Topic: ⚽UEFA Europa League Discussion Thread -- 2022/23 | Group Stages - page 28. (Read 15441 times)

After Barcelona was knocked out then there will be Roma and Juventus as tough opponents for Manchester United
Obviously Man Utd are the favourites after defeating the strongest candidate then we will wait to see who their opponent  in the final
I hope it is Juventus as an equal opponent so we can watch the real final.

Barcelona had a lead and they even had a momentum in this match but just wasnt able to keep up the entire match with Man Utd. Man Utd are playing really good this year and i think they can win the entire thing after beating one of the main favorites for the title.

What I can say, MU deserved to reach next round. Another season in Europe to forget for Barca. In first hal everything looked OK more or lesa, but second half was very solid from MU, Barca had nothing to offer against them. Maybe Pedri and Gavi wouldn't saved us, but their absense was big factor.
Monaco - Bayer, this pair was crazy roller coaster, nothing surprising that winner of it was decided in penalty shootout. Congrats to Bayer.
What did I said about PSV - Sevilla? PSV was indeed close to make a comeback, but de Jong goal was cancelled after VAR review. And when they scored second goal it was too late already.
Very interesting game between Union and Ajax. This season European campaign for Ajax is complete disaster. And now we still have Extra Time between Rennes and Shakhtar.

have no favorites tonight, and my ship has sink in Conference league, so will just enjoy the match
Rashford and Osimneh are probably two players in best form atm, and that could mean a lot in matches like this one tonight, but my thoughts are with Barca to pass through somehow

not sure about goals, hopefully BTTS will pass, but United has solid defense looking at their last matches, they pretty much polished it with clean sheets

Sporting and Juventus proved that home ground advantage doesn't mean shit, if you are stronger opponent

I am thinking United is probably closer to qualification today than Barca, both teams are much better on home ground and Rashford is in incredible form. My bet as usual is both to score and I hope that will pass as easy as last week. Barca missing Pedri, Gavi and Dembele will be much weaker for sure so I really hope game goes your way, that basically means mine bet passes as well 

How realistic are your examples now talking about sending him to Jablonec? What is that that you are trying to convey? Why not amputate a leg and then see how he is doing?

Salzburg is a great example, that makes more sense then the stuff you are bringing up here. Let's see, but only the Champions League because otherwise you woudl say that Austrian soccer is too weak and Salzburg too strong:

Haaland just turned 19 and scored a hattrick, three goals in the first half, in his first game in the Champions League against Genk. Genk? They are weak, ok no big deal.

Next game against Liverpool at Anfield, he scored again one goal. Against Napoli he added two more goals. "His six goals were also the most scored by any player in their first three Champions League matches."

Next game against Napoli? Scored again one goal.

A couple of days later against Wolfsberger AC? His fifth hattrick of the season on November 10th!!

With all due respect, but I doubt that Salzburg belongs to the best feeding teams out there.

With your last sentence I agree fully, when you break records or set them yourself, at some point you are going to "decline" That is true!


Now we are all patiently waiting for Manchester United against Barcelona. This is quite the highlight given that this is not the Champions League

It's time for 2nd leg games and only Sevilla have more significant advantage, but I wouldn't be that much surprised if PSV will make a comeback. My main bets today is Juventus and Sporting ML. In first leg both very heavy favorrites, but failed to win. Despite playing away, they're still favorites.
Offcourse, I put bet on Barca win, I believe in my team, even if we aren't favorites. But I have bad feeling, mainly because all these terrible performances in knockout stages in few past seasons.
And also, Union to qualify @1.65, they're just looking better now, but everything still can happen here.

Dude, I literally made a specific difference that I commented on "decline" regarding goals, not decline in general.

"Any club would feed him" is ignorant of the fact that you need good feeders. He had a great midfield at Dortmund and the best feeder in the world in City (Kevin de Bruyne) and even then, like now if teams discover how to keep the feeders quiet like you can see in past few games, then the goals do not come.

You want an example check out Ronaldo at Al Nassr. Or even at United when the feeders had bad form.

Send Haaland to let us say Jablonec or Lincoln Red Imps (this is Europa not even Conference) and see how well clubs can feed him.

But definitely, we talk about "decline" in different context. Goals can only decline after breaking records

Your discussion is a nice read but I don't understand why you say that Haaland would "decline" if you send him to a club that doesn't feed him. First of all, any club would feed him because he simply is the best on the field and the best to finish. Every club would feed him to the best of their abilities because it is the smartest thing to do. Additionally, check out his scores at RedBull Salzburg, at Borussia Dortmund, and now at Manchester City in a brutally strong league. He is breaking records in the EPL like nobody else ever did before. Haaland is probably going to pulverize Shearer's and Cole's record of 34 goals in a season unless he gets injured.

I know a lot of people talk about how players get fed and there is some truth to that, but thinking rationally about it makes me conclude that I would also feed the best player on the pitch if the situation allows it. The best aren't the best because the get fed, but they get fed because they are the best.

I will admit though that there are some players who aren't really the best but are still able to score more in a good team than in a bad team. No doubt that that is also happening. But whether you are outstanding or not is also an important question because you might have players around you that prefer to score themselves if they have the ability to do so.

