Not That Type of Paella- Stoke on Tour, Champions & Europa League 2011/12

Thread title courtesy of d-mac. Get on dis ting.

CL qualifying draw feat. Malmo of Sweden.

UEFA Champions League play-off round
Champions route
Wisła Kraków (POL) v APOEL FC (CYP)
Macabi Haifa FC (ISR) v KRC Genk (BEL)
NK Dinamo Zagreb (CRO) v Malmö FF (SWE)
FC København (DEN) v FC Viktoria Plzeň (CZE)
FC BATE Borisov (BLR) v SK Sturm Graz (AUT)

League route
Odense BK (DEN) v Villarreal CF (ESP)
FC Twente (NED) v SL Benfica (POR)
Arsenal FC (ENG) v Udinese Calcio (ITA)
FC Bayern München (GER) v FC Zürich (SUI)
Olympique Lyonnais (FRA) v FC Rubin Kazan (RUS)

The first legs will be played on 16/17 August and the returns a week later. The ten winners will join the 22 automatic entrants in the UEFA Champions League group stage, the draw for which is held in Monaco at 17.45CET on Thursday 25 August. The losers will take part in the UEFA Europa League group stage.

Lots of good team names in the Europa League draw coming up in half an hour. Celtc vs Lene Lovich ftw.

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/newsid=1656289.html#uefa+europa+league+play+draw+preview

Possible Spurs vs Hearts BATTLE OF BRITISH ALSO-RANS

A+ thread title, well done.

ya srsly

Possible Spurs vs Hearts BATTLE OF BRITISH ALSO-RANS

DING DING DING!

Now I kinda wish Udinese had managed to hang on to Sanchez. Seeing Arsenal knocked out would have been great fun.

Elsewhere in the Europa, Jol vs Ramos.

Celtic vs Sion
Rangers vs Maribor
Birmingham (forgot they were in it!) vs Nacional
Fulham vs Dnipro
Stoke hate Thun

Hooray, I can dust off Maribor Stork Nightmares again :)

Swiss football is shite, y/n

Google tells me crap clogging ex-Jambo Jose Goncalves plays for Sion. As does someone called Christ Mbondi.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/aug/05/premier-league-preview-manchester-united

the greatest challenge remaining for Ferguson just got even harder.

That challenge is to catch and overhaul Barcelona and spare themselves any more of the ordeals witnessed in the Stadio Olimpico in 2009 and, again, at Wembley last May, when television close-ups showed Ferguson in a way he had rarely been seen before

can this meme die? united aren't next in line for the CL throne, they mostly bottle the CL and god knows they've won enough leagues to have tried plenty of times. you'd swear the final is a nailed on man vs barca for the next five years.

eh i don't think we can tbph, they're gonna be there every year and i do think without barca he'd have won four by now.

so what's arry's plan ere, will he come clean and play the reserves, wait til later in the draw and try and make it look plausible, or ave a go after all

eh i don't think we can tbph, they're gonna be there every year and i do think without barca he'd have won four by now.

in the final? doubt it. even barca may not be there every year.

we'll ave a go obviously, you got to ave a go donchoo

I think you have to assume that the final will be Real/Bayern v. Barca, depending on how the knockout stages go, for the foreseeable future.

Udinese is a decent draw - could have been worse, could have been better - but they've sold their best two players, and we haven't yet.

Terrific thread callback btw.

ya srsly

16/17 August Arsenal v Udinese
20 August Arsenal v Liverpool
23/24 August Udinese v Arsenal
28 August Manchester United v Arsenal

This is a tough run of games for August.

WWWD imo - not betting on the fuckers though, 164 times bitten and all that

also RVP and Nasri are suspended for first CL match

I am seemingly the only optimistic gooner out there but yeah, sheesh. As long as we get past Udinese, I don't mind dropping points in the league.

