Topic: UEFA Champions League 2024/25 Season - page 197. (Read 58829 times)

Absolutely impressed with Gravenberch's break into Liverpool first team this season. From someone who barely played any minutes to someone who gets more time 90 minutes (extra time inclusive). In that game against Ac Milan he made crucial contributions to halt most of Milan's attack amd on more than one occasion, denied Rafael Leao a chance to score.

Another name in the team of the week I love to watch is Florian Wirtz. Dude just broke into the limelight and hasn't taken a performance dip for a full season. You love to see it.

It was a different kind of brilliance below the regular since this season that was exhibited by Barcelona in the champions League and that wasn't enough to give them a decent start, anyways they could get better after it was kickoff so many games are still ahead with which they can make up for the first time mess. The issue of quality players isn't something I think is of a top credence in Barcelona now as they have good players who in their domestic league is giving excellent results and need only some extra efforts to do better in the champions League.

Alright guys - a little intermezzo now.
Have you read and found out some of the best players for the first matchday of the Champions League? If you haven't read it - try to find out more here.

Champions League Team of the Week: Matchday 1

I was pleased with Ryan Gravenberch's performance on that first matchday - he was good and brilliant. I hope the 22-year-old can continue his good form throughout the season - not only in the Champions League, of course, but also in domestic competitions.

Atalanta's next match is against Shakhtar which is a very good opportunity for Atalanta to secure three points.. Looking at their performance over the last couple of games, I believe they will dominate the game and win as well. It would act as a catalyst for them in their Champions League campaign.

But when it is Arsenal against PSG, the issue gets more complicated. Even though, at their last meeting, Arsenal managed to shut PSG up with a landslide score of 5-1, things have changed a great deal since that time. PSG have new players now and an enhanced strategy maturity. The strength of Arsenal will tell you how big a challenge it will be for them to repeat such domination against this team. Watching the performance of Arsenal in the Premier League against Manchester City where they obtained a draw even after playing with ten men shows that they can still make it as far as competing with big clubs is concerned. However, repeating the feat of beating PSG with a landslide score like before might be an even tougher task this time.

We have to accept the fact that Barcelona did not perform well in the first match of the Champions League and that is why they lost. If Barcelona could have played their normal game in this match, they would not have been defeated in this match. Barcelona may have forgotten the last time they did well in the Champions League. Other teams try to do well in the Champions League or Europa League tournaments but we haven't seen anything like that in Barcelona for a few seasons. I understand that they have financial problems, but it cannot be said that they do not have good quality players in their club. With the players that are there if this player can be planned properly then I think good things can be done with this team.

Milan this season started the league quite poorly under the coaching of Fonsesca, not only in the league but they continue the negative trend in the Champions League after a painful defeat from Liverpool, the league phase matches require each team must perform optimally to get full points in  match, because no longer rely on the current home advantage away from home to the same opponent,  So I think Milan must also rise when they play against Leverkusen if they don't want to fail to qualify for the next round, if we look at the performance from of the two teams so far, of course Leverkusen can be the favorite in the match.
It takes consistency and also a qualified strategy to continue to compete in the Champions League so far, but I don't think we will see Leverkusen continue to be on par with the big teams because indeed their status is only a small team in the Bundesliga that is indeed able to surprise us all thanks to Alonso ability so far

I have to say that Leverkusen will not be as strong as last season again, even if they don't play in the Champions League.
While this season Leverkusen have more games in different competitions, so they will likely lose a lot of concentration like last season in the Bundesliga especially if Alonso puts his focus on the Champions League.

Leverkusen's success last season is very difficult to repeat, in fact so far Leverkusen has lost one of its 4 matches in the Bundesliga. Leverkusen started this season's Champions League with a win, but their opponents were not a strong team. Milan, Liverpool and Inter are much stronger opponents for Leverkusen, so it will be interesting to see what they can do in this match.

