UEFA Europa League

One would have thought that winning from 3-0 down against an Italian team would have been habit for Alonso by now…

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Sad for Leverkusen, happy for Atalanta. This is what real football is like. :heart_eyes::star_struck:

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It looks like those Italians still have some sort of grasp on tactics. I rated Gasperini since a while now.

Leverkusen never looked like winning this one, although there was a spell after about 1h of play in which they looked more in control. But at that point it started to resemble our game at Anfield against Atalanta where we looked in control, but couldn’t find a breakthrough and conceded.

Funny that in my language and probably Italian Ademola means To demolish. Which is quite fitting, it was his final. He took his chances well.

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Well of course, the league is the bread and butter as Shanks said, the priority trophy for any big club.

I’d rather win the league than the EL even with league defeats, so it’s nothing special to say. Winning undefeated is nice of course. It’s also a shame that United blocked us from the treble in '77. Hopefully we do it one day.

But I rate all major trophies, they all play a part in every club’s history. I’m still also proud of our 21/22 campaign, even if we didn’t win the two most important ones.

I’m not even going to imagine our phenomenal history without the other trophies (not the bloody Charity Shields that were shared in case of a draw for about half a century or how long) below the leagues and CL’s.

I take nothing for granted and celebrate every major trophy like it’s the last one for a while. Sometimes even the biggest clubs have unexpected droughts.

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Makes more sense.

I think I’d rather win a cup but if you go undefeated you’d win the cups :wink:

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So, the choice is:
1, Win the league undefeated and lose the EL cup final, or
2, Win the league with one defeat and win the EL.

I’d say 2 is the obvious choice.

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team can draw 38 off 38 matches and be still stuck in the bottom part.

No doubt about that, but he said he meant differently.

So, I was searching for a gif about moving the goalposts and this one came up…

heisman stiff arm GIF by theCHIVE

Then I got distracted and forgot what I was trying to say.

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Saturday 20:00h CET German Cup final.

The FA Cup final is also on Saturday.

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Yeah, I was disappointed too… The EL, formerly the UEFA cup, has always been a nice competition to fight for. One only needs to think about our 5-4 win against Alaves in Dortmund. What a game that was!

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Oh alright

Agree but from now on the 36 ‘best’ teams start in the CL and then 36 go into EL. Surely can not be good for the quality of the competition.

Do they relegate the dregs of the CL into this from the group stage this season?

If I remember correctly, they play the play off qualifiers - so in between the Group stage and Round of 16.

At least that seems to be how it happens on Football Manager.

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Yeah it looks like they are all self contained.

Probably going be rather dull until the knockouts whatever UEFA say.

Then again could be a bit of fun for the top 8.

No, I think it’s 36 teams in four groups of nine. Clubs are seeded into four pots based on UEFA coefficients, so; Liverpool (4) & City (1) in pot 1, Arsenal (19) in pot 2, Villa (79) in pot 4.

Six games vs two from each pot, one home one away. Then the top eight go to the R16. The next 16 play a two-legged knockout round to qualify for the R16, the rest are eliminated from ALL euro competitions.

R16 is the same 1-8 are seeded (home second-leg) vs 9-16. Then QF, SF, Final (neutral venue). It’s the same for all THREE competitions.

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https://x.com/SkyFootball/status/1829482979904668063

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Oh they expanded the idea down there too :see_no_evil:

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@Magnus must be celebrating, with Bodo/Glimt having beaten Porto tonight.

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