Topic: UEFA Champions League 2023/24 Season - page 430. (Read 141898 times)

I think having Pepe in the team is a risky decision on many ends and now age is just another factor that would make me as a coach shy away from using him as a player at all. Now I will be honest that I never was a Pepe fan altogether as I hate it when defensive players deliberately try to break other players' legs. Ramos is the same kind of player. He can be a legend, but he can be someone to destroy careers and I never saw the point in doing that. But Ramos and Pepe are those kind of characters. Thankfully we have seen defenders become world class without that stufff.

Barcelona is far stable compared to the napoli. its now sitting up in the second place of la liga unlike napoli which was performing so badly in serie a. The gap is big between barcelona and napoli. I think that if barcelona will play better in the upcoming game. Napoli doesn't have solid defenders or attackers.
So, that's the main point owned by barcelona to win the second leg. Barcelona may be kicking napoli out from the club soon. Barcelona is now back to the peak performance after it was beating its opponent tonight with good score. Barcelona won 4 goals against getafe and i think that if napoli has no chance to win against barcelona in camp nou.
Things are going even harder for napoli after it was sacking its coach. I can't even believe it how barcelona is making its comeback in a short time. Lewandowski is not as good as what he used to be, but barcelona is having other players who could scoring for the clubs.
The next season is going to be very different caused by barcelona will be likely losing some important players soon. Im doubting xavi to leave from the club. Many fans may become his reason to stay much longer in the barcelona. Let's wait for another update regarding his decision to stepdown at the end of season.

Chelsea sacked Thomas Tuchel because their performance was even getting worse at that time, so that was their only option for them to get another person, which is what favored them now. For Bayern Munich, I think they shouldn’t plan on sacking him. It is still too early to sack Thomas Tuchel after he has managed the team, so the management needs to wait and see how he will continue. If they continue to get bad results, then they can take the necessary action.

We aren’t sure if they will win Lozio because of how their performance is going at the moment, so let's see how they will do by then. Although they are at home, they will be the favorites to win the game. 

I'm focused on the winning teams, because they're consider the best since lifting major tiles for themselves and the fans keep chanting victorious songs, sweet melodies from them. This is fresh season, the performance of these elite teams, for some it have improved and they're in the best shape while are beginning to struggle in matches which is weigh out of the plans for them. Napoli eliminate Barcelona from the UCL round of 16, is it possible? Well let's not jump into conclusions because these teams have a way of surprising someone in the system.

Bayern Munich current form is not equivalent to telling how they would play in this match. They didn’t feel somehow bad after their loss to Lazio in Italy and they look very confident on advancing to the next round of the competition. Bayern Munich are indeed in a weak form but that is not enough to conclude on how that match will be. They will take the match with all seriousness, even not for the coach but for the fight of the topmost cup in Europe that will give each player a record to their name in their football career. I am expecting a very competitive and tough match but i still have much hopes in Bayern to win in this match than the hope I have for Lazio to prevail.

Just like many others, I predicted that Napoli are going to win their UEFA Champions League round of 16 tie against Barcelona but after the result of the first leg of the game coupled with the fact that Barcelona will be playing the second leg of the game away from home, I think it'll be extremely difficult for Napoli to go through to next round of the competition.

Today in the Spanish La Liga, Barcelona delivered a convincing performance against Getafe to win their encounter with a 4:0  and I think that result is a way of sending strong message to Napoli of what they're capable of doing whenever they're playing at Camp Nou. Napoli without doubt still have a chance of reaching the quarter finals of the competition if they can play well against Barcelona but I still think it'll be very difficult for them

This is the fact, Napoli management seems to only see the problem from one side, namely from the perspective of the coach. Therefore, they have changed coaches several times, and will probably evaluate their players when the transfer window opens again. The chances of Napoli beating Barcelona are very, very slim, however of course each club has different luck, and it could be that Napoli advances to the quarter finals, while Barcelona could be eliminated in the round of 16.

