Topic: ⚽UEFA Europa League Discussion Thread -- 2022/23 | Group Stages - page 12. (Read 15441 times)

Bayer Leverkusen showed impeccable display of dominance I'm the game if you ask me. Granted, it seemed like they were struggling in the game and much pressure was added on them after Qarabag netted those two goals but at the end of the day it's the team that qualified that matters and that was what they did. It was more like Qarabag calling the shots, holding possession but getting knocked out at the end.
 I also commend Xabi Alonso's confidence in his men as we could see how he was cheering them up, knowing they could come back up from the two goals down and when Patrik Schick scored the equalizer in the 90+3, we could see him asking for one more goal, having complete trust they could pull it off and voilã! Patrik Schick did it again in the 90+8 minutes to see them clinch a spot in the quarter finals.

The Leverkusen team continues to set records by winning games time and time again. If someone told me yesterday that Leverkusen would win, I wouldn't believe it because the game was almost over even though Leverkusen ended up scoring the winning goal. However, to be honest, Leverkusen didn't play well because Qarabag received a red card, which makes it difficult for Leverkusen to win. If Qarabag did not receive a red card, the match would either end in a penalty shootout or Leverkusen would lose.

Leverkusen is happy that they won, but I'm still not sure if they can win the Europa League because of how they performed in this competition compared to how they did in the Bundesliga. In addition, there are a lot of teams that are stronger than them, like Atlanta, West Ham, and Liverpool. I won't include Roma because they aren't a formidable opponent for Leverkusen; even if they manage to overcome the other teams, they can't defeat Liverpool.

The problem in Leverkusen is they never lose, so this could make them have very high self confidence, fortunately the match against Qarabag is able to open their eyes if they're almost lose against Qarabag. Hopefully Leverkusen can learn from this match.

West Ham pranked you.

Freiburg's players passes too much and not able to score a goal, when they're make a blunder, West Ham is easily make a counter attack.

Leverkusen won the game with two goals in minutes 93 and 97, what a strong finish. If you look at the statistics of the game, the result is correct, but it was close. So Leverkusen are still in all 3 competitions: german league & cup and also europa league, they have a chance to win all 3 titles. The most important player in the first and second game was Patrik Schick. He scored 2 sensational goals in the last few minutes yesterday and the 2:2 in the first game, there were no more important goals. Because of him Leverkusen go into the next round. I think there are currently 3 favorites for the title: Liverpool, Leverkusen and AC Milan.

One of the random teams in this season is Atalanta, lately. Quite good overall, playing badly in a game and turning a different side in another, Sporting was the favorite and somehow this is the result.


And still unbeaten in the end, but amazing how Qarabag twice made them really pour blood into the effort!!

Now Leverkusen also have 2 more games to play to win the German cup, and they may face a bottom team 2 leagues below them who has already knocked out Bayern Munchen and Monchengladbach. If they make it Invincible they will be beyond the achievements of Arsenal. 10+ games to go!

kudos to Leverkusen, they are not playing 90 minutes, they play till last moment
pouring goals in extra time, while Qarabag playing solid during the match

expected a lot better from Sparta, 11 goals in 2 matches against Liverpool halved with injuries is really slow
it should not come as surprise that Liverpool is big favorite to win this, while Leverkusen and Milan are waiting for their mistake, can we see some surprise here eventually

Leverkusen used the advantage they had after scoring the second goal, they saw that it was possible for them to even score a 3rd goal to win the game if they pushed for it. They tried to score the 3rd goal and they did because if the game had gone into extra time it would have given Qarabag a time to re-strategize, rest a bit and then he would have also taken away the momentum that Bayer Leverkusen had been able to build from scoring two goals from two goals down. Good coach and serious players made the Leverkusen win possible.

