Topic: UEFA Champions League 2024/25 Season - page 267. (Read 57977 times)

After a long absence in the UCL last season, Arsenal reached the quarter-finals. Meraka lost narrowly to Munich 0-1. This season I think they have better players. They should be able to compete and be better than last season. The management's trust in Arteta has brought improvement. Aretata is given a lot of money to spend, I think they are a team that has a chance to enter the semifinals this season.

Arteta certainly learned from the mistakes of 2 seasons. Furthermore, if Arteta fails, Arsenal should also give a warning, because Arteta has been with Arsenal for quite a long time and Arteta's transfer policy always has management support.

Young Boys did very well with their limited budget and managed to qualify for the Champions League. Galatasaray had a fiasco despite having a very big squad with a very high budget. In 2 games they played very badly, they didn't deserve to qualify for the Champions League. All that money and investment was wasted. Young Boys should be congratulated, money is not everything. It's more important to be a team.

Slavia Prague vs Lille

Slavia Prague starting lineup:
Kinsky; Holes, Ogbu, Zima; Masopust, Dorley, Zafeiris, Diouf; Schranz, Chory, Provod

Lille starting lineup:
Chevalier; Meunier, Diakite, Alexsandro, Gudmundsson; Santos, Andre, Haraldsson, Zhegrova; Cabella; David

Lille in the comfortable position because they have won 2-0 in the first leg and for this match although currently Slavia Prague playing as a host i think it's hard for them to gets the winning results 3 goals without conceded moreover Lille is in the good shape because they were unbeated in the last 6 matches in all competitions

Actually at home Slavia Prague have good records for qualification stages because Slavia Prague is still unbeaten in the last 8 home matches but their opponent is Lille which is very strong so i doubt they can beat Lille today and for betting option i think both teams to scores or over 2.5 goals is good

Tonight is going to be one of the best in qualifying rounds as we have few interesting matches first Qarabağ vs Dinamo Zagreb where Zagreb having 3 goals lead even I am sure about Qarabağ win, but I have strong feeling most chances they will be not able to cover this deficit with things are surely unpredictable because Qarabağ is having interesting history in recent matches they are playing good soccer.

Other matches are also having good chance of going either way, but Lille can stay on better spot as they are having good squad and their performance in last few games are interesting.

Slovan Bratislava and Crvena zvezda both are having good margin of win as their performance in first leg games were also not bad at all Usually teams having good advantage of home ground and fans which is also having good impact on their performance and result.

Galatasaray could not make any significant income. They played very badly against Young Boys on their home field. I did not expect them to play like this and this surprised me. The fans had high support for their team but the team did not play well. They lost the first game by 1 goal difference and if they had managed to score 1 goal on their home field the game could have been very different.

The manager was criticized for his squad selection and the changes he made. Galatasaray seems to be a superior team in terms of level but Young Boys played very well in the series and eliminated their opponents.

Even if Young Boys try hard, they have no chance in the next round. We just have to see that they beat Galatasaray, which is from the Turkish league, with great difficulty. We all know very well that the big teams in the Turkish league are weak when they play in European competitions. So by that I mean that in the first games of the next round when Young Boys play against teams like Atalanta, Dortmund, Benfica, Sporting, Atlético Madrid, Girona. PSV, which are not very big teams that are in the Champions League, will be very strong opponents for Young Boys, and everything will get worse if they face stronger opponents like Manchester City, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Liverpool, Leverkusen, Bayern. I don't see Young Boys having any success in the next round.

I understand where you're coming from.
I take it that you're Turkish yourself - do you know if there's any particular reason for the decline in Turkish football?
Galatasaray/Fenerbahce/Besiktas used to be forces to be reckoned with and regularly appeared in the group stages of the Champions League, and now they can't even qualify.
Am I correct to think that the weakening of the Turkish economy in recent years is primarily to blame?

Although the squad generally held their own, they played much worse in the preliminary round compared to last year. Young Boys played very well in the preliminary round and could have scored 4-5 goals in the first match, but they were held to 3 goals. The last Turkish champion Galatasaray had a terrible preliminary round, losing both matches, and time will tell us what they will do in the European league.

It is really hard to determine the direction of the bet on the champions league qualifying round today and maybe this is the best option I choose to avoid bad results that occur.

Qarabag still has a big task where they lost with an aggregate of 3 goals from Zagreb and it feels quite impossible for them to catch up on the difference and rather than thinking about how to comeback they better think if the match will be a draw or even Zagreb wins again. Next Crvena against Bodo Glimt with a thin aggregate in the first leg 1-2 and I think Bodo Glimt will not give up easily even though this time they have to complete the mission of winning in the away game. So just in case I choose draw/bodo glimt.

For Slavia praha against Lille, this is a difficult possibility where I think both teams have the same chance of winning and even though Lille is ahead by an aggregate of 2 goals but the possibility of a comeback is quite large and on the other hand Lille can still add to their goals. So I choose the result over 2.5 goals. While Mitijland, I have no doubt that they will still win considering this is a decisive match with an aggregate draw against Bratislava.