Talking about Atalanta winning the Champions League I also think that it is a difficult thing to expect, however, there are still many other teams that are much stronger, especially when we talk about seniority in the champions league that has a lot of winning experience which is always the biggest door as the winner comes with a very terrible force, but if they can qualify for the knockout stage alone I think that is more than enough, especially if they reach the semi-finals, it can be said that it is a new achievement even though it only reaches the semi-finals.

Arsenal are sometimes confusing in the Champions League, they seem to have the potential to compete until the final but sometimes they are dubious, I don't know what to call it but it's like a complementary character that is unlikely to win.

Don’t forget that even strong teams are also facing new talented teams as they achieved to qualify for UCL, that means they have a good team of players and also when a low expected team is playing against top teams such as Barcelona, Real Madrid or other top European Leagues. This edition might be different than the previous ones when it comes to the number, but it’s a chance also to discover more players from different academies.
Betting in such matches without knowing or analyzing the power of opponents is risky, as these fans lost the bets on their favorite team, in the other side we find some fans winning with great odds after beating or drawing against top teams.

Personally, I never made a bet in the Europa League due to my lack of knowledge about specific teams that are playing in the middle of standings, do you think it’s a good idea to start following this league beside betting on certain matches?

Most first league matches are always disappointing to those who have a very high expectation from it, just like you observed I also saw a lot of complaint from people about the terrible resorts they get from betting on some of the games, perhaps that is why I always like to play with over 1.5 odds or under 4.5 because it doesn't take much of a time and even if is a match that's is difficult to predict the ending results but the possibility of wining over 1.5 or under 4.5 is very high that's why I normally regards it as one of my best gambling method.

Though the first week of the champions League was somehow okay for me considering the fact that majority of the clubs we had some expectation on played very well. However in terms Europa League I'm not expecting much from Tag Hag because is the same strategy he has been using one the premier League he would also use on the Eurpa league but the only difference there is that majority of Eurpa league clubs are not that competitive, so let's see if those methods will be favourable for him on  the Eurpa league.

On the first of October Arsenal will be playing there second champions League match against PSG, so what is your take on the match considering the fact that the two teams are very competitive clubs, do you think that PSG experience will be an added advantage for them since they are use to champions League than Arsenal?, though even if PSG will be coming with surprises but I still hope for Arsenal to win because if Arteta continues with the strategic plan he use today they will win PSG because is not good for them to draw that match again since there first match was draw, so at least they need to get there first three points as most other clubs did.

For the first week of the champions league I think a lot of people were upset about the performance of their favorite team, especially those who bet on the victory of the favorite team of the match, such as the Arsenal team, Manchester City and Barcelona, that's what made us hurt in the first week of matches because it was beyond expectations to get defeated by a team that was very confident of getting a victory in the match, quite good for Bayern Muncen and Bayer Leverkusen, I was quite satisfied.

The Europa League isn't too bad either, and it's worth watching, but I also want to see how Ten Hag will play there and compete in the Europa League.

I agree that Leverkusen needs to go as far as they can, and not just this year, they need to finish in top four and go to UCL and do fine every year for a while, to keep growing. If they do just one good season, the nit will get bad eventually and they will become just a normal team, but if they do it for every season, the prize money to be there every season will be a lot and they can build a team that can sustain for a long time, after a while you will not worry about going there, because you will get used to it and it will be easy.

Leverkusen has what it takes to do it this year, so a bad result this season would be very disappointing, they need to be at last sixteen, and maybe even go further than that if they can play good football like last season.

Xabi Alonso had a better last season and their was enough hope that he his going to do a lot of wonders this season and nothing is showing to be going towards that direction now. Even last season in Bundesliga it was an impressive play for them to be able to manage this season well. I would even prefer they choose the Bundesliga over Champions League because to many clubs that they can not be able to defeat are their so how exactly will they be able to survive but it is easy to play your domestic league better because of the experience you have gotten from their. I love Alonso courage even winning the Bundesliga. Champions League tournament is just more than they can handle that is for me,  but Leverkusen is doing their best to stay in form and Bundesliga wants to be dominated by bayern Munich, and Leverkusen is still not that stable. Now but they are still.in second place and it is a good sign.  They Alonso still wants the title by all means.