Amazing scenes from the Europa league today. From Liverpool scoring 4 goals in the first 14 minutes of the match to Leverkusen vs Qarabaq delivering a deja vu performance today — Qarabaq with 2-goal leads before Leverkusen equalizes. It happened in Azerbaijan and tonight in Germany. I switched for a moment to watch Liverpool's match only to come back and meet leverkusen 2-0 down to Qarabaq. The last few minutes were really tough for Qarabaq with that insane Leverkusen press that forced them to concede 3 goals in the last 25 minutes. Amazing!


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Europa league was just great tonight. Qarabag is just crazy. After great 1st game I still didn't had any expectations that they can eliminate new Bundesliga champions. They almost did it, even scoring a goal with 1 men down. But Bayer survived in crazy way, with 2 goals by Shick on additional time. Such a heartbreak for Qarabag.
Had big expectations from Sporting and everything started positively, but it didn't ended well for them. At least Benfica justified my expectations and won some money from Benfica to qualify bet.
Villarreal were close from making comeback after loss 4:0 in first leg, but late goal of Marseille killed it.
After Liverpool scored 4 goals in 14 minutes it looked that final result will be inappropriate, but it ended just 6:1.

Yeah I was surprised to see the results of this match, unexpectedly Qarabag was able to score the first goal and the second goal even though playing with 10 players and when I wrote this post Leverkusen had scored 2 goals meaning aggregate 4-4 it is clear that Leverkusen's chances of winning are increasingly open whether through extra time or penalty rounds.

We have seen several teams already taking their places in the next round 2 teams from the Premier League and 3 teams from Serie A while the other 3 teams come from different leagues this means that this season's European League is dominated by Serie A but the favorite team comes from the Premier League, imo. Who is your favorite team to win this trophy? For me Liverpool is the main candidate.

Honestly, in the Leverkusen vs Qarabag match in both legs 1 and 2, Qarabag was actually the one that could play more effectively, than Leverkusen. Even in the first leg yesterday, they were like that. Unfortunately, this time, in the second leg, they had to lose one of their players due to a red card. This is quite risky for them. Even though they can actually excel with these weaknesses. Yes, Qarabag was indeed quite surprising, their effective play was quite impressive. They don't need a lot of ball possession, but they can optimize every chance they have. And it's very effective.

Who knows what Xabi was thinking, some of their main players were not in the starting eleven. Maybe it's related to the condition of the players or something else. But really, this actually harms them. In fact, they seemed very underpowered to overcome Qarabag's attacks, who were only playing with 10 players. what they currently hope is a draw, so they can take penalty shoots. However, is it possible? If Qarabag can be this good, it will be very difficult for Leverkusen to score again. But hopefully they really can.

Qarabag had a chance to score and they took it, got the first goal but unfortunately for them they lost one player in the process reducing their number to 10 on the field. They didn't stop there though as they were also able to score a second goal even with the 10 men they had to increase the fear that the supporters of the home team have of having their first loss of the season in an important game like this. There is still some time in the game, Bayer Leverkusen have been able to score one, they can score a late goal like they did in the first leg to send this game to extra time.

What is this? Will Leverkusen give up in the round of 16 this time.
They played against 10 men but it was they who struggled to make a victory to take them to the next round in the Europa League this time even they had to fall behind 2 goals first.

It would be regrettable if this result is maintained until the end of the match because apart from them failing to qualify for the next phase, Xabi record for matches without defeat must also end at the hands of Qarabag which we never expected because after all this should be able to win well.
The match entered crucial time but Leverkusen were still troubled by Qarabag's solid defense but there was still time for them to make a good comeback but Xabi had to try everything in the remaining time this time.

Yeah, not that I'm complaining but once Salah made it 3-0 on ten minutes, it was no longer a spectacle, would have switched off if I weren't a fan. So good to see Alisson on the bench as well, not that Kelleher will want to warm it up any time soon! Have to feel sorry for Nunez, taken off on the first leg on the verge of a hattrick, and then again when he clearly has more in him. Pretty crazy Salah and Szobo still staying on the field with 11-2 aggregate..!

