Topic: UEFA Conference League 2023/24 Season - page 14. (Read 4849 times)

Uefa must have intended something like this by organizing this cup. Currently in the third European cup rankings. Actually, the teams that are not bad are playing in the qualifiers right now. Fenerbahçe's squad is above average and was one of the favorite teams along with Aston Villa before the match. Lille is also a very quality team. Teams that can do important things in the European league are taking part in this tournament. Also, Rome won this cup, so it is not that small of a tournament.

Today the Conference League will start again, Aston Villa vs Lille and Fiorentina vs Viktoria Plzen.

Looking with their performance on the first leg, Lille is better than Aston Villa, since this time they will play in their ground, Lille should able to win.

While Fiorentina vs Viktoria Plzen, Viktoria Plzen is nothing, they're lucky able to reach quarter final even their perform were awful. I'm sure Fiorentina will win this match.

Fortunately the match will start 2 hours before Champions League, so we can watch Conference League match.

Aston Villa beat LOSC 2-1 in the Europa Conference League quarter-final first leg to take a one-goal lead from the first leg. Aston Villa managed to show their best performance in the last match due to which Aston Villa won this important match like quarter final. As Astron Villa won in the first leg match, this team will be much pressure free in the second leg match. If a team is free from pressure in the second leg and if the opposite team is under a lot of pressure, then the team that is free from pressure will perform better. As Aston Villa won the first leg match, it will be expected that this team will win the second leg match.

This is a good review, and yes even though Aston won 2-1 in the 1st leg, it is Lille who actually has a chance to qualify if we look at how they played in the 1st leg.
And Lille have only lost once of 14 home games in Ligue1, even better than PSG.
They only conceded 8 goals in 14 games, it will be difficult for Aston to score there.



I am sure Lille will qualify for the semifinals and even goes to the final after beat Olympiacos/Fenerbache.

It looks like this round won't be easy at all for Aston Villa.    Lille stood really strong even though they lost by 2-1 away. I couldn't count how many times they wasted big goal chances. They wasted an important chance to equalize the score in the stoppage time also. This could be the signals of how tough it will be for Aston Villa in the second leg.

Aston Villa have been my favourite to win the Conference League trophy so far and they still are. However Lille can really surprise people like me if they get better at finishing next time.

I'm even thinking of making a small bet on Lille to qualify for semi finals just for fun. 

Plzen did manage to force Fiorentina to end the first leg match with a 0-0 draw, what you said is true because it is quite dangerous for Plzen if it plays open against Fiorentina in that match, Fiorentina's quality and performance are of course above Plzen so inevitably Plzen must play defense to try their luck in the second leg later,  But I think the first leg is just a delayed defeat to Plzen at the moment, because after all Fiorentina will definitely bring out all their abilities to destroy Plzen especially in the second leg Fiorentina will play at home, so their motivation will definitely increase to be able to grab a ticket to the semi-finals.

Since the Conference League entered the round of 16, of course Aston Villa has become a strong favorite to win the Conference League this season, previously we had Ajax who was indeed a favorite team, but unfortunately they had to come out sooner than we expected after Ajax lost to Aston Villa, for now I think Aston Villa has a more capable squad than other teams in addition to strong support from Unai Emery's experience,  My prediction is that in the final round we will see Aston Villa meet Fiorentina.

Olympiakos beat Fenerbahce 3-2 at home in the first leg of the Europa Conference League quarterfinals on yesterday. Olympiakos built a 3-0 lead in Piraeus and held on after the Fenerbahce fought back with two second-half goals. Second half goals from Dusan Tadic and Irfan Can Kahveci were not enough to save Fenerbahce in Piraeus. Olympiakos is one of the two Greek teams in the last eight hoping to reach a home final in Athens.

Man, it was a really tough night for Fenerbahçe. I really wanted them to get an advantageous score in Greece and this isn't bad at all honestly. It is better than 3-0 at least. If Fenerbahçe didn't manage to get better in the second half it was going to be a nightmare for them.

