barcafan161
Active member
that bayern group is pretty damn tough...
Champions League 2016/17
- Thread starter Pablo Escobar
- Start date
City are unbelievably overrated by some people on here. Like already mentioned, City have been absolutely garbage in the CL. Don't get fooled by their semifinal run last year, where they were still average.
Doesn't mean they will continue to underwhelm under Pep, but we'll have to wait and see. I think their team will take time to gel. It wouldn't surprise me to see Barca and BMG advance to the knockout stage.
Doesn't mean they will continue to underwhelm under Pep, but we'll have to wait and see. I think their team will take time to gel. It wouldn't surprise me to see Barca and BMG advance to the knockout stage.
Messi983
Senior Member
I doubt that but I agree that Pep will need time and it's probably better to play them in group stages than KO phase. Of course, we can still get them there again. I wouldn't mind beating Pep in final.
BarçaBarça
New member
I just read a good (lengthy) article about the proposal to give top 4 in Italy, Germany, Spain and England automatic access to the CL group stage.
It has some very valid points about how more competition to the super-clubs is more realistic if the sub-top clubs in the biggest leagues is strengthened
"No, Club Soccer's Greatest Tournament Is Not Being Ruined Right Before Our Eyes" by Billy Haisley
If you haven’t been paying attention for the last couple decades, European soccer—the premier stage for the world’s most popular sport, where the clubs keep getting bigger and richer as more and more people around the globe get access to the best leagues and competitions, funneling even more money into the coffers of the big clubs and leagues, in turn making them even bigger and richer and better and more popular—is apparently in crisis.
This isn’t a financial crisis, of course. (Did you see what I said about the money above?) And there’s no problem with public interest, either. (The money is only there in the first place because of the world’s ravenous hunger for all things soccer.) The crisis, according to a sizable set of fans and media members, is an existential one: Can what was once an intensely, intimately local sport maintain its traditional appeal in a globalized environment?
Many of the controversies that pop up from time to time about “the modern game” are but the tips of this larger iceberg that have managed to poke up above the surface. Everything from the laments about how “money in the game” is ruining the sport to the rabble roused by the enormous transfer fees teams can command for players who don’t “deserve” to be valued that highly to the neutered, tourist-friendly, rowdy diehard-hostile stadium experience of many of the world’s biggest clubs can all be seen as specific iterations of this greater dilemma.
In the olden days—when the domestic league was everything; when each fanbase could honestly believe they were just a couple promising homegrown prospects away from the title; when European competition was a tantalizing, exotic tour to far-flung stadiums fans had barely heard of to play teams they had never seen; when being born on your block meant you rooted for Arsenal while the kid across the street’s address consigned him to Tottenham fandom; when provincialism was the game’s sole guiding principle—Soccer was Soccer.
In modern times, there is so much money and interest in the game from all over the world that basically every aspect of the game is managed with an eye to concerns completely foreign to the old ones. Making money, spending money, and maximizing revenue streams are now the big clubs’ foremost priorities, and loom much more prominently in the decision-making process than upholding traditions or currying favor amongst the local fans or sometimes even winning. Manchester United courting the Asian market by signing a Japanese player, or Barcelona eschewing La Masia prospects in favor of established imports, or Arsenal manager and lifelong zipper combatant Arsène Wenger calling a top-four finish a “trophy” often prioritized over even an actual trophy like the F.A. Cup, or the near-linear relationship between money and success and how the haves continue to distance themselves economically from the have-nots are, in this light, Not Soccer, all examples of the whittling away of the sport’s core ideals. (At least as far as this line of thinking goes.)
The latest example of this struggle comes from reports that UEFA plans to give English, Spanish, German, and Italian teams even greater access to the Champions League by automatically entering each of those league’s top-four table leaders into the UCL group stage. Currently, those four countries all get either two or three automatic group stage spots, plus one more entry into the playoff round where a third/fourth can win the right to a group stage place. The other, smaller UEFA member leagues are set to lose even more of their already limited access to the main portions of the Champions League. What were once automatic group-stage qualifiers will be pushed back to the final playoff round, while playoff qualifiers will be pushed back to the even earlier qualifying rounds, and so on.
