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Thursday, August 11, 2022
OT Soccer Thread - European Leages Return
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!
The Marksist
Posted: August 11, 2022 at 02:20 PM | 775 comment(s)
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I think this will do it. I don't have the time at the moment to look up all the details, but go back a few years to when they fired him the first time and it's all just a series of self owns, they deserve it.
I guess there is still some drama as to whether PSG or Benfica will take the top spot in that group, and it depends a lot on whether PSG will bother to show up on the road against Juve, or if Juve will even bother. There is also a Europa spot on the line there.
It's always hard to tell how much was undermining from players not playing/xenophobic nonsense vs. real, but the language barrier did seem to be a factor in his stint with Arsenal. But that squad and dressing room were clownshoes at the time. And he's clearly a great manager.
Meanwhile, Athleti is out as it stands and group D is looking tight if things finish this way.
ORIGINAL AFTER R1 AFTER R2 AFTER R3 AFTER R4 CURRENT Group A Napoli 44 66 78 97 100 100 Liverpool 88 79 84 92 98 100 Ajax 49 49 37 11 2 Rangers 19 6 1 Group B Brugge 19 33 54 91 100 100 Porto 54 48 19 24 61 100 Atleti 75 89 74 50 34 Leverkusen 52 30 53 35 5 Group C Bayern 86 96 98 98 100 100 Inter 45 23 28 49 93 100 Barcelona 66 80 74 53 7 Pizen 3 1 <1 Group D Tottenham 81 90 81 80 87 73 Sporting 33 62 82 73 44 68 Frankfurt 43 16 26 27 22 32 Marseille 43 32 11 20 47 27 Group E Chelsea 88 79 69 81 95 100 Milan 74 78 82 73 66 84 Salzburg 30 28 33 36 33 16 Dinamo 8 15 16 10 6 Group F Real Madrid 94 97 >99 100 100 100 Leipzig 72 42 46 62 79 81 Shakhtar 9 24 28 25 21 19 Celtic 25 37 26 13 Group G City 94 98 >99 100 100 100 Dortmund 61 74 74 96 97 100 Copenhagen 8 4 2 1 2 Sevilla 37 24 24 3 1 Group H PSG 92 97 98 98 >99 100 Benfica 25 40 87 89 98 100 Juventus 82 62 15 13 2 Haifa 3 1 <1Spurs advance with a draw and are in Europa with a loss I think. Pretty much the same for Leipig, Milan, and Sporting. Though this is now their lowest odds of advancement, it's still 73% and with a win they win the group too.
I was traveling all day so sadly missed all the action.
That, and it should never have been a penalty. Yeah, the ball glanced off the upper arms of 2 Leverkusen players. But neither were in an unnatural position, or looked intentional.
Sheriff doesn't have a single shot against United through 84 minutes. As it stands, United still needs to beat Sociedad by 2 goals on the road to win the group, and that's not particularly likely.
Revised CL overall odds: PRE-DRAW CURRENT city 26 33 bayern 12 13 psg 14 12 liverpool 14 11 real madrid 7 7.5 chelsea 4 6 napoli 0.4 5 tottenham 4 2.75 inter 2 2.25 benfica 0.4 1.75 dortmund 1 1.5 milan 1 1.25 leipzig 1 0.8 porto 0.25 0.6 brugge 0.05 0.4 sporting 0.15 0.3 marseille 0.2 0.2 frankfurt 0.2 0.2 salzburg 0.2 0.1 shakhtar 0.15 0.1 last 12 12 out (included Barca and Atleti)TO ADVANCE WINNER ORIGINAL CURRENT ORIGINAL CURRENT Group A Arsenal 95 100 75 92 PSV 68 100 18 8 Bodo Glimt 22 4 Zurich 15 3 Group B Rennes 74 100 38 58 Fenerbahce 63 100 35 42 Kyiv 43 19 AEK 20 8 Group C Betis 87 100 34 100 Roma 93 76 59 Ludogorets 16 24 5 HJK 4 2 Group D St Gilloise 43 100 19 100 Union Berlin 69 64 35 Braga 63 36 32 Malmo 25 14 Group E Sociedad 80 100 29 81 United 91 100 64 19 Sheriff 14 3 Omonia 15 4 Group F Lazio 78 57 50 52 Midtjylland 33 52 13 5 Sturm Graz 23 48 11 24 Feyenoord 66 43 26 19 Group G Freiburg 68 100 39 100 Qarabag 21 84 10 Nantes 48 16 21 Olympiacos 63 30 Group H Ferencvaros 24 100 14 100 Monaco 86 68 50 Trabzonspor 42 21 17 Red Star 48 11 19Something to play for in every group. Roma, Union/Braga, Monaco, and Lazio/Feyenoord still have a bit to do to advance. And at least two of those teams will not. Arsenal is trying to wrap up top spot, and United is trying to beat Sociedad by 2 goals.