This is a result of tactical mistakes too. I agree with people who think like this. If you are determined to go for even the Conference League title you should be more careful. Even if Fenerbahçe reach the semi finals they will most probably face the toughest team here, Aston Villa. I don't think Fenerbahçe can go further than that as a result. 

Fenerbahçe got a very bad result last night. I don't think anyone expected such a result.
Fenerbahçe has a goalkeeper problem. Livakovic is a very problematic goalkeeper. I didn't like him from the very beginning and I still don't like him.
I think Altay Bayindir is a better goalkeeper than Livakovic.
I hope they win the game in Istanbul and reach the semifinals.

Viktoria Plzen seems know Fiorentina quality is above to them so that's why for their formation Viktoria Plzen was used 5 defender players and seems their prediction were come true because Fiorentina can able to make them under pressure and it makes Viktoria Plzen cannot able to develop their game and luckily until the match ended Viktoria Plzen still able to managed their defense but this result is very unfavourable because in the second leg Fiorentina possibly will attempts to beat them again and i think it is very possible to do so and Fiorentina only required to win with narrow scores which i am confident Fiorentina can able to do that and advances to the semifinal stages

For other match Aston Villa still decent to called as champion candidate for this competition because they can able to overcomes Lille although they only can ended the match with narrow scores but this winning result is very important moreover Lille is the team who hard to beated but at least this result can makes Aston Villa journey will be more easy because in the second leg they only required to playing draw or not lost with 1 goal margin or more and i think Aston Villa can able to do that

Yes Martinez saved Aston Villa's goal several times very well which made this match a very epic match for him because the onslaught from LOSC was very great and fortunately Aston Villa had Martinez in good condition so that he could block a very dangerous attack even though one goal he could not save, but it was an epic match for the Aston Villa goalkeeper.

I don't think it's necessary to underestimate some of the players because they worked hard according to their own abilities that made this team win in this leg 1, even though Martinez and Watkins had a much better performance than others but we can't lose sight of the others too because this is a teamwork, and I think it's natural and also no one made a bad mistake in this match from the Aston Villa squad.
Yes of course in the next match it will be very difficult for Aston Villa because it is their away match to LOSC, the host will definitely make a surprise at home, this will indeed make everything seem difficult for Aston Villa I am also very difficult to predict who will get the victory in the match in this 2nd leg.

Out of the four games that were played yesterday in the UEFA Conference League last night, there were three wins while the other one ended in a goalless draw and none of the three wins had more than one goal difference which means that there's a lot to play for in the second leg of the games.
But my major interest is the tie between English Premier League club Aston Villa and French Ligue 1 club Lille. Aston Villa won the first leg with a 2:1 scoreline and would have to travel to France for the second of the tie. Lille will have the advantage of playing the second leg in front of their home fans which I think will make them put in their best to try get a result that'll better the result of the one West Ham got against in the first leg.

Not so bad result for Lille, in the away game against the top contender of the tournament only losing by one goal and now having the chance of redeem that result in house game.

About Fiorentina, come on guys, i know surely they are gonna win in Florence in their home, but you cant draw against such a weak team like Pilzen.

Lille lost against Aston Villa away by 2-1 in the Conference League last night. Honestly their performance was still decent and this score makes me think about whether they can surprise us. A factor which might be useful for Lille is that they don't have any Ligue 1 game to play before the rematch while Aston Villa have against Arsenal in the Premier League in two days.

If Lille players get prepared strongly and we see some fatigue signs from Aston Villa players Lille might really have a chance. Aston Villa are playing in a really tight schedule recently. They are in a heated fight for a Champions League spot in the Premier League as well. Let's see whether we will see the biggest contender of the Conference League title stays out earlier than expected. 

Aston Villa had a very hard match with LOSC and if not for Martinez, the score would have been 3:2 or 4:2 in favor of LOSC, because at least 2-3 chances LOSC had, which they could not realize because of the goalkeeper of Aston Villa.
Despite Aston Villa's victory the game was not impressive and only Martinez and Wally Watkins were at their best as usual and showed a good level of play.
The return game for Villa will be very hard and I think the chances of getting to the next stage, despite the defeat of LOSC are still equal and Aston Villa should try to get to the next stage.