Napoli and Barcelona are both unstable in their respective domestic leagues, but it could be said that Napoli has even slumped, because it has been out of the top four in the standings for a long time. In this case, Barcelona is still better than the Serie A representative. The change of coach carried out by Napoli management cannot boost and guarantee an instant increase in performance, everything requires an adaptation process.

Well age is really something that affects a man in any profession and that’s why we’ve got retirement age in most professions. Now for an athlete I think each sports have their certain age bracket to end and football is somewhat between 39-42. Playing professionally at 40 or 41 is kind of risky both to the player and majorly to the team. Yes to the team because they’ll be the one suffering for the errors of the player while on the pitch of play. We’re taking a look at Pepe and his imapct in this Porto team and the side effect of him still being in the line up even up till now for this team. Well yes, we know experience matters but in a team like Porto who’re playing in the UCL, they’ve to try mix experience with strength and form.

 Pepe in the heart of their defense line, yea it’s commendable but still has it’s side effects due to his age as he might not be able to catch up on the pace of the young players. A team like Arsenal who they were lucky to get the win over, in the 2nd leg, the young attackers of Arsenal might be unstoppable for Pepe and Porto. In this match Arsenal still have a lot of points to prove and will sure be playing all out to at least get an early go at least secure them in the match. The age of this defender isn’t a plus for him as It’s somewhat bizzare especially in football as a sport. Even goal keepers staying at 41 is still seen as odd. I think the player should consider playing in less competitive leagues like the SPL or MLS like his counterparts who he played with in his prime. In leagues like that he’ll be considered top and seen as one very important and key player.

Yes, Napoli have total problems on all fronts this season, if I may say so. Overall a miracle can happen, but I don't believe in it and moreover Barcelona obviously look better. Yes, both teams have played badly, Barcelona on top of that are unstable in their league, but they should have enough of their skills to go further ahead

That is the downside of firing a coach without firing him. Tuchel knows that he is fired now, so why would he try to win? He could just test stuff out that he wanted to but feared that it would backfire. Now that he knows he will be fired anyway, and he has only a few games left, he could just do whatever he wants to do and that should help him a lot.

I believe that the best thing to do in this case would be actually firing him and get someone else who needs to win, doesn't have to be a big name, just the staff member in that club would be fine, pick one of the coaches and just put them in charge. If they let Tuchel have his way until the end of the season, then we are not going to really end up with anything good at all.

Barcelona shared points with Napoli in the first leg of round of 16, giving them hope to strive harder for in the second leg. The odds for Napoli to best Barcelona in the second leg gets higher this season. Barcelona might be having poor results in La Liga matches but it doesn't apply to UCL games, a tournament the president and the headcoach takes personal and ambitious. Xavi Hernandez will not relent but keep 100% energy on winning the UEFA Champions League title this season, though it's not going to be an easy run for them but the big boys always find corners to pull essential winnings.

I'm not sure Lazio can maintain their aggregate when they visit Bayern Munich, even though currently Lazio can be said to be in the best condition. However, playing in front of Bayern Munich supporters, it seems that Lazio will not be able to launch dangerous attacks because of course Bayern Munich will continue to apply pressure after pressure in the second leg so that Lazio's game cannot develop.

When it comes to mentality, I don't think Bayern Munich needs to be in doubt, trailing 1-0 on aggregate in the first leg is not a big pressure for a team like Bayern Munich, especially playing at home. Apart from that, in terms of the quality of Bayern Munich's players, they are much better than Lazio. So I predict that in the second leg Bayern Munich will win with a score of 3-0.

In my opinion there is nothing they can do about it and it is what it is. I am putting it this way because on the one hand they could have been down a few goals because for the most part of the early and mid-game, Barcelona was pushing them against a wall and they barely had space to enfold their own game. I was quite surprise as it was a home game for them and I thought this is their chance to have a level playing field with Barcelona and to show their own best and maybe win that game. That would have put them into a position for their beloved counter attack game in the Camp Nou. It's never good to allow Barcelona to have the ball the time, but still Napoli is a strong counter attack team and they could have used that strength to make the little miracle happen in Spain.