For some, like the usually brilliant Jonathan Wilson in a piece at SI.com, this is another opportunity to rue how the game has changed. Wilson’s main point is that the hegemony of a select number of super-clubs in Europe’s handful of super-leagues in their domestic competitions and in Champions League has to some extent worn the shine off of what was the club soccer’s most prestigious, exciting, difficult-to-win competition.
It used to be that you could hardly predict who would make it to the final in the current season, and would consider an attempt to divine which teams would be duking it out in the later rounds in five years’ time as blatantly ridiculous. Nowadays the only real upset is if one of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, or Barcelona don’t make the semifinal any given year—an insult to the proper way that they would be certain to avenge the next season. “Familiarity,” Wilson says, “has bred contempt.”
Why, Wilson asks, should anyone watch anything before the quarterfinals when you can basically ink in the same five or six teams that make it that far every season before a ball has even been kicked? What intrigue remains when the European Cup just gets passed from the same few teams in the same few leagues year after year after year? And won’t guaranteeing teams from the most powerful leagues an easier path to the lucrative group stages only calcify the status quo even more than it already is?
These are all sensible concerns, as are, to varying degrees, the other controversies that arise because of how the game is different now than it used to be. However, this is also pining for an idealized past that can never be recovered while ignoring ways that the present might be improved so that the future is even better than the past.
The issue comes down to a single question: What’s the best way to improve top-end European soccer? Wilson argues that the Europe-wide parity of the past, as evinced by the much higher number of teams from various countries that could and would make deep runs in the tournament compared to now, is what the sport’s powers should be shooting for but are instead turning away from. In this model, the undeniably superior top-to-bottom competitiveness of the Premier League, and the way that competitiveness inflects the league’s enormous global popularity and profitability, is the model UEFA should emulate in its quest to Make the Champions League Great Again, rather than the Spanish and German strategy of facilitating the continued and increasing dominance of one or two established powers, or in this case the top four leagues.
Wilson and those who share his view that these proposed new Champions League rules are bad for the game are, though, looking at it the wrong way. Who is more likely to upset a big English team in the UCL group stage or make a surprise quarterfinal run: the best team in Belgium or the fourth-best team in Italy? And, more importantly, to whom should the incentives for growth and improvement be tilted: clubs like APOEL, or clubs like Sevilla?
The only way to combat “money in the game” is with more money. Or, to put another way, the best way to cut into the runaway economic advantages of the biggest teams in Europe and the sporting benefits that come with all that money is to economically empower their closest rivals, i.e. the smaller-but-still-big clubs within the top leagues. That is the real lesson of the Premier League’s success: A wide array of tradition-rich, well-monied upper-middle class teams that can afford to pay enough really good players to hold their own with the big boys generates rabid interest and unending reams of money. People don’t love the EPL because a Leicester City can fluke their way into a title; they love it because Tottenham and Liverpool and Everton and West Ham can find, sign, and keep great players that just might—probably won’t, but might—do something special.
Barring something truly crazy, Legia Warsaw—the Polish club that just won a spot in the group stage on Tuesday—will not and realistically could never amass the capital necessary to cobble together a team capable of standing toe-to-toe with even a clown team like Arsenal. All the Champions League group stage entrances and swift exits in the world wouldn’t convince UCL knock out round-quality players to join a relatively anonymous team in Poland.
However, this current edition of Roma—the storied Italian team that was just knocked out of their UCL playoff—and especially a hypothetical future one buoyed by consecutive years of UCL group stage revenues and a well-stocked team of elite players attracted to Rome by the promise of European play—conceivably could scare a rich if clownish team like Arsenal. On top of that, guaranteed group-stage income and the higher caliber of player that money and regular Champions League competition attracts, plus Premier League-style equitable revenue sharing of the kind La Liga is now implementing, actually could very well go a long way towards making Europe’s top leagues better and deeper, which in turn would make international play more competitive and less predictable. The raw material that could be used to create a better Champions League is out there, but it’s not in Cyprus or Switzerland; it’s in Spain and Germany.
