UEFA Champions League And Europa League thread

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Ronaldo digging United out of a hole again, twice he equalised in a 2-2 away to Atalanta, not a bad result away from home and keeps us top of the group on GD but the performance wasn't great again, Maguire and Pogba were awful, Van De Beek did more in the last 5 mins than Pogba did all match.

Man City on Saturday....
 
Atalanta 2 - Moments FC 2

My takeaways:
  • Bailly is still undisciplined. Both Atalanta goals were results of his poor positioning.
  • McTominay is not human; he's a robot. That can explain his stiffness and poor technique.
  • Nothing has changed tactically. 4-2-3-1 or 5-3-2, the plan is still to dribble into a teammate's zone, eliminate your own passing options, make it easier for the opposition to close down, and give the ball away.
 
So we are all talking about the group of death being Liverpool, Milan, Atletico and Porto, well Liverpool are walking it, 4 games and 12 points and they have qualified for the knockouts, another impressive display at home to Atletico with Jota and Mane scoring in a 2-0 win, Felipe was sent off for Atleti in a rather strange decision, it was a tackle from behind on Mane which was a yellow at least IMO but then Felipe walked away from the ref despite him gesturing not to.
 
Villareal 0-2 Man United.

Ronaldo with the first after a defensive mix up, Sancho scored his first United goal for the second after some great build up play, first 60 mins or so were pretty bad for United but Carrick got the subs spot on in his first game in charge then we started to play a lot better and the goal came from that spell. United now through to the last 16! 👍
 
If Villareal had a solid striker up front they would have won tonight, but the subs changed the game and once Villareal were pressed back it didn't take long for United to score.

I'm glad we won, but I'm also kind of glad we didn't blow them away and put in a top drawer performance. That would have irked me no end, if they could do that for Carrick then they could do it for Ole. The coaching team hasn't changed yet, it's only Carrick has stepped into Ole's shoes. This shows that there are more changes to come and it isn't necissarily just a case of the players throwing in the towel under Ole's management.

The two goals were well taken, Ronaldo was always likely to score, but the lob was still very well executed. A lot of times, players will try to take that down and shoot under the keeper or go for a spectacular volley, but the lob was very nicely hit.

Great to see Sancho get off the mark, hopefully the start of a good run in the team for him.

Nice to see Donny start. I don't think he had a great game, but then for the first hour we weren't pressing or holding onto the ball, and neither Martial or Ronaldo were having good games at that point either. It'll be nice to see him get a run of games as well, but maybe his best chance will be in the midfield 2 partnered with Matic or Fred rather than further forward in that number 10 position. He's clearly got ability, we just need to figure out how to fit him in.
 
Chelsea qualified for the knockouts after beating Juventus 4-0 and Barcelona in danger of dropping into the Europa League.
 
A bit of luck for Liverpool tonight, as they gave Porto far to many chances which they fluffed. Thankfully. 🙂

Stunning goal by Thiago, 😲 beautiful from every angle. :bowdown: I'm not sure I have seen a ball do what it did. Great goal from Salah too. :)

Liverpool have scored two or more goals in their last 16 games I think. That hasn't been done since 1939. And 55 goals in 19 games.
 
Dortmund drop in to the Europa League after losing 3-1 to Sporting, City go through as group winners after their 2-1 win over PSG.
 
redhed17
A bit of luck for Liverpool tonight, as they gave Porto far to many chances which they fluffed. Thankfully. 🙂

Stunning goal by Thiago, 😲 beautiful from every angle. :bowdown: I'm not sure I have seen a ball do what it did. Great goal from Salah too. :)

Liverpool have scored two or more goals in their last 16 games I think. That hasn't been done since 1939. And 55 goals in 19 games.
Click to expand...
Thiago's goal looked like when you skip a rock across a lake.
 
So I was going to post a definitive guide as to who qualified from the groups and who dropped into the Europa League tonight...but then Atalanta v Villareal got postponed until tomorrow because of heavy snowfall, and that game is pretty much a straight shootout between the two to qualify, so I'll post it tomorrow instead.

However the big news tonight is that Barcelona have dropped into the Europa League after losing 3-0 to Bayern Munich, They join Dortmund who dropped down yesterday, Juventus finish top of their group ahead of Chelsea after Chelsea drew 3-3 in Zenit and Juve beat Malmo, Man United drew 1-1 at home to Young Boys with 11 changes to the team, quite a few young United players made their debuts including Charlie Savage who is Robbie Savage's son....with Robbie on commentary!
 
Happy to see two Spanish teams out and Lille winning their group. Hopefully Atalanta do what they need to tomorrow. :-)
 
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So Villarreal beat Atalanta 2-3 in the postponed game a bit earlier, it means they make it through as group runners up.

Here is a round up of the groups.

Group winners.
Man City, Liverpool, Ajax, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Man United, Lille, Juventus.

Group runners up.
PSG, Atletico Madrid, Sporting CP, Inter Milan, Benfica, Villarreal, Salzburg, Chelsea.

Dropping into the Europa League.
RB Leipzig, FC Porto, Borussia Dortmund, Sheriff Tiraspol, Barcelona, Atalanta, Sevilla, Zenit St Petersburg.

Dropping out of Europe altogether.
Club Brugge, AC Milan, Besiktas, Shakhtar Donetsk, Dynamo Kiev, Young Boys, Wolfsburg, Malmo.

Top Scorers
Haller 10
Lewandowski 9
Nkunku 7
Salah 7
Ronaldo 6

Top assisters
Fernandes 5
Sane 4
Mbappe 4
Antony 4
Zapata 3

Champions League last 16 draw.
Monday 13th December 11am GMT

Europa League last 16 draw.
Monday 13th December 12pm GMT.
 
After a controversial first draw, here's the result of the second (and final) attempt at the UCL Last 16 draw:

Salzburg - Bayern
Sporting - Man City
Benfica - Ajax
Chelsea - Lille
Atletico de Madrid - Man United
Villarreal - Juventus
Inter - Liverpool
PSG - Real Madrid
 
They botched the first draw pretty badly, it was the right decision to re-do it despite some teams not being happy.
 
Champions League returns this week from its winter slumber, its the first leg of the last 16.

Tuesday.
PSG v Real Madrid
Sporting Lisbon v Man City

Wednesday.
RB Salzburg v Bayern Munich
Inter Milan v Liverpool

All games kick of at 8pm GMT.

There is no away goals rule now. UEFA got rid of it.
 
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ouch
 
City won 5-0 in the end, in the first leg don't forget...

PSG beat Real 1-0 thanks to a wonder goal from Mbappe in the 9nd minute, Messi had a penalty saved by Courtios, it was pretty much all PSG all game.
 
Salzburg 1-1 Bayern Munich
Inter Milan 0-2 Liverpool

Quite a tight open game at the San Siro, Firmino and Salah with second half goals but Liverpool had to withstand some pressure at times, Inter no pushovers.

Speaking of no pushovers, Salzburg took the led after 10 minutes and Bayern needed a 90th minute equalizer from Coman to spare their blushes.
 
Champions League stuff this week.

Tuesday.
Chelsea v Lille
Villareal v Juventus

Wednesday.
Atletico Madrid v Man United
Benfica v Ajax

All games kick-off at 8pm GMT.
 
Chelsea 2-0 Lille
Villareal 1-1 Juventus

Havertz and Pulisic with the goals for Chelsea who take a decent lead going into the second leg, Kovacic and Ziyech went off inured though, as mentioned it didn't take long for Vlahovic to make an impact on his Champions League debut, however Parejo equalized for Villareal after the hour mark.
 

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