Commitment to concussion protocols is a ####### joke.
Hell of a comeback from Spurs ... wish they'd play the whole match like they play the last 30 or so minutes.
Meanwhile, Dismemberment United is now in 4th ... blood money well spent, I suppose.
The money has no doubt helped. Bruno, Trippier and Botman, in particular, have been fantastic additions.
But the improvement of the existing players under Howe (Almiron, Joelinton, Schar) has been just as big.
Brighton and Newcastle continue to look legit, and Liverpool look like a good team, but not one you should *expect* to make up the kind of points they need to make up on a few different good teams - there's not just one team they're chasing.
edit: maybe Varane is still hurt.
I guess more realistically they controlled the game fairly well until the last 15 minutes or so, but that last 15 minutes was rough.
I have to say I know players have to concentrate a lot on defending a lead late in a game like this and it takes a lot of focus, but so often when they get the ball on the break the focus gets lost (because they are no longer defending, and they have the lead) and they miss wide open passed on what should be really big break chances. It happened to United multiple times at the end of the game and I see it a lot from other teams too.
edit: infogol registers four shots from West Ham inside the box. Three were in the last 10 minutes of the game (including stoppage time). There were also multiple dangerous crosses that didn't lead to a shot during that spell.
PRE-SEASON CURRENT City 57 83 Arsenal 2.5 11 United 2 2 Tottenham 6 1.2 Newcastle 0.5 1.1 Liverpool 26 0.8 Chelsea 5 0.8 Field 1 0.1PRE-SEASON CURRENT City 96.5 99 Arsenal 37.5 81 United 30 50 Liverpool 87 49 Tottenham 59.5 47 Chelsea 56 39 Newcastle 8.5 27 Brighton 3 6 Field 22 2PRE-SEASON CURRENT Forest 41.5 66 Bournemouth 65 60 Wolves 15 38 Southampton 24.5 30 Leeds 30 21.5 Leicester 6.5 21.5 Everton 22 17.5 Villa 4 15 Brentford 24 12 Fulham 39 9.5 Palace 11.5 5 West Ham 3.5 2.5 Brighton 10 1.4 Top 6 + Newcastle 3.5 0.1Yeah, no ####. I mean, I'm more optimistic than I've been since the Wenger days, but there's a saying about counting your chickens that applies.
I still think they're much closer to the chase pack in quality than to City.
Just a couple weeks ago, in betting odds Arsenal was considered only a hair better than the chasing teams, and significantly behind Liverpool. Now they are still definitely considered to be quite a bit behind Liverpool, but have probably opened up a small gap on the other three. That small gap could easily be reversed with a couple subpar performances.
edit: also, I believe betting odds still implies a small gap between Spurs/Chelsea and United.
And Wales may soon be "Cymru" officially, for those keeping score.
The announcers keep making excuses for Atleti, blaming the refs. Fact is though they've been crap this year and haven't deserved more than they've gotten. (And let's not forget they were even gifted a ghost penalty last week after the final whistle.)
And Spurs survived! And win the group at the death, to boot. Very good second half.
The group winners this year will be much higher quality on the whole.