The appeal of the days when clubs from Sweden and the Netherlands and Belgium and Romania could fight their way into the European Cup final is obvious. The idea that in any given year, a wide assortment of league champions from across the continent could look at Europe’s premier trophy and justifiably hope to attain it is indeed, to use a word that so often comes up in these kinds of arguments, romantic. But worldwide scouting is too good for Ajax to horde for themselves all of the best Dutch talents without much in the way of real competition for their signatures, and the economic chasm between Manchester United and Steaua Bucharest is much too large for the two clubs to ever be peers again, let alone equals.
Even given the current state of affairs, we’re not consigned to a stagnant next decade of European soccer, where one of four or five teams in Spain and England and Germany take turns cruising through the streets of their home city in an open-top bus, waving the European Cup at their adoring fans in the victory parade year after year. (Not that that would be bad, necessarily: In what era wouldn’t the Real and Barça and Bayern squads of recent vintage—certainly three of the best teams ever assembled—have dominated? And is anyone mad that the greatest player of all time is on the perfect team to allow him the full expression of his greatness in all its facets?) Trying to strengthen Villarreal and Napoli and Schalke and the like seems like a smart and attainable way to bring about the competitiveness everyone says they want without killing the super-teams everyone demonstrably does. It’s at least a much more plausible strategy than merely wishing for the future to be more like the past.
If you haven’t been paying attention for the last couple decades, European soccer—the premier stage for the world’s most popular sport, where the clubs keep getting bigger and richer as more and more people around the globe get access to the best leagues and competitions, funneling even more money into the coffers of the big clubs and leagues, in turn making them even bigger and richer and better and more popular—is apparently in crisis.
This isn’t a financial crisis, of course. (Did you see what I said about the money above?) And there’s no problem with public interest, either. (The money is only there in the first place because of the world’s ravenous hunger for all things soccer.) The crisis, according to a sizable set of fans and media members, is an existential one: Can what was once an intensely, intimately local sport maintain its traditional appeal in a globalized environment?
Many of the controversies that pop up from time to time about “the modern game” are but the tips of this larger iceberg that have managed to poke up above the surface. Everything from the laments about how “money in the game” is ruining the sport to the rabble roused by the enormous transfer fees teams can command for players who don’t “deserve” to be valued that highly to the neutered, tourist-friendly, rowdy diehard-hostile stadium experience of many of the world’s biggest clubs can all be seen as specific iterations of this greater dilemma.
In the olden days—when the domestic league was everything; when each fanbase could honestly believe they were just a couple promising homegrown prospects away from the title; when European competition was a tantalizing, exotic tour to far-flung stadiums fans had barely heard of to play teams they had never seen; when being born on your block meant you rooted for Arsenal while the kid across the street’s address consigned him to Tottenham fandom; when provincialism was the game’s sole guiding principle—Soccer was Soccer.
In modern times, there is so much money and interest in the game from all over the world that basically every aspect of the game is managed with an eye to concerns completely foreign to the old ones. Making money, spending money, and maximizing revenue streams are now the big clubs’ foremost priorities, and loom much more prominently in the decision-making process than upholding traditions or currying favor amongst the local fans or sometimes even winning. Manchester United courting the Asian market by signing a Japanese player, or Barcelona eschewing La Masia prospects in favor of established imports, or Arsenal manager and lifelong zipper combatant Arsène Wenger calling a top-four finish a “trophy” often prioritized over even an actual trophy like the F.A. Cup, or the near-linear relationship between money and success and how the haves continue to distance themselves economically from the have-nots are, in this light, Not Soccer, all examples of the whittling away of the sport’s core ideals. (At least as far as this line of thinking goes.)
