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Thursday, August 11, 2022
The new season kicks off in Europe without a peep from the BBTF cognoscenti. Are the fans turned off by the stratospheric player salaries? Dismayed at increasing stratification in domestic leagues? Bored with the prospect of more meaningless Champions League group games? Gearing up for a World Cup boycott? Or, you know, just kind of tired in general. Whatever the reason, we can’t go without a soccer thread, surely!
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It would have been ... luckily, it was not to be.
LFC's current midfield is missing a lot due to injuries, which undermines their defense because their tactics depend on pressure on the opponents and their current midfield isn't capable of that pressure. That causes more problems for a defense which often has both outside backs playing very high.
I'm sure Klopp knows this and I don't know why he hasn't changed tactics; maybe he expects players back soon and doesn't want to switch the system. But I do think they'll be better -- though not world beaters -- when their injury woes subside.
Atleti scored two goals in the final 20 minutes up a man (including one at the death), but did give up a penalty on a blatant handball worse than the one from Milner today.
In the EPL, they do have Fulham this weekend, but it's on the road and Fulham have not been pushovers this season. Next weekend they have Liverpool. Top 4 odds are only a little above 40% right now.
Potter's going to be thrown right in the deep end immediately. The next week and a half until the international break are going to be a whirlwind. I doubt he sleeps much.
Firm agree. This is, I think, exacerbated by Trent taking up that inside position more and more frequently and the lack of cover from Harvey Elliott. It was always possible to exploit Trent (a vulnerability Klopp is clearly ok with), but it's significantly easier now with the personnel that Liverpool is running out.
If Henderson and Thiago can't stay fit, I think this season will be season full of sucker-punch goals and frustrating draws where they create enough but can't keep a clean sheet.
Joe Gomez had a shockingly bad first half and then was substituted. Yes the midfield made the job on the defense harder, but on top of that there were so many mistakes by Gomez leading to goals, big chances, and penalties. Just watching the highlights I've rarely seen a player looks so bad repeatedly. He was substituted at the half.
On the VVD penalty play not only did VVD give up the penalty, he also was dropping with the runner all alone 5 yards deep of the high defensive line, playing him onside the whole way. That's two errors on one play.
Of the favorites, only Chelsea and Liverpool have lost ground. Pre-draw odds do not reflect group difficulty. Chelsea would have won or at the very least drawn with that performance on another day, and they were not one of the top favorites anyway, so I'm not sure how much new information we are supposed to take from that loss. Betting odds reflect that as well. Liverpool on the other hand did not look like one of the few top favorites, and the betting odds reflect that as well.
That said though, if the goal is to win trophies and even just to make the CL next year (which I think should be the biggest two goals for this team), then the Real Sociedad game this week is almost certainly higher leverage than the Palace or Leeds games. Even a draw at home against Sociedad probably outs them more likely to finish second in the group than first (or at least it would be close). A loss and they would have a hard time winning it.
There are some very good CL third place teams lurking for an extra round to advance in europa, so they don't want to finish second in the group. It would also add 2 more games to the schedule.
In the other big group playing today Betis won away while Roma lost away. That leaves Betis as very likely the winner of the group, with Roma likely having to settle for second. Still a lot of games left though.
Union Berlin lost at home--German teams other than Bayern have not done well so far in Europe. (Dortmund also did beat a minnow.)
Villareal gave up three goals at home somehow but still won.
As if we needed another reason to get rid of the monarchy once and for all...
At least I can do my long run Saturday morning without missing Potter's opener for Chelsea.
Potter has to be among the happiest people in the UK right now.
edit: and United started a fairly strong lineup against Sociedad. What did they know, and when did they know it!
edit2: thinking about this a little bit more--seems almost no way they can cancel or even postpone the european games next week, even the ones in England. I also very much doubt they cancel more than 1 round of games. Whether the ones this weekend are off seems to be the only real question to me.
Major, major work cut out for them now to win the group. I would bet against it. Their odds of winning europa were likely cut 1/3 by this one game. Very poor result.
edit: just watching the penalty now. Seems harsh as the defender was pulling his arm towards his side, the ball came off his leg first and hit his elbow that was fairly close to his side when the ball actually hit him. Certainly seemed no intent to make himself bigger--only question is whether the arm should have been closer from the very beginning before turning and pulling it well in towards his side. So harsh and I suspect not given in the EPL. Seemed like less a penalty than even the one Oliver refused to overturn (which, ironically, I thought VAR was also right about and should have been no penalty, with Oliver wrong on the field.)
If they postpone any more games they will have a seriously impossible scheduling problem. Also, not sure how they can really suspend the games in europe this year (though they are talking about that, too), with absolutely no room on the schedule before the WC.
edit: I'm reading mixed reports about whether English teams can get their games postponed. I think they should respect the queen's death with a true sacrifice--by forfeiting all their points for this week.
edit: I guess it's really Celtic who are the more republican, even now...