WLDL

man utd
chelsea
liverpool
man city
arsenal
spurs

wolves
wigan
swansea

Arse will be playing LFC w/o Gerrard or Suarez. Think you will get at least a draw.

cozen just dropping the bomb and walking away, ice cold imo

chillops

instant meme, bravo

chelsea
city
arsenal
utd
liverpool
spurs
---
swansea
wigan
qpr

blackburn ffs guys

can't really see them challenging for europe

isnt this the wrong thread

Oh, well played on the thread title. (yeah yeah, but I've only just got here)

Battle of Britain, excellent. I'm kind of interested in this one, maybe cos it's a proper knock-out - haven't they been all dullo group matches since Celtic's run in 2003?

This is just the final qualifying round - groups are still in place once the competition 'proper' begins. Yay.

i was thinking of going to switzerland but i don't think any my pals are up for it :/ wouldn't be surprised if celtic do this mob 2-0 or whatever at home and still end up going out after the return leg.

Team in full: Szczesny, Sagna, Vermaelen, Koscielny, Gibbs, Song, Ramsey, Walcott, Rosicky, Gervinho, Chamakh

Subs: Fabianski, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Djourou, Arshavin, Jenkinson, Frimpong, Bendtner

Handanovic, Ekstrand, Benatia, Larangeira, Neuton, Agyemang-Badu, Isla, Asamoah, Pinzi, Armero, Di Natale.

Subs: Belardi, Denis, Vydra, Abdi, Pasquale, Doubai, Fabbrini.

Could have been worse tbf. No Belardi or Pasquale. Also just found out that Inler went to Napoli this summer, meaning they have lost their 3 best players. If they sell Asamoah and Di Natale by next week they will look like a relegation team.

Pleased Bendtner is still there, not enough true CFs in the side to sell him imo.

pffft i have faith in afobe to step up and be the guy who sits on the bench

/sam

thought bendntnder left?

Ok, the Dutch radio reporter at Twente vs Benfica got a hold of a sheet with the names of clubs attending the match to see Bryan Ruiz in action tonight:

Spurs
Liverpool
City
Blackburn
Barcelona
Lille
Rennes
Marseille
Schalke

o_O

lol Blackburn

looking frwd to seeing di natale tonight

oh and isla as well

really disappointed at the udinese stripes being thicker, looks like an economy juve kit

FEO

<3 Ickle Feo

easy

lol at alan smith claiming theo couldn't miss from there. Thought it was well taken!

lyon 1-0 down at home to Rubin. Sorry Jibe :(. Twente 1-0 against Benfica. I may scout this Brian Ruiz fella.

FFS, first work interrupts my fantasy duties and now I've missed a goal as well!

what team did everton(/liverpool) keep from getting a qualifying place in 2005? and why?

they didnt, uefa caved then set the 4 teams rule

ok who so who got a by? an odd number of teams can't play each other etc.

The League of Wales champions Total Network Solutions offered to play a two-legged tie for TNS' place in the first qualifying round.[13] The situation was finally resolved by UEFA on 10 June 2005. Liverpool would be allowed to enter the competition in 2005-06, but entering the competition from the first Qualifying Round. Liverpool ended up playing TNS in that round.[14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_F.C._2005%E2%80%9306_UEFA_Champions_League_qualification

just in case you needed to write a dissertation on it

in this thread: DJ Martin, classic Steady Mike and more

Liverpool vs....TOTAL NETWORK SOLUTIONS

MARTIAN!

I'm afraid I don't agree that it amounts to an injustice that the team who has finished fourth in the Premier League has not been allocated a place in next season's CL. Places are allocated by country, not by competition, and it is the role of each national FA to allocate those as it sees fit. It would be a mistake to assume that a fourth place brought CL (qualifier) place as of right.

I could be wrong, but I seem to recall some suggestion that England's number of CL places might be reduced to three if the clubs' poor performance in the competition continued. I guess Chelsea have put paid to that for the time being.

It'd take years of significant underperformance for that to happen, england is miles clear of the fourth-best country in the rankings. Contempt for the Europa League makes it a little more likely, however.

I basically agree though, if only because I don't think minor placings entitle you to anything tbh. If you want to be in the Champions League, win your league or do what Chelsea did; if you get in any other way, that's just your good luck.