The latest example of this struggle comes from reports that UEFA plans to give English, Spanish, German, and Italian teams even greater access to the Champions League by automatically entering each of those league’s top-four table leaders into the UCL group stage. Currently, those four countries all get either two or three automatic group stage spots, plus one more entry into the playoff round where a third/fourth can win the right to a group stage place. The other, smaller UEFA member leagues are set to lose even more of their already limited access to the main portions of the Champions League. What were once automatic group-stage qualifiers will be pushed back to the final playoff round, while playoff qualifiers will be pushed back to the even earlier qualifying rounds, and so on.
For some, like the usually brilliant Jonathan Wilson in a piece at SI.com, this is another opportunity to rue how the game has changed. Wilson’s main point is that the hegemony of a select number of super-clubs in Europe’s handful of super-leagues in their domestic competitions and in Champions League has to some extent worn the shine off of what was the club soccer’s most prestigious, exciting, difficult-to-win competition.
It used to be that you could hardly predict who would make it to the final in the current season, and would consider an attempt to divine which teams would be duking it out in the later rounds in five years’ time as blatantly ridiculous. Nowadays the only real upset is if one of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, or Barcelona don’t make the semifinal any given year—an insult to the proper way that they would be certain to avenge the next season. “Familiarity,” Wilson says, “has bred contempt.”
Why, Wilson asks, should anyone watch anything before the quarterfinals when you can basically ink in the same five or six teams that make it that far every season before a ball has even been kicked? What intrigue remains when the European Cup just gets passed from the same few teams in the same few leagues year after year after year? And won’t guaranteeing teams from the most powerful leagues an easier path to the lucrative group stages only calcify the status quo even more than it already is?
These are all sensible concerns, as are, to varying degrees, the other controversies that arise because of how the game is different now than it used to be. However, this is also pining for an idealized past that can never be recovered while ignoring ways that the present might be improved so that the future is even better than the past.
The issue comes down to a single question: What’s the best way to improve top-end European soccer? Wilson argues that the Europe-wide parity of the past, as evinced by the much higher number of teams from various countries that could and would make deep runs in the tournament compared to now, is what the sport’s powers should be shooting for but are instead turning away from. In this model, the undeniably superior top-to-bottom competitiveness of the Premier League, and the way that competitiveness inflects the league’s enormous global popularity and profitability, is the model UEFA should emulate in its quest to Make the Champions League Great Again, rather than the Spanish and German strategy of facilitating the continued and increasing dominance of one or two established powers, or in this case the top four leagues.
Wilson and those who share his view that these proposed new Champions League rules are bad for the game are, though, looking at it the wrong way. Who is more likely to upset a big English team in the UCL group stage or make a surprise quarterfinal run: the best team in Belgium or the fourth-best team in Italy? And, more importantly, to whom should the incentives for growth and improvement be tilted: clubs like APOEL, or clubs like Sevilla?
The only way to combat “money in the game” is with more money. Or, to put another way, the best way to cut into the runaway economic advantages of the biggest teams in Europe and the sporting benefits that come with all that money is to economically empower their closest rivals, i.e. the smaller-but-still-big clubs within the top leagues. That is the real lesson of the Premier League’s success: A wide array of tradition-rich, well-monied upper-middle class teams that can afford to pay enough really good players to hold their own with the big boys generates rabid interest and unending reams of money. People don’t love the EPL because a Leicester City can fluke their way into a title; they love it because Tottenham and Liverpool and Everton and West Ham can find, sign, and keep great players that just might—probably won’t, but might—do something special.
Barring something truly crazy, Legia Warsaw—the Polish club that just won a spot in the group stage on Tuesday—will not and realistically could never amass the capital necessary to cobble together a team capable of standing toe-to-toe with even a clown team like Arsenal. All the Champions League group stage entrances and swift exits in the world wouldn’t convince UCL knock out round-quality players to join a relatively anonymous team in Poland.