But now I think the odds for Napoli to make it into the next round are more like 25:75. If Barcelona plays the same and has the advantage of the Camp Nou crowd, it would really have to be an awful day for them to allow Napoli to get away with it.

Small correlated news.

If Napoli will beat Barcelona he will also earn the spot in the world cup for clubs, the new completion starting next year.

Napoli isn't in a very good form currently and they aswell didn't play against a weak side either, so I didn't expect they would have an easy game or so but talking about them not been able to really maximize opportunity I think it's actually out of place because they obviously did their best as even Barcelona wasn't doing any much better than they were doing in that game.

Napoli and Barcelona have almost equal chance the second leg for qualifications so both teams can still get to qualify depending on the result/outcome of the game, but then I think an away goal for Barcelona is an advantage already because it may count of there bee need for it probably a draw and they are trying to ascertain a possible winner who could proceed to the next stage but if Napoli gets an away goal aswell ,they are going to be even and then either teams will need a goal to stay ahead of the other to be sure to qualify for the next stage of the league.

I think Tuchel is more resigned to this match, because of the issue that next season he will leave Munich. Munich is a team of mega stars, of course not all coaches have the ability to handle each of these stars.
Even though the second leg has the advantage of playing at home, there is always a factor where team cohesion can be a big problem. At the very least, Tuchel has to let Munich qualify to save Munich's face.
On the other hand, Lazio will definitely take advantage of this momentum to qualify for the next round, because this target is definitely a dream that they may not be able to achieve so far.

Thomas Tuchel still have much problem with current Bayern Munich performance, since losses in Champion League match first leg looks easily for Bayern Munich continue with losing trend. Last match defeated by not favorite team in Bundesliga from Bochum and Bayern Munich get huge pressure how difficult back to the higher standings with 11 points left from Bayern Leverkusen.
Bayern Munich's manager have forget awhile with bad performed in bundesliga and ask his players keep focusing on second legs match for winning above two goals if want secure spot in Champion League.

Lazio will not play more offensive and they know how much potential conceded many goals if their player focus on offensive than defensive area, how difficult face by Bayern Munich on second leg match and how much percent ratio winning for Bayern qualifying to the next round.

Currently, Lazio is in a positive trend and their previous victory has made them even more confident of being able to get rid of Bayern Munich in the Champions League. But it's not easy, especially since the second leg was played away from home and Lazio couldn't even add aggregate points. What Lazio has to do is make Bayern Munich's players mentally down and at the same time make them very frustrated in order to maintain this advantage.

Maybe it's a natural thing, you're right about that, but this result will make it more difficult for Napoli in the second leg, because now they will play in front of the Barcelona fans who maybe if they are not too prepared it will make their mentality decrease, but yes at least they didn't lose.

The problem is when Napoli play like in this first leg, then I'm sure they will really lose in the second leg later. in the first leg they were very rare to be able to create opportunities even 1 goal they could create I noted from the only open opportunity they got. The results of this first leg make Barcelona more favored and their chances in my opinion were greater before this first leg took place.

If Barcelona fails to anticipate Osimhen movements in the second Leg, they could be eliminated by Napoli. even though on paper Barcelona chances are quite big, Napoli are now getting an imotivational boost after changing coaches, and it is possible that the match will end in a draw and will continue with a penalty shootout.

There are several matches that must be completed first in their respective domestic Leagues, and we can see how much consistent Barcelona and Napoli are ahead of the second Leg. Another challenge that both teams may face is injury, both Xavi and Calzona must minimize this because it really affects their chances of qualifying for the quarter finals.

In reality, Barcelona has a much better history than Napoli in the Champions League, but now this can no longer be used as a reference in looking at future opportunities. I predict that the future matches will be very careful, Xavi must experiment to make his defense line more solid, it will be useless to score goals if his defense line is porous.