bundesliga with a 6-1 victory, putting them at the top of the table for the first week (unless someone wins by even more tomorrow). At the very least, Bayern won't be in first place for the entire season this year now, unlike last year.

You didn't mention who they beat. Lewis...? Lewis, are you there?

[minionofmidas]

That was rather tasteful of Lief, yes.

Weird game. Every halfway serious Hertha attack turned into a prime scoring opportunity (not necessarily converted - Hertha hit the crossbar three times as a matter of fact). And it's not as if our defense is newly configured or anything

[Keystone Phil]

I watched NBC's Premier League preview show. Predictably horrible/gimmicky tailored to an American audience.

[Keystone Phil]

Looks like we're going to snatch another from Arsenal's grasp: Luis Gustavo's agent says that Napoli is the Brazilian's preferred team.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

hooray

[Lief 🗽]

Looks like we're going to snatch another from Arsenal's grasp: Luis Gustavo's agent says that Napoli is the Brazilian's preferred team.

God I hope not. Gustavo would be perfect for us.

[Lief 🗽]

Suarez has told the Uruguayan press he won't be leaving Liverpool.

I think I'm going to cry. What a disaster this summer has been.

[Keystone Phil]

Metalist Kharkiv is banned from UEFA competitions as a result of a match fixing scandal. They can appeal but no idea how this affects their spot in the CL Playoffs. Could be great news for Schalke.

[minionofmidas]

Unless CAS grants an injunction (possible) or even rules in their favor (unlikely, but the injunction would likely end up transferring the ban onto 14-15. CAS moves slow.) it's too late now for other Ukrainian clubs to move up and instead PAOK Saloniki, who lost to Kharkov in the preceding qualifying round, go up against Schalke and Maccabi Tel Aviv, who ought to have gone up against PAOK in the Europa League "play-offs" (the fourth and last qualifying round peeps! Don't swallow adspeak!), are through automatically. Lol ridiculous but, you know, better than letting someone get a free pass to the real $$$$$.

[Franknburger]

Unless CAS grants an injunction (possible) or even rules in their favor (unlikely, but the injunction would likely end up transferring the ban onto 14-15. CAS moves slow.) it's too late now for other Ukrainian clubs to move up and instead PAOK Saloniki, who lost to Kharkov in the preceding qualifying round, go up against Schalke and Maccabi Tel Aviv, who ought to have gone up against PAOK in the Europa League "play-offs" (the fourth and last qualifying round peeps! Don't swallow adspeak!), are through automatically. Lol ridiculous but, you know, better than letting someone get a free pass to the real $$$$$.

This is going to be a juridical mess. There is another club in the competition that has been banned by the UEFA for involvement in a match fixing scandal, namely Fenerbahce Istanbul. However, the Fenerbahce ban came so early that they could get a temporary injunction from CAS (the CAS will only rule on the case after the play-offs are over).

This leaves two possible developments:
1.) CAS is in time granting a temporary injunction to Kharkov as well, which should happen by Monday at latest, considering the first match shall be played on Wednesday night. In that case Kharkov is in again. As CAS is moving slow, their final verdict will most likely not be out before the group phase, so the injunction will de facto mean a transfer of the ban to 2014/2015. In that case, Fenerbahce could, even if CAS confirmed the UEFA ban, call for "equal treatment", i.e. demand their ban being as well transferred to 2014/15.
2.) CAS fails to decide in time on a temporary injunction in favour of Kharkov. In that case, the UEFA has created a "fait accomplis", and Kharkow is definitely out (the EC qualification round from Sept. 2-10 makes it impossible to squeeze in another CL qualifier before the group phase starts). In that case, however, RB Salzburg, the team thrown out by Fenerbahce in the 3rd play-off round, could request equal treatment and demand another chance to qualify for the CL group phase.

The fate of RB Salzburg is anyway quite interesting, especially in a scenario where they are ultimately thrown out by Vilnius, but only came to this by previously losing to UEFA-banned Fenerbahce....

[Keystone Phil]

I knew a free pass would be too good to be true for the Germans but I was unsure if they'd let PAOK compete in Metalist's place. That option seems to be up in the air.