However, this current edition of Roma—the storied Italian team that was just knocked out of their UCL playoff—and especially a hypothetical future one buoyed by consecutive years of UCL group stage revenues and a well-stocked team of elite players attracted to Rome by the promise of European play—conceivably could scare a rich if clownish team like Arsenal. On top of that, guaranteed group-stage income and the higher caliber of player that money and regular Champions League competition attracts, plus Premier League-style equitable revenue sharing of the kind La Liga is now implementing, actually could very well go a long way towards making Europe’s top leagues better and deeper, which in turn would make international play more competitive and less predictable. The raw material that could be used to create a better Champions League is out there, but it’s not in Cyprus or Switzerland; it’s in Spain and Germany.
The appeal of the days when clubs from Sweden and the Netherlands and Belgium and Romania could fight their way into the European Cup final is obvious. The idea that in any given year, a wide assortment of league champions from across the continent could look at Europe’s premier trophy and justifiably hope to attain it is indeed, to use a word that so often comes up in these kinds of arguments, romantic. But worldwide scouting is too good for Ajax to horde for themselves all of the best Dutch talents without much in the way of real competition for their signatures, and the economic chasm between Manchester United and Steaua Bucharest is much too large for the two clubs to ever be peers again, let alone equals.
Even given the current state of affairs, we’re not consigned to a stagnant next decade of European soccer, where one of four or five teams in Spain and England and Germany take turns cruising through the streets of their home city in an open-top bus, waving the European Cup at their adoring fans in the victory parade year after year. (Not that that would be bad, necessarily: In what era wouldn’t the Real and Barça and Bayern squads of recent vintage—certainly three of the best teams ever assembled—have dominated? And is anyone mad that the greatest player of all time is on the perfect team to allow him the full expression of his greatness in all its facets?) Trying to strengthen Villarreal and Napoli and Schalke and the like seems like a smart and attainable way to bring about the competitiveness everyone says they want without killing the super-teams everyone demonstrably does. It’s at least a much more plausible strategy than merely wishing for the future to be more like the past.
It has some very valid points about how more competition to the super-clubs is more realistic if the sub-top clubs in the biggest leagues is strengthened
Last edited:
Chainsaw
Killahead
[size=+2]Evolution of UEFA club competitions from 2018[/size]
The top four teams from the four highest-ranked associations will enter the UEFA Champions League group stage from 2018 after new formats were confirmed for both major club competitions.
The format for the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League for 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21 have been confirmed, with no changes to the compettions system but a new procedure for entries.
Following an extensive consultative process involving all European football stakeholders, UEFA proposed amendments which have been approved by the UEFA Executive Committee, upon recommendations of the UEFA Club Competitions Committee and the European Club Association Board.
Changes
The UEFA Europa League winners will automatically qualify for the UEFA Champions League group stage (currently they can potentially take part in a play-off round).
The top four clubs from the four top-ranked national associations will now qualify automatically for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League.
The full details of the access list for both competitions will be finalised by the end of the year.
A new system for the club coefficients: clubs will be judged on their own records (deletion of the country share for individual club coefficient unless that coefficient is lower than 20% of the association's coefficient).
Historical success in the competition will also be acknowledged in coefficient calculation (points for previous European titles with a weighted system for UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League titles)
Financial distribution to clubs will be increased significantly for both competitions.
A new four-pillar financial distribution system (starting fee, performance in the competition, individual club coefficient and market pool) will see sporting performances better rewarded, while market pool share will decrease.
What doesn't change
Retention of Champions and League route of qualifying in the UEFA Champions League, ensuring that clubs from all associations can enter through their domestic leagues and qualify for both competitions.
The UEFA Champions League will continue to have a 32-team group stage leading to a 16-club knockout phase. Similarly the UEFA Europa League remains at 48 teams.
A subsidiary company will be created that will play a strategic role in determining the future and the management of club competitions: UEFA Club Competitions SA, where half of the managing directors will be appointed by UEFA and the other half by the ECA.