One lucky thing about that is there are actually 3 european team head-to-heads that week, so few games in the EPL would have to be moved:
Arsenal/City, Liverpool/WestHam, United/Spurs, and Chelsea/Fulham, all originally scheduled for 10/19. Also Rangers/Dundee and Celtic/Motherwell. Hearts does not seem to have a game.
Could the teams from the other leagues make this work, and would they be force to? No idea really.
Ajax/Napoli/Porto/PSV/Sheriff could probably play 10/19 without moving a game, as none seems to be scheduled now.
Salzburg/Shakhtar/Dortmund/Silkeborg/RFS might have to move a game.
It seems possible but not likely that UEFA would do this. The only other open week is after the end of the group stage, which seems really bad. Maybe they could reschedule on a weekend, moving other stuff around? That also seems bad.
After the top 3 in the Bundesliga, it's hard to know who will step up for the 4th CL spot. Leverkusen looks a bit worse than they have been in recent years, and have also had a horrible start, bringing them back to the chasing pack of Union, Freiburg, Gladbach, Hoffenheim, Koln, Eintracht, and Mainz.
Correctly ruled out b/c the keeper had to play the ball and Bonucci both (in case Bonucci were to contact the ball and change its trajectory( while Bonucci is offside. Announcers can't seem to figure that out.
In the process Juve have two guys sent off who will now miss the next game, one for a second yellow for taking off his shirt for the apparent winner. Ooos.
Bayern looked shaky but escaped with the win, and now are sitting pretty. Two Barca/Inter games coming up likely will decide second place in the group. Barca is a big favorite to advance.
Liverpool dominated that game so I'm not especially worried, though they don't look quite as sharp as they should. Ajax is supposed to be a very decent team though, and it's early in the season. Liverpool has Rangers twice next, so we might not learn too much more about them until they face Ajax on the road in late October.
Spurs/Sporting are now considered very strong favorites to advance. 50/50 for who is expected to be group winner.
Dortmund stifled City for most of the game, but City was too good in the end. Sevilla only drew Copenhagen though, so Dortmund is probably bigger favorites to advance than they were before the day started. And how bad is Sevilla...?
Juve looked bad at home against Benfica in a game they couldn't afford to lose. They are probably headed for Europa now.
Some weird results.
Celtic look good in a road draw, think it's reasonable to think nabbing 2nd could be there for them.
Benfica clown Juventus.
PSG have another match where they look just ok.
Sevilla still sucks.
And Napoli is the best team in the world.
538 was "proven" right about Sporting, Benfica, and Juve, but has been "proven" wrong about Porto. Jury's still out on the other three of the seven they massively disagreed with betting odds: Ajax, Salzburg, and Celtic, all of which are not far from where they started in both betting odds and 538.
Overall, teams outside the top 5 leagues have done much better than expected by everyone (betting odds and 538), so that's an edge to 538, who has liked the rest of europe relatively much more than betting odds.
This is the worst Juve has been since before Conte took over in 2011.
The announcers said that Sheriff "casts their net far and wide" when looking for players, including all the way to Turkey. Only problem with that is that Tiraspol is not that far from Istanbul.
edit: a win today would be nice for United, but it would only be a small step. Unless things break their way, to finish first in the group they'll have to perform well in all 4 of these games against Sheriff and Omonia, and then also beat Sociedad in Spain. To finish second in the group they could probably sleepwalk their way through the next 5 games.
6 teams supposedly "true minnows" according to me. 5 of the 6 had draws in the first round of the ECL, with only Pyunik getting nothing. In round 2 Pyunik now has a win, and it wasn't against Zalgiris. In fact, none of the ECL teams that have played 2 rounds so far are without a point.
Germany, Italy, and France have all done even worse than England relative to their own expectations.
Despite that, in the EPL only Chelsea is in any real danger yet of not advancing, and they are still fairly big favorites to do so. Things don't look as rosy for the other top leagues.
Spain's Sevilla probably won't advance.
Germany has Leipzig, Frankfurt, and Union all in serious trouble. Lverkusen is 50/50 but that's the same as before.
Italy has Inter, Juve, and Fiorentina struggling. At least Napoli was a nice surprise.
France has Marseille struggling, and a bunch of teams that are touch and go who have surprisingly dropped points against weaker sides: Nice, Monaco, Nantes.
On the other hand, Portugal has done very well with the surprising exception of Porto. Belgium hasn't lost a game yet in the group stage (6 wins, 2 draws). Turkey has also done well for a change.
Goal stands because the ball was intentionally played by the defender, and it was not a save. That said, the clearance attempt by the defender was fairly desperate and did not clearly satisfy the guidelines below in my view, though I'd like to see it again. Maybe you could say it was borderline. See in particular the highlighted parts.
edit: oh no way... saw it at halftime. No chance that header by the defender should count as a deliberate play for this rule... he's practically under the crossbar, off balance, with no chance to get any power on the header. That's exactly what the rule is for--to not punish the defender for doing their best to make a play, necessary entirely due to the offensive player being in an offside position, but failing for reasons mostly of the defender's control. That goal was total bullshit.