I love that when the sponsorship deal ended, Total Network Solutions (TNS) changed their name to The New Saints (TNS), presumably to avoid changing the stationery.

a lot of fuss abt the chelsea manager even tho chelsea will never do anything notable ever again

it would be like if hitler somehow run the russian campaign with an interim general and then everyone was like omg who will direct next year's halfassed invasion of mongolia

true, p much the only silver lining is that next season's pratfalls will have been deliciously enriched

Hoeness voiced doubts about his players' mental strength. "We have to ask ourselves why this happened," he said.

"Do we have the players who really force the issue? Do we have enough of them? I don't want to criticise the team but I saw a few things I didn't like. I'm not sure how they will respond, I don't want to make any negative or positive predictions. But I didn't see a Jens Jeremies today, a guy who bites opponents in the calf on the way on to the pitch."

Lukaku will 'never forgive' AVB. You'd think these guys would put their feet, chill for a couple of days, maybe go out to the park and enjoy the sunshine.

"I could not believe it. I had to think, 'Is this really happening'? European champion ... My life has changed and I'm only 19."

"European Champion"??, he's no Djimi Traore!

how do we see bertrand's career panning out then, new cashley or new danny granville?

Maybe it'll persuade Chelsea to actually put some faith in their youth system rather than letting them sit around gathering dust for ages, I dunno. He played pretty well but Di Matteo only played him because he was forced into it. Probably still better than Paulo Ferreira or whoever.

Did McEachran even play for Swansea this season?

Cos I thought he was the big hope. Romeu looks okay. I haven't seen enough of Bertrand to tell tbh.

think the word on mceachran was he was too lightweight to play toplev football even for swansea

loan still cost them a couple of million though

football players with unaccountably lengthy wikipedia articles

the romeu deal is weird

chelsea dont really have an incentive to develop him

and they're not even good at developing players they properly own

bertrand's the new rose

bertrand actually plays lb tho tbf

so does rose, tho he shouldn't obv

I do not understand the idea that CFC will not win again

surely they are European champs, they can now sign better players, etc etc - they will finish about THFC, LFC, maybe even AFC next year - let's say 2nd or 3rd in the league

chelsea haven't been limited in the quality of player they can sign, tho?

They've had limited first team/squad berths to put them into.

My bold(ish) prediction - CFC will at v best get 5 more points than they managed this season.

Depending on how sated Roman A. feels and how motivated the old guard who have now reached the promised land feel.

tbrr, the only teams that will get more points next year are citeh, villa and lfc.

epl recession

the question must be asked- how hungry can frank lampard really be at this stage?

For all we know they'll be lining up Modric and Hazard behind a front three of Cavani, Falcao and Holt, and nobody else will stand a chance.

lukaka + 30m imo

essentially agree with IK: they'll be stronger -- but City will still be very, very strong and maybe it will be a fight between the two.

Maybe Roman will think his work is done here and allow Chelsea to fade back into mid-table obscurity/liquidation.

Liked the look of Romeu on the few occasions I've seen him. Has Chelsea's RM fixation been discussed btw? Raul Meireles, Ramires, Oriol Romeu, Roberto Di Matteo, Romelu Lukaku.

Roman!

It's all kremlinology tbh. Whether they push on at any speed with the Battersea plan is the best indication of Abramovich's continued interest that I can think of.

I typed 'Roman' at first, couldn't bring myself to click submit.

the question must be asked- how hungry can frank lampard really be at this stage?

― pet tommy & the barkhaters (darraghmac), Monday, May 21, 2012 4:39 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

http://www.talksport.co.uk/sites/default/files/imagecache/ts_magazine_big_picture/chelseaxi.jpg

any teams still playing with a midfield diamond?

and only for another £150m, bargain

The old lags, Mata, and an entirely new team; nice.

George Hamilton - "the big Finn Moisander, with a name like a Scandinavian detective, may have solved the case for Ajax tonight"

Oh my, huddlestones's 'defending' for the opening goal. Laughable.

this thread should be locked
"Sterling rising versus weak Euro?"- Europa League 2012/13