Livakovic turned out to be an overrated goalkeeper truthfully.    His performance at Croatia in the last World Cup was really amazing but it looks like he can't show the same performance outside national team. Sometimes I think even the substitute goalkeeper İrfan is better than him and I don't know if I'm exaggerating it.

Krunic - Zajc was definitely a bad choice, I totally agree. I just don't understand İsmail Kartal. He acts like he doesn't know much about football but he is privileged to be here. He is really poor when it comes to player choices.

One of the reasons Fenerbahçe had this much problem was definitely this. At least they managed to score 2 goals and didn't give up on the competition.

Fenerbahçe played poor football in the first half of the match against Olympiakos because they fielded the wrong starting 11. Ismail Kartal's squad revision in this match was completely wrong. In the first half Fenerbahce just watched their opponent and couldn't do anything. The only thing Fenerbahçe lacks is a good manager.

It was an absurd decision to start Ismail, Ferdi and Fred as substitutes when the importance of Fred was obvious. Fenerbahce's dominance after the 60th minute and scoring 2 goals after the squad change created an opportunity to pass the round. Olympiacos is not a team that plays good football and they won this game because of Fenerbahce's mistakes. Olympiakos will have a tough game against Fenerbahce and if Fenerbahce starts with their starting line up they have a good chance of qualifying.

I think Viktoria Plzen's chances of qualifying are very slim against Fiorentina. Plzen had a bad game against Fiorentina at home and will most probably be eliminated away.Fiorentina played a good game against their opponent despite being away, but they were not very effective in front of goal and the match ended in a goalless draw. I think Fiorentina will defeat their opponent at home and make the round.
Brugge, on the other hand, managed to win against PAOK with an early goal. I think it could be a risky score for Club Brugge. PAOK is likely to give their opponent a tough time at home and it's hard to say who will go through. Of course, Brugge is the advantageous side with this score.

In my opinion, Fenerbahce should not be surprised by this result, because looking at the history of Fenerbahce's last 2 games:



They conceded 2 goals in each game and were playing against teams that are not very strong, this was a clear indicator that Fenerbahce's defense was not good, but as Fenerbahce had a very good attack capable of scoring more than 2 goals, so allowed them to win that game. Now when we look at Olympiacos, we see that in the last 2 games before they played against Fenerbahce, they won and scored a lot of goals and scored 3 or more goals in each game. look:



This means that in the last 2 games Olympiacos was a team that had a very strong attack and good defense, even if someone told me that the teams that Olympiacos beat easily were weak teams, it is still worth considering this good performance from Olympiacos because Fenerbahce also conceded 2 goals in each of the last 2 games they played against teams that were not strong, so if we follow this data we could already have a scenario like the one that happened in the Olympiacos game against Fenerbahce. That's why I'm not surprised by this result. Now if Fenerbahce want to win in the second leg game then they will need to work hard in defense.


For some reason that I can't explain in words, the feeling I have is that it seemed like the goalkeepers of both teams weren't doing their job well, the way only goals from both sides were scored, gave me the impression that the goalkeepers on both sides could have made a better save



Talking about the result of that game, in my opinion Aston Villa could have left that game without conceding a goal, unfortunately the Aston Villa player made a mistake that allowed LOSC to score a goal. Now LOSC is a team that plays well at home, in the last 10 games in which LOSC played at home they didn't lose in any game, even when they played against PSG, LOSC didn't lose at home. So in my opinion Aston Villa will have a lot of difficulties in France at LOSC's home ground.

If Aston Villa takes this league seriously, they will win it because all of the teams that are left in it are teams that they can easily defeat. I know Aston Villa makes mistakes, but when they play well, they win because they have a strong team. However, from my perspective, Aston Villa did not prioritise winning the league; instead, they were more concerned with qualifying for the Champions League the following season. Although they are still competing in this league, their play is not strong enough to give me the impression that they can win the title. However, we'll have to wait and see what happens in the second leg of the match to find out what happens in the next round. It would be beneficial if Aston Villa plays well, wins this title, and knows that they have a trophy this season.