Of course, for clubs that suffer defeat, they will certainly improve their standings in the Champions League, the good and bad results experienced by several clubs are not just because they are weak, it's just that in my opinion the meeting between the two clubs is not so balanced with the quality of the game, so it is natural if there are several big clubs which are big clubs but in terms of players and games are not as expected and this is what must be considered, even though all matches are in accordance with what FIFA has done in terms of standings.

We can’t compare the two competitions and with the way the season is going, Bayern Leverkusen won’t outshine all teams and be great like they did last season but neither do I see them playing any less. They are going to be playing against many big teams that they never faced last season and they prevailed. This season may give them a different and harder encounter but if their coach is good enough, he can still win in all circumstance. I am not going to be putting too much hope on them but I still know that they can be a top team this season that are going to be among the major contenders for trophies.


The champions league started on a superb win for some teams while for some teams, they’re not seeing what they’re expecting yet from the champions league. The first round was played, many teams did well and most of them got their big win in their first match. Many may not get more points than this but if they can perform well, they could get a good one from here. This league will just get more unpredictable and many teams will surely see different results they don’t expect.

There is no Champions League during the upcoming week. The same for the Conference League too. There is only the Europa League fixtures.

I'm going to miss the Champions League meanwhile certainly. Because the first week was really lovely with so many goals. There must be only a couple of ones without a goal. Bayern Munich started incredible. They lead the standings by far. Celtic and Leverkusen follow right after. Seeing Celtic there feels interesting.    But we are at the very beginning of this stage. They played one of their easiest fixtures early.

Top contenders didn't start very strong generally but I think they will make up for that. It is going to be hell of a busy schedule on the other hand... 

Even in the last season, I was hoping to see this strong and unbeaten team of Xabi Alonso playing against stronger teams like Real Madrid and Inter Milan from other leagues than the Bundesliga. But since they were in the Champions League it didn't happen and even in the game we saw from Leverkusen they were not playing against any of the teams while now Xabi Alonso can have a much harder season since they are playing in a greater tournament like the Champions League and consider the performance of Xabi Alonso and his players in the last season, the fans of this team now expect to see Leverkusen showing good performance in the Champions League.

Atalanta is indeed worthy of being called a dark horse in UCL this season, they always appear different when facing important matches, always making big teams struggle. Getting 1 point against Arsenal is a good start, talking about strategy, it seems we agree with Gasperini who targets a draw against big teams as a realistic way to survive in UCL and slowly approach the next phase, although on the one hand this method will not always work depending on who the opponent is because as you said Real Madrid always has a way to win the match and their mentality in UCL is not in doubt, on the other hand I think Atalanta still has a chance if you refer to the Barca match that lost against Monaco, it could be a motivation for Gasperini's troops and repeat what Monaco did even though the Blaugrana's defeat was purely the goalkeeper's fault but considering Atalanta has a solid defense the same opportunity still applies.

True point and yeah, there is not much more to add. Whenever you are playing against Inter Milan, what do you expect? You never expect to score five goals and at the same time you know that when you concede one goal, you are about to lose the game. Inter Milan is about insane efficiency. There are not many teams that work like that. Pushing for the win works when you score early against Inter, but not when they resist the first 20 to 30 minutes without conceding a goal.

I think one thing, it's not that Man City have played badly or less than on other occasions, it's that we have to Recognize that Inter under Inzhagi played a great game , not only did they defend very well , but the game made it look like the City players were attacking all the time , if we look at it we realize that the few attacks that Inter's forwards had were not effective because they missed the goals , but in reality the attacks they made were to end in goals , while City was running all the time to score goals that never came not even from Haaland.