Champions League 2013/2014 discussion

Champions League 2013/14


Third Qualifying Round 1st leg results:


Champions Route

Basel 1-0 Maccabi Tel Aviv

Molde 1-1 Legia Warsaw

Ludogorets 2-1 Partizan

Dinamo Tbilisi 0-2 Steau Bucuresti

APOEL 1-1 Maribor

Celtic 1-0 Elfsborg

Shakhter Karagandy 3-0 Skenderbeu Korce

Austria Wien 1-0 FH

Nomme Kalju 0-4 Viktoria Plzen

Dinamo Zagreb 1-0 Sheriff Tiraspol



League Route:

Nordsjaelland 0-1 Zenit St Petersburg

Red Bull Salzburg 1-1 Fenerbahce

PAOK 0-2 Metalist Kharkiv

PSV Eindhoven 2-0 Zulte Waregem

Lyon 1-0 Grasshopper




Play Off Round

The play off round has 2 sections.

First section has 10 teams.

10 winners from the Champions route above.


Second section has 10 teams.


5 from the League route above.

Also Arsenal, AC Milan, Schalke, Real Sociedad and Pacos de Ferreira.




Group Stage

Group stage has 32 teams. 22 teams who enter automatically, 5 from first section in play off round and 5 from second section.

Pot 1:

Bayern Munich
Barcelona
Chelsea
Real Madrid
Manchester United
Arsenal
Porto
Benfica


Pot 2:

Atletico Madrid
Shakhtar Donetsk
AC Milan
Schalke
Marseille
CSKA Moscow
PSG
Juventus

Pot 3:

Zenit St Petersburg
Manchester City
Ajax
Borussia Dortmund
Basel
Olympiacos
Galatarasaray
Bayer Leverkusen

Pot 4:

Copenhagen
Napoli
Anderlecht
Celtic
Steaua Bucuresti
Viktoria Plzen
Real Sociedad
Austria Wien

Groups:

Group A: Manchester United, Shakhtar Donetsk, Bayer Leverkusen and Real Sociedad.
Group B: Real Madrid, Juventus, Galatasaray and FC Copenhagen.
Group C: Benfica, PSG, Olympiacos and Anderlecht.
Group D: Bayern Munich, CSKA Moscow, Manchester City and Viktoria Plzen.
Group E: Chelsea, Schalke, Basel and Steaua Bucuresti.
Group F: Arsenal, Marseille, Borussia Dortmund and Napoli.
Group G: FC Porto, Atletico Madrid, Zenit St Petersburg and Austria Wien.
Group H: Barcelona, AC Milan, Ajax and Celtic.

Yohan Modric wrote:Champions League 2013/14


Third Qualifying Round 1st leg results:

Champions Route

Dinamo Tbilisi 0-2 Steaua Bucuresti

Fixed.



In my opinion Steaua is the strongest team from the 'Champions Route'. And I can tell your from what I've watched that if they qualify in the group stages (which is very likely to happen), they'll show a very spectacular football. Laurentiu Reghecampf, Steaua's coach, has played in Bundesliga and borrowed German's philosophy and style of play by implementing it to the team. The training sessions are completely different since he came to Steaua and the physical condition isn't a problem anymore for the players.They outplayed Dinamo Tbilisi which previously showed a quality football.

Under the command of Thomas Neubert, Steaua's players trained with the new programme, TRX suspenssion training which is one of the most ingenious trainings in the modern football.
 

WORKOUT USING THE TRX SUSPENSION TRAINER wrote:The TRX Suspension Trainer is the original, best-in-class workout system that leverages gravity and your bodyweight to perform hundreds of exercises. You're in control of how much you want to challenge yourself on each exercise - because you can simply adjust your body position to add or decrease resistance.

The exercises are designed to increase strength, flexibility, balance and mobility, which keep football players away from injuries.

Of course, the biggest clubs in Europe already use this kind of training.

Vlad the Impaler wrote:In my opinion Steaua is the strongest team from the 'Champions Route'.

Don't underestimage FC Basel 1893. They kept both Yann Sommer and Valentin Stocker and only lost Aleksandr Dragovich from the team that reached last year's Europe League semi final, eliminating Zenit St.Petersburg, and Tottenham Hotspur in the process. I expect them to reach at least the CL group stage this season.

Yeah, picked Steaua as a club to make an impact this season, possibly shake up a few big names in groups.

They looked great in the Europa last year & have a young group of players.

But I heard they are about to sell one of their better lads to Spurs  

rwo power wrote:

Vlad the Impaler wrote:In my opinion Steaua is the strongest team from the 'Champions Route'.

Don't underestimage FC Basel 1893. They kept both Yann Sommer and Valentin Stocker and only lost Aleksandr Dragovich from the team that reached last year's Europe League semi final, eliminating Zenit St.Petersburg, and Tottenham Hotspur in the process. I expect them to reach at least the CL group stage this season.

I don't underestimate them. I just believe that Steaua is much better. Do I have to say now that Steaua eliminated Ajax, the team who outplayed City? And also, Steaua Bucharest was close to eliminate Chelsea after winning the first leg.

Vlad the Impaler wrote:I don't underestimate them. I just believe that Steaua is much better. Do I have to say now that Steaua eliminated Ajax, the team who outplayed City? And also, Steaua Bucharest was close to eliminate Chelsea after winning the first leg.

Well, I guess we will have to wait and see how things will evolve As things stand both Basel and Steaua will be seeded, so they won't meet early on.

BTW, outplaying City is not that difficult. I have seen quite some teams do that in the last two CL runs. ^^

BTW, outplaying City is not that difficult. I have seen quite some teams do that in the last two CL runs.

You mean every team they played

Suarez99 wrote:

BTW, outplaying City is not that difficult. I have seen quite some teams do that in the last two CL runs.

You mean every team they played

Yup

We both know that your argument with Zenit and Spurs wasn