Didn't think West Ham would have such an easy time, either... what on earth has happened to my beloved Freiburg?

Edit: What the Qarabaq is happening?!

Shame. It's already been a decade of gegenpressing and wide attacks, high-line defence and long seeking balls. I love it, of course, even from my days of playing Winning Eleven, I'd 4-4-3 the heck out of teams and just press constantly. I suppose you could call me the visionary of digital football heh.

I have watched a bit of Leverkusen and it's not displeasing football. Be nice to see Bundesliga adopt it if Alonso sticks to it -- and continues to win -- next season. It's not precisely like City's suffocating passing, if still very disciplined and purposeful.

I think this is just an outlier. You can't expect Leverkusen to dominate and play that well every game, especially in different circumstances such as a round of 16 in a European competition. I'm pretty sure any team would like to go through, so they will try their best to play their game, especially in front of their fanbase. Whether there is a home advantage or not, I believe a player would love a supportive atmosphere in the stadium.

They probably wanted to make sure they could have a comfortable second leg. With the squad they have right now, winning is probably their only goal considering how open most of their recent games were. Nunez's improvement probably helped reduce the burden on the front three too, considering that Salah or Jota is still out injured while Gakpo and Diaz have been poor recently. If anything I believe their defense still needs more work compared to other areas on the pitch, but it is understandable since youngsters are the ones who fill the backline.

Yeah, I shouldn't forget about that.    It could have been such an interesting result if Qarabag managed to secure a win in the first leg. After watching the way they played against Braga and eliminated them I started to follow them closer... Even against one of the title contenders they played fearlessly and impressively. 

They really care about short passing a lot. The extra passes are also a big help to create a bigger opportunity to score. The teamwork is really strong so this must be the magic. They could have really won this match.

From the matches above Liverpool, Roma and Leverkusen performance was pleasing but the match that caught my attention was the Qarabag and Bayer Leverkusen game because I was so upset seeing the Xabi Alonso men losing 2:0 within the first 45 minutes because of the quality of players that he introduced in the first half but thank God they were able to bounce back to level the score to a 2:2 before the full-time. For Liverpool and Roma performance, I think they have got what it takes to be in the final and am so surprised to see Liverpool still pushing and playing with all seriousness when they have a big game against Manchester City this weekend in the league but hopefully they finally achieve what they want because they are hot this season.

Liverpool really performed extraordinary in that match. In fact, I didn't even think that Liverpool could be that strong in beating the host club and able to create a large aggregate. Of course, in the second leg, Liverpool will play a little comfortably without experiencing excessive pressure, after all, win or lose in second leg I'm not sure Sparta Prague will be able to create an aggregate that exceeds Liverpool. But yes I don't think Jurgen Kloop will let his club suffer defeat at home even though they have locked in their current victory, and I think Liverpool will still increase the aggregate because they played a little comfortable and have the opportunities they need.

Yes, at least Milan is ahead with 2 aggregates, even though it's not a big aggregate, but I think Milan can still qualify by implementing a defensive strategy in the second leg, even though sometimes Milan's performance is doubtful, they will fight to perform optimally here, but yes, they also have to learn from The previous mistake in the play off round was that they had created an early advantage in the first leg but in the second leg Milan lost but fortunately Milan were also able to increase the aggregate total so they could still be ahead in the second leg. I hope Milan doesn't make a mistake because it could be Slavia Prague put great pressure on Milan which caused Milan to have difficulty creating aggregate again.

The result I was surprised of the most was the one in the Roma-Brighton match. I don't know how Brighton lost by a big score like 4-0. Because they were technically one of the teams with really good scoring capability. Mitoma and Joao Pedro both weren't able to play in this game. Joao Pedro is the most scorer player of the team in the Europa League with 6 goals and you know how skilled Mitoma is. 

De Rossi really started to change things at Roma. They have started to score many more goals thanks to leaving Mourinho's more defensive system. I'm wondering how far they will go in the Europa League.