Speaking about the amendments agreed for the new cycle, UEFA General Secretary ad interim Theodore Theodoridis said: "The evolution of UEFA's club competitions is the result of a wide-ranging consultative process involving all stakeholders and taking into account a wide range of expertise and perspectives.
"The amendments made will continue to ensure qualification based on sporting merit, and the right of all associations and their clubs to compete in Europe's elite club competitions.
"We are happy that European football remains united behind the concepts of solidarity, fair competition, fair distribution and good governance."
The top four teams from the four highest-ranked associations will enter the UEFA Champions League group stage from 2018 after new formats were confirmed for both major club competitions.
The format for the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League for 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21 have been confirmed, with no changes to the compettions system but a new procedure for entries.
Following an extensive consultative process involving all European football stakeholders, UEFA proposed amendments which have been approved by the UEFA Executive Committee, upon recommendations of the UEFA Club Competitions Committee and the European Club Association Board.
Changes
The UEFA Europa League winners will automatically qualify for the UEFA Champions League group stage (currently they can potentially take part in a play-off round).
The top four clubs from the four top-ranked national associations will now qualify automatically for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League.
The full details of the access list for both competitions will be finalised by the end of the year.
A new system for the club coefficients: clubs will be judged on their own records (deletion of the country share for individual club coefficient unless that coefficient is lower than 20% of the association's coefficient).
Historical success in the competition will also be acknowledged in coefficient calculation (points for previous European titles with a weighted system for UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League titles)
Financial distribution to clubs will be increased significantly for both competitions.
A new four-pillar financial distribution system (starting fee, performance in the competition, individual club coefficient and market pool) will see sporting performances better rewarded, while market pool share will decrease.
What doesn't change
Retention of Champions and League route of qualifying in the UEFA Champions League, ensuring that clubs from all associations can enter through their domestic leagues and qualify for both competitions.
The UEFA Champions League will continue to have a 32-team group stage leading to a 16-club knockout phase. Similarly the UEFA Europa League remains at 48 teams.
A subsidiary company will be created that will play a strategic role in determining the future and the management of club competitions: UEFA Club Competitions SA, where half of the managing directors will be appointed by UEFA and the other half by the ECA.
Speaking about the amendments agreed for the new cycle, UEFA General Secretary ad interim Theodore Theodoridis said: "The evolution of UEFA's club competitions is the result of a wide-ranging consultative process involving all stakeholders and taking into account a wide range of expertise and perspectives.
"The amendments made will continue to ensure qualification based on sporting merit, and the right of all associations and their clubs to compete in Europe's elite club competitions.
"We are happy that European football remains united behind the concepts of solidarity, fair competition, fair distribution and good governance."
Last edited:
serghei
Senior Member
I'm not discrediting Dortmund here by saying City are bigger and will surely be bigger in the future because of one deadly important factor. Heavy investment. City have the power to buy world class players. Dortmund doesn't. They could sign half their team in a transfer window. A really big club doesn't sustain itself by transfering their best players once every two transfer windows. Since there was a comparison with Atletico, how many of Atletico's stars moved in the last transfer window? 0. None. Koke, Gabi, Griezmann, Godin, Simeone, all are there. Dortmund is like in continuous change, they can't keep their best players because they are not a big club, and they don't have the power to do that. Simple as that.
What City lacked is a world class manager. They have one now, and whatever weaknesses they had in the past, will surely improve a lot with Pep. I just don't see how Dortmund is better than City. Dortmund got humiliated by Juventus two years ago, and last year didn't even play in CL. And 3 years ago got humiliated by Madrid 3-0. Outside of their final in 2013, they got some heavy beatings from the big boys. Not being one of the best 4 teams in Bundesliga should be unacceptable to a big club. Hell, after half the season they were something like several points in front of relegation candidates in 2014-15.