Worth noting that after all that so far there are only 3 teams that are not from the top 4 leagues (plus PSG) that have made it so far, or are likely to make it barring an upset tomorrow. Porto, Benfica, and Brugge.
But man ... that felt really, REALLY good.
I do SO adore Harry Kane, Goal Creator ... what a fantastic pass ... and watch Hojbjerg again, he doesn't EVER look up once he receives the pass ... YUP! The goal is still where I knew it was.
Damn.
Strewth.
They had absolutely no answer for Spurs in the second half until they started throwing everyone forward after 80+ minutes. The two halves were night and day up until that point.
Midseason WC is really kind of making this a worst of both worlds for both events, I feel like.
Despite being on the road, I think Liverpool should probably be slightly favored.
Liverpool's odds right now in any match should just be: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Spurs 31%, Liverpool 43%, Draw 26%. Backing out an adjustment for HFA, that means Liverpool are considered the very significantly better team this weekend.
Chelsea 37%, Arsenal 35%, Draw 28%. Backing out an adjustment for HFA, that means Arsenal are considered the slightly better team this weekend.
Milan is all but through now, but have to keep focus as Salzburg has looked dangerous in the first half.
Group A: Napoli over Liverpool for the group win, based mostly on their opening day group game. Fairly minor.
Group B: Brugge swapped with Atleti first/fourth spots. The biggest upset of the group stage by far.
Group C: Inter over Barca for second in a very important but not actually that unlikely upset.
Group D: none
Group E: none
Group F: Shakhtar over Celtic for Europa spot. Very minor.
Group G: none
Group H: Benfica over Juve for second in an important and fairly major (by betting odds) upset. Writing was on the wall a bit for this one as 538 and some of our own pundits here predicted it coming in to the group stage.
Overall this was even more predictable than the betting odds projected. Which makes it oh so great that soon we will be moving to an even more predictable group stage format. I can't wait.
edit: Benfica is currently leading group H, so we may have an upset for group winner there as well. Here's to PSG finishing second then losing in the first round of the KOs. We can dream.
Points in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Away goals scored in all group matches;
Wins in all group matches;
Away wins in all group matches;
Disciplinary points (direct red card = 3 points; double yellow card = 3 points; single yellow card = 1 point);
UEFA club coefficient.
edit: I think Benfica would win the tie breaker on away goals scored in all group matches.
edit2: that's where they are now! 1-6 for Benfica, who are currently group winners in an unlikely fashion.
PSG has slowed the game way down. They don't seem to know that Benfica is now ahead of them. And I think that is it. PSG falls to second.
PRE-DRAW CURRENT city 26 33 bayern 12 14 psg 14 10.5 liverpool 14 10 real madrid 7 7.5 chelsea 4 5.3 napoli 0.4 5 tottenham 4 4.5 benfica 0.4 2.2 inter 2 1.9 milan 1 1.8 dortmund 1 1.7 leipzig 1 1 porto 0.25 0.8 frankfurt 0.2 0.5 brugge 0.05 0.3Odds have really only gone down for both Liverpool and PSG, teams that were supposed to win their groups and look a bit better than they actually did in the group stages.
That said, they really should have known all about the tie breakers, and should have started to sit up and take notice when Benfica went up 1-4 in the 73rd minute. And they really should have been worried when Benfica went up 1-5 in the 88th minute. The PSG game went into the 5th minute of stoppage time so unless the games were pretty far out of synch they had at least a couple minutes when they seemed to have no idea.
When Benfica went up 1-4 they had just scored three pretty quick goals and Haifa had to have been devastated, knowing their chance for Europa was gone. PSG would have had to assume Benfica would ramp up the pressure to try to get two more goals in 20 minutes, which under those circumstances would not seem that unlikely. But PSG slow played it anyway, generating no shots the rest of the game. I know Juventus is not an opponent to be taken lightly at home but they were acting like they had won the group that whole time (so long as they didn't concede).
edit: I guess on the other hand maybe they believed trying to score more was too risky anyway. Juve had outplayed them all day to that point, which continued until the final whistle. I didn't see the first PSG goal but the second was a great play (pass/run/shot) that could probably only be repeated once in 20 tries.