Only Newcastle and Brighton have a better shot at top 4 than relegation. Everton had the big win, but are still in the thick of the relegation battle. Interestingly, no worse off than they were when the season started.
And for top 4, the Brighton, Brentford, and 4 of the top 6 have a better shot now than they had when the season started. Newcastle has looked very good at times but has started slower than expected. Everyone else that was given any shot when the season started has looked bad, except Brighton.
It's been a fun season in Serie A so far- it's a great league to sort of follow at a remove, and just go week to week. Juventus is a bit of a mess, Udinese is in third, it's great.
Here are the actual FIFA guidelines in video. While the Salisu play isn't really like any of them, it's closer to the non-deliberate ones for sure. In some ways it's a lot like #4 (ball coming from short distance at a not well-expected trajectory). Salisu had a lot less time to react than on #7 and #8 (both non-deliberate) and probably less ability to coordinate his body than on #8.
The really annoying thing about these plays is the defender often knows about the presence of the attacker, but can't possibly know whether or not they were offside by a few inches. This puts the defender in an impossible situation that was created by the offensive player's offside position--the entire reason IFAB made the clarifications.
He has the rule described completely incorrectly. The description is directly in opposition to the IFAB guidelines both as written and seen in the videos. WTF.
Group B odds:
I'm not a gambler but I won't even be mildly surprised if they lose every game in the group.
That said England haven't looked great either, so I'm not sure any result would be a surprise.
Spurs/Arsenal first thing Saturday morning at least.
I think jmurph's second sentence in 262 is really accurate. 3-0-0, 0-3-0, 0-0-3...I mean the US could do any of these. Did anyone look good this break? The US sucked, England sucked, Wales lost to Poland. Iran beat Uruguay in a friendly and I suspect that means about as much as my morning dump. I'd back the US to get through but really that Wales game is HUGE. I think if that game has a winner that side probably goes through.
The US was in a very similar situation in 2014. Germany, Portugal, Ghana was no gimme and they got through.
The other issue for me is the site. It seems like weird #### has happened at non-traditional locations. 1994 we got Sweden and Bulgaria in the semis and 2002 Turkey and South Korea. 2010 was weird for having four teams from one federation in the semis but we were also a converted PK from our first African semi-finalist. I wouldn't be shocked at all if we got something weird this year. One team I think might be worth watching as a dark horse (not to win but to be a bit of a thorn in people's sides) is Senegal. Reigning AFCON champs, they play in Group A which is pretty soft even beyond Qatar and in these kinds of tournaments I always love the Group A teams because they get a bit of extra rest over the course of the tournament and that is going to be even more important with the heat of Qatar.
Did they move Uruguay again?
Shut up!
Want to bring some mild positivity from a Spurs fan perspective. Game was mostly going according to plan until Emerson got sent off. The goals were a screamer from an unlikely source and a bit of a blunder by Lloris. The counterattacks were just a bit off and I do think the defenders seemed a bit too scared of the Arsenal attackers. In terms of the season, we now have two of our most difficult games (away at Chelsea and away at Arsenal) done with, frankly, one more point than I expected. As long as we take care of business in the home Big 6 games and against teams we should beat, we'll be totally fine.
On another day things go differently and Spurs draw and maybe even win with a lot of luck, but the game today was not exactly close.
Spurs top 4 odds are still very good: down only slightly from preseason (59.5% down to around 57%). Their odds of winning the league are basically considered gone though (6% down to 2%). They've also been surpassed by Arsenal as the anticipated third best team in the league going forward.
Brighton without Potter are taking apart Liverpool right now.
Liverpool gave up 3 goals on 6 shots, all of them from in the box and dangerous. Brighton had no attempts on goal for almost an hour in the middle of the game, but came on again late. Well played by them on the road.
Yeah, we'll find out if that's real next week. I'm not holding my breath.
[as a Chelsea fan, this offsets the bad calls during Spurs match, so I don't feel overly guilty with the 3 points]
14 goals for Haaland through 8 games. This is getting ridiculous.
If he stays healthy and plays the rest of the games this year you might expect him to break the record (partially his own) of 20 in an EPL season now.
I'm not sure he is stoppable. Stopping the service to him may be the only way to keep him off the scoresheet. Either way, I want to throw down a marker here and say that whenever Spurs eventually play City, Romero will get a red card defending Haaland. It's inevitable.
Really ... which one?
I think the only one I could think would be United ... because watching Haaland score goals at will while he was deservedly starting would piss Ronaldo off SO much while he was deservedly sitting on the bench and that would be so, SO worth the price of admission.
I assume I speak for everyone who isn't a Man City fan when I say, "mine."
I guess?
I'm not, so ...
He didn't say angry at. He just said prefer.
It's from a poem ... sorry.
City also have another amazing young striker as a backup in Alvarez. I can't imagine a world in which they don't win the league. If anything 79% seems low to me.
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