Only thing they have over City is the final in 2013 (not talking about past eras, like the 90's and such), and that after having an easy draw, playing Shakhtar and Malaga, and speaking about Malaga, they scored the qualification goal after 5 of their players were in offside. Never saw that before, scoring a goal when half your team is in offside. But they did play good football in 2013 despite the Malaga incident, better than everything City have done so far.
But since 2013, the best european result is City's semifinal from last year. And this is not opinion, it's fact. Even with a lot of problems (barely got the 4th spot in England), City's result from last year is better than everything Dortmund did except the 2013 campaign. And that's not even discussing the fact that City has actually won some titles in England in recent years, while Dortmund's last big trophy in Germany is from 4 years ago (2011-2012 IIRC).
So, I fail to see how someone can say right now that Dortmund is a bigger club than City. Even if I were to make the best combined 11, I'd probably have 7-8 players from City if not more, and just 3-4 from Dortmund. City's squad is probably worth twice as much as Dortmunds.
So, there are a lot of arguments, and most have to do with being overall much stronger financially. In today's football, being strong financialy is the no1 criteria in separating the big clubs from the rest.
Last edited:
JerseyAddict
Well-known member
Fucking former Madrid player again doing the draw and returning the ball. Mierda scum Figo, Cannavaro an others always seem to have a monopoly on draws too. Blatter said they were rigging the draws. Were is the investigation, were are the culprits, were are the fines?
[tw]768862078069268480[/tw]
[tw]768862078069268480[/tw]
Chainsaw
Killahead
LOL! Fail!!
[MENTION=15262]serghei[/MENTION]
Not joining the argument of which club is bigger, cause it's based on semantics anyways. For what it's worth, I think City are bigger than Dortmund, but Dortmund are a better side IMO. Of course, we'll have to see how both sides develop over the course of the season, but in any case it's fairly close.
Re: Dortmund's past performances:
- they nearly kicked out Real had it not been for Mkhitaryan's awful finishing
- Malaga's goal was offside as well, so discarding every offside goal, Dortmund still would have advanced
- yes, Juventus convincingly beat Dortmund. that was Dortmund in Klopp's woeful last season though
And if you're talking about Dortmund's past performances, we should talk about City's past performances in the CL as well. City have been hilariously awful ever since they made it into the CL. As a football fan, you should know that more expensive players doesn't automatically mean you have the better team. Of course, in the long run it's very likely they massively improve, especially under Pep, but so far City have shown nothing that warrants their massive overrating.
Not joining the argument of which club is bigger, cause it's based on semantics anyways. For what it's worth, I think City are bigger than Dortmund, but Dortmund are a better side IMO. Of course, we'll have to see how both sides develop over the course of the season, but in any case it's fairly close.
Re: Dortmund's past performances:
- they nearly kicked out Real had it not been for Mkhitaryan's awful finishing
- Malaga's goal was offside as well, so discarding every offside goal, Dortmund still would have advanced
- yes, Juventus convincingly beat Dortmund. that was Dortmund in Klopp's woeful last season though
And if you're talking about Dortmund's past performances, we should talk about City's past performances in the CL as well. City have been hilariously awful ever since they made it into the CL. As a football fan, you should know that more expensive players doesn't automatically mean you have the better team. Of course, in the long run it's very likely they massively improve, especially under Pep, but so far City have shown nothing that warrants their massive overrating.
I doubt that but I agree that Pep will need time and it's probably better to play them in group stages than KO phase. Of course, we can still get them there again. I wouldn't mind beating Pep in final.
obviously, it's not the most likely scenario but BMG have done very well against Pep's Bayern. Since Pep is instilling the same possession based football into City, BMG's fast and direct style comes in very handy. Barca and City are still favorites to go through, of course
serghei
Senior Member
OK, so we take out Klopp's "woeful" last season, and we take out last season because they didn't play competitive CL football. They only competitive tie they played was against Liverpool and they lost it by conceding 4 in the return leg.