As it stands, they will need to win while scoring at least 2 goals against Sociedad today.
Link
PSG really did themselves no favors here. There's a 90% chance they draw one of the top 8 teams.
Benfica of course played it correctly. Once they had a lead by two goals there was zero to lose for them so they could play the last 30 minutes in all out attack hoping to get enough goals to make up the GD.
Bayern would probably have been better off finishing second, in retrospect. They could then face all other 7 group winners, with only a small chance of facing City.
In order by betting odds:
Barca
----big gap----
Juve
Ajax
Sevilla
Leverkusen
Sporting
Salzburg
Shakhtar
Man must really love the club to walk away from the kind of money I'm sure he's getting paid.
I know the announcers are seldom young guys, but do they really need to be 20 years out of date on these calls? Probably they are just playing to their audience.
Koln was down 0-2 at home to Nice, but have fought back to 2-2. If they go out at this stage they'd be the best Conference League group team to fail to advance. It will very likely be either Koln or their opponent Nice as the best team not to advance.
Best team in the Europa League not to advance would certainly have been Roma, but now that they are safe it will be either Union, if they lose their lead today, or probably Braga if they don't.
edit: oops forgot Lazio. They might be about even with Union, and better than Braga. Relegated to the Conference League.
PRE-DRAW CURRENT Barcelona 16.5 Arsenal 14 16.5 * United 11.5 12.5 Juventus 6 Ajax 5 Betis 4 5 * Sociedad 3 5 * Roma 6.5 4.75 Sevilla 4.5 Freiburg 2 3.5 * Leverkusen 3 Sporting 2.25 Salzburg 2.25 PSV 2.5 2.25 Rennes 1.5 2 Monaco 1.5 1.75 Union Berlin 2 1.5 Shakhtar 1.25 Feyenoord 2 1.25 * Fenerbache 1 1.25 * Saint Gilloise 1 1 * Nantes 0.5 Midtjylland 0.5 Ferencvaros 0.25 *Once again the CL rejects look quite a bit stronger over all then the 2nd place Europa teams. This year we do have United and Roma as strong second place teams, but after that the next best is the Union/PSV/Rennes/Monaco level, which are not expected to be good enough to win Europa.ELO is not nearly as sanguine. La Liga has fallen behind the Bundesliga for the first time in years (whether or not you look at it on a top 18 or top 20 team basis apples to apples) and La Liga's current 1701 at clubelo might be the lowest it has been at the end of a calendar year for 25 years. The gap between the EPL and the next best league now matches the height of Spain's dominance for 3-4 years in the mid-2000s, and prior to that you have to go back to when Italy completely owned the soccer world back in the mid-1990s before you can find a league that was truly more dominant than the EPL right now.
There's still a long way to go this year, and Spain still has 6 of their 7 teams alive. They could still do plenty of damage.
There are 64 teams that made it to the KO stages in Europe. 48 of them are from the top 9 eligible leagues (if you include Turkey as one of the top 9, with Russia ineligible).
Why, that's unpossible!
As it is, if they can make it to the WC break reasonably healthy and without completely blowing it (ie, somehow ending up with a draw against Wolves after a loss to Chelsea or something), they're going to have to make some decisions in the January transfer window. They need bodies. If Saka's injury had been more serious, they would have been left starting Nelson -- a ? if ever there was one -- and without anybody very good to spell him.
So: do they drop a bunch of money to bring in decent second stringers who can help them win? Does Arteta have permission to even do that? They're very young and they're spending less than any of the other big 6, way less than City, United, and Liverpool. Stan Kroenke is rich but he's not an Emerati Sheikh or coalition of billionaires like Fenway Sports. Does he really want to spend £60 million more on a club that nobody expected to be competing at this level until at least next year? Would that even be a good idea?
My relationship to football is much more like the average fan's relationship to baseball than the obsessive, stats-oriented kind of baseball fandom that I practiced for so long. If these were questions about a baseball team, I'd be more confident in answering them. As it is, I only know enough to ask them.
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