Lewandowski also left out some chances so far for Barcelona that he didn't leave out during the excellent years he had in Bayern. But he is still scoring very well this season. As you said if you scored that many goals at some point you can only "decline". It is like Ronaldo and Messi when they scored 48 and 50 goals, respectively. Your next season can only get worse

Can someone tell Rashford to please take a break so my team can win tonight??


I didn't know you're a professional, what is your job and why haven't I seen you in any of the paid pools (sorry if you are in, I can't recall ever seeing your name).

Not sure what you mean by paredventure but I sort of get you. Same with Haaland. Move him to a club that doesn't feed him and he'll also "decline"


I think it's fair. I like him and I'm Barca, and his scoring rate has declined. That's a fact. But it is a dumb fact, because he has scored 20 goals this season already (okay 18 for Barca 2 for World Cup). When you hit crazy highs, you kinda have to decline. Like Bitcoin ATH and price declines

However, It would be unfair to say he is a player in decline, for the reasons you say.

I think "decline in scoring" is an unfair judgement of how he has been. First of all, even the fact that he gets so many defenders on him from his sheer talent is enough for others to have open shots, because this literally happens every 30 minutes each game, someone gets a good chance wide open against goalkeeper, because defenders were all on Lewandowski, which is a great contribution without showing up on stats.

Secondly, he is on a new team, compared to the team he played 150 years for (lol) of course he will have some hard time adjusting to the new system, but he is doing a bang up job at la liga, and I am sure next season he will be even better, back to his old numbers maybe.

It matters. U can't tell. as a professional,  I know when things are really not working well and when things are in order. Lewandowsky is having decline in his scoring rate and pretty sure he knows about it. Barcelona isn't feeding him as much has it was in Bayern. If paredventure Lewandowsky moves to Clubs like Manchester city, u will really understand the differences.

I think Lewandowski have more focus in laliga,  he has always performed very well in most games in laliga. 
The truth is that Lewandowski have really played good role for Barcelona this season,  he doesn't matter if he hasn't scored goals when playing with big teams.

 Leicester used to be a hard but to crack especially for top clubs like Manchester united, chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. But it was so exciting to see Manchester united dominating through out the match. And i'm sure that Ten hag is setting the system to do more bith in the EPL. And Europa league.
  It's not going to be easy for xavi in Old Trafford. Manchester United is becoming more formidable than it was and I believe it is Ten Hag's only way of proving his work Excellence in England for this season.

I don't know about that, Barca almost lost to United, but then again we probably all remember Villareal beating United in the final, but I think overall, even minus Sevilla the Europa experts then yes the list does seem to favor Spain whenever they meet English teams in the final.

I was mentioning earlier Barca-Manchester United was like a champions league game, and in fact going down the list you see many ties that would have felt like Champions League games...  Juventus, Monaco, etc.

The most interesting thing in over 20 years is the lack of Italian teams who won, in fact only one team reached the final in the same period and still lost to who else but Sevilla

I think it was that domination period that made UNited get the draw, they couldn't play like that all game, they just had a moment of brilliance for a while and then it was gone. Rashford is amazing, 14 goals in 17 games so far, amazing momentum to be on as of right now and that is why I think they are this good, I think it would be quite bad for them if they end up with something else on the second game.

Barcelona looked better for the whole game, if they keep that up they could get a win out of this matchup, but it will be away game for them so we do not know how they will be, maybe they will be great, maybe they will not play as good as they did for this game.

The Spanish clubs always have the history of beating the English clubs especially in Europa League meetings and the people in the top level of it is Sevilla.
Barcelona had the opportunity to do it in their playground but they could not do it because Manchester United is in very good form.
It was ab impressive night between Manchester United and Barcelona and it has been a long time I saw Europa pull that kind of tension except in the finals even most finest doesn't put that kind of tension

And Sergio Busquet if not Dembele likewise would be absent against Manchester United at Old Trafford which Erik Ten Hag has transformed gradually into the fortress Old Trafford use to be during the good old days of the "BOSS" ( Sir Alex Ferguson ).
What's more disturbing is that Barcelona has kept good number of clean sheets but they couldn't last night with the help of the own goal and Marcus Rashford striving pass Ter Stergens left leg..

Sevilla are unarguably the best Spanish side in the Europa League Competition, you don't want to toil with them during the days of Unai Emery as head Coach, he defeated Jurgen Klopp at a certain time during one of them finals.

Barca defense in Europa league and Barca defense in La Liga
saw many memes on twitter on that topic
but, it is all open for now

Sevilla is playing better in La Liga too, planning to go with their away win on weekend, they connected the dots, at least judging by results, since I haven't watch any match last three days

Roma losing was a big surprise for me, as Juve draw at home as well

I only watched the first half (which is still super late for me) and I thought we were the far better team, but of course, as they say, nothing counts if you don't get the goals. I think we just haven't found the way as others did not to silence Rashford, how we can allow him to score from basically simply 2/3 move attacks while we need 10/15 moves attacks is not really good.

The worst moment I agree was seeing our best midfielders coming off, I hope for Pedri it is not longer than a month but it's such a bad time for him to get injured.

Monaco making me happy also

Sounds weird talking about all these teams and it's not Champions League right?