So what's left is 2013 campaign, and a good game vs Madrid in the return leg in 2014 after being humiliated on Bernabeu. Not that much outside of 2013. Dortmund had a great manager in Klopp and that manager formed a better team than City in 2011-2013, after which he lost the plot in 2014-15 and left the club after failing to even qualify the team for Champions League football. Their trajectory is down, having won nothing of note since 2012. City's trajectory is up and their ambitions far outweigh Dortmund's.
It's a fact that since 2013, City's european record is better than Dortmund's. 2 L16 appearences (playing Barca each time, not Zenit) and a semifinal are better than 1 quarterfinal, 1 absence and 1 L16 exit after being beaten 5-1 by Juventus.
Manchester City have a better squad by a lot, and now they have a better manager. It's a matter of time until they have a better team than Dortmund, if they don't already (imo they do already), considering how they started the season and how quickly Pep imposed his ideas.
A semifinal appearence in Champions League is a worthy performance in CL from City. It's baffling frankly that you think a semifinal appearence constitutes a result that can be characterized as being "hilariously awful", considering giants Barcelona have failed to make the semis in 2 out of the last 3 campaigns.
Last edited:
Yannik
Senior Member
Athletico did loose crucial players. Quick thinking and names such as Turan, Falcao, Filipe Luis and Diego Costa pop up recently. Basically you have 2 arguments. 1. Financials, which is true but seemingly overrated here because they spend 200m per year, like United, but didnt do much so far. 2. 6 bad months by Dortmund, the EL season as a result of that. They moved on.
If I were to make a combined 11 of both teams.
Bravo
Pisczcek-Kompany-Stones-Guerreiro
Gündogan-Castro
Reus-KDB-Silva
Aubameyang
Looks fairly even to me, (if Gündogan, Kompany or Reus can stay fit)
"Easy 12/13 final route"
Toughest CL group in the past 5 years, League winners only, topped the group beating Real, Ajax and.. City?
QF against Malaga who were a hell of an opponent during those years if you remember.
Lewandowski show vs Madrid again in the semis. Yeah what a wank way to go to the final.
"Humiliated by Madrid 2014."
I remember a 3-2 with a miracle miss by Mkhitaryan that had Madrid at the edge.
"City has Pep now"
Pep isnt gonna step in, shit on the turf and instantly teaches Fernandinho to play the Strasivari over night, we'll see progress in 1-2 years.
"Dortmund lost to Liverpool."
Yeah, exactly, Liverpool. The most random team on the scene. Let them play against any team from CL winner to bulsrisn 4th division and flip a coin for the result.
You know who else lost to Liverpool last year?
City.
Twice.
1-4 and 3-0.
If I were to make a combined 11 of both teams.
Bravo
Pisczcek-Kompany-Stones-Guerreiro
Gündogan-Castro
Reus-KDB-Silva
Aubameyang
Looks fairly even to me, (if Gündogan, Kompany or Reus can stay fit)
"Easy 12/13 final route"
Toughest CL group in the past 5 years, League winners only, topped the group beating Real, Ajax and.. City?
QF against Malaga who were a hell of an opponent during those years if you remember.
Lewandowski show vs Madrid again in the semis. Yeah what a wank way to go to the final.
"Humiliated by Madrid 2014."
I remember a 3-2 with a miracle miss by Mkhitaryan that had Madrid at the edge.
"City has Pep now"
Pep isnt gonna step in, shit on the turf and instantly teaches Fernandinho to play the Strasivari over night, we'll see progress in 1-2 years.
"Dortmund lost to Liverpool."
Yeah, exactly, Liverpool. The most random team on the scene. Let them play against any team from CL winner to bulsrisn 4th division and flip a coin for the result.
You know who else lost to Liverpool last year?
City.
Twice.
1-4 and 3-0.
dakt
Active member
Hahaha, you can see/hear him stop in the middle of the sentence to rethink on what he's doing.
RM 12th CL trophy, loading...
Home of Barca Fans