I am disappointed with what Galatasaray showed in the second leg today, they could not be at their best when playing at home, no goals were scored at all, on the other hand young boys were able to steal points we see the statistics galatasaray is superior in ball possession but in terms of opportunities as you said young boys dominate, this means galatasaray's defense is unable to withstand young boys' fast counterattacks. losing to a team that is perched at the bottom of the swiss super league standings, it is really disappointing for galatasaray fans.
yes we know young boys often surprise us in the champions league but this defeat is embarrassing.
many lost in this bet including me personally

damm...! that's all I can say about the match, previously I personally have high hopes if the galatasaray can turn the tide in the second leg and betting on their victory is not a disadvantage, but in fact the galatasaray was not able to do much in the match after the youngboy destroyed them in front of his supporters, to be honest what happened to galatasaray at the moment made me lose faith in Turkish clubs and It seems that they are no longer as great as they used to be when they played in European competitions, previously Mourinho failed to survive the Champions League with Fenerbache and now we see how Galatasaray have to be eliminated from a team that has actually been below them all this time, poor strategy and also Galatasaray lack of creativity in the game is one of the reasons for their defeat and even when they continued to waste many scoring opportunities in the first leg, but in the second leg they played more worse without any better chances to break into Young Boy goal.  

I couldn't even figure out what went wrong with the Turkish giants last night, could it be loss of concentration, fatigue or a wrong technical approach from the Galatasaray coach, it's so hard to believe that they would have lost in front of their home fans, though it was very embarrassing for Galatasaray because they didnt even had the match under control rather it was young boys fc that dominated the home side which was what I think was so fascinating about this match and at the same time it seems like Galatasaray may not be playing in champions League after all.

Regardless of whether they are ready or not, what is clear now is that Galatasaray failed because Young Boys successfully defeated them in 2 legs at once. It does not mean that Galatasaray does not deserve to be in the Champions League, but in this decisive match, Young Boys were the ones who successfully eliminated their opponents.

Now Young Boys have qualified, but that does not mean they can relax because they will face a team that is even stronger than the team they defeated in this play-off round. They must prepare themselves as well as possible to be able to provide tough competition. No matter who their opponent is, what is clear is that they must be ready from now on.

The Galatasaray team played like a weak team right from the beginning of the game showing that they didn't improve after the first leg of the match were they were defeated by a late penalty, they had all their fans supporting them but they failed to score in the first half after making few attempts, the game shows that the away team Young Boys were more better than them and their performance through out the game shows how prepared they came knowing how tough the second leg would be since they won in the first leg. Galatasaray team will need to improve their performance before playing in the Europa League because there are so many food teams they will meat when they play and they may not go far if they continue with the performance they had against Young Boys.

Galatasaray had to admit the superiority of Young Boys, they had to lose again in the second leg with a score of 1-0 so they had to say goodbye to the Champions League because they lost with an aggregate of 4-2 to Young Boys.
Young Boys can be very calm in this match, they know that they are superior and they are aware that Galatasaray will play openly to find a quick goal, so they can prepare a strategy very well and win this important match again. Galatasaray had to experience bad luck because when they were racing against time to create an equalizer, they had to play with 10 men.
3 places have been filled, just looking for 4 more teams to complete the place in the Champions League.

Already in the first half it became clear that Galatasaray had big problems, when Young Boys made 11 shots on goal and 5 of them were on target, while Galatasaray, who only needed a win, made only 1 shot on target during the whole half. In the second half they tried to be more active but at the end of the match they conceded a goal, unexpectedly but with such a game there could not be another outcome, Galatasaray was not ready to play in the Champions League.

You probably haven't seen the first game and Dinamo in general if you think that Qarabag doesn't have chance after 0-3 loss in Zagreb. 

I mean, I hope that I am proven wrong but I expect a very tough game for Dinamo tonight. Can't bet against my own team, but if I am not Dinamo fan I would put some money as 2 @Qarabag seems quite tempting and same goes for Red Star vs Bodo.

Regardless of which ones fault, Galatasaray could not compete in UEFA Champions League and even in UEFA Europa League I don't expect them to do much better.
It is in fact the same problem with basically all Turkish teams, they don't find their level outside of their league..
For Galatasaray, receiving 4 goals in the two legs was quite upsetting.

In the other two games, Malmo and Dinamo Kyiv are known teams that failed also to advance to the next stage. The other teams that will play later are close to each others in terms of goals scored in the first leg so this round is important especially for Bodo/Glimt and

Galatasaray played in a horrible way last night. I don't know how they managed to be worse than the first leg just in front of their fans. I see it as a big disgrace to tell the truth.  

If you can't beat even a team that are in the last place of their domestic league then your place is absolutely not the Champions League. So I think it is much better not to see them reaching the main stage. Yeah maybe they were still going to earn €30m in total whatever results they would get. But it was probably going to be much worse thinking of country coefficient. If they improve this effort then maybe they can do better in the Europa League.

Lastly I don't think it is Okan Buruk's fault. It is all on the president, Dursun Özbek's policies...

I was actually very confident that Galatasaray would be able to win the match even though in the first leg they narrowly lost to Youngboy, even though Galatasaray lost in the first leg, but actually their game in that match was quite good and could even dominate the match over Youngboy, Apart from that, we can see how Galatasaray was able to create many opportunities to put pressure on Youngboy even though in the end they lost, for this reason I actually made Galatasaray the favorite to win in the second leg because they played at home, so that in terms of mentality and support of course their chances win bigger.

However, what we see now is actually very surprising when a team like Youngboy was able to beat the Turkish Kings in two legs of the qualifying match, a quick goal from a counterattack scheme carried out by Youngboy became the attack that ended Galatasaray's hopes this season in the Champions League, the goal was scored in In the 87th minute make Galatasaray hopes were dashed and they no longer had any motivation after the 4-2 aggregate defeat in that match.
I think that with the bad results that Galatasaray is currently getting, the Okan buruk will still maintained by management because  they actually still have a chance in the European League.

Dinamo Zagreb won with a big score in the first leg, although playing at home to Qarabag it doesn't look like it will be difficult for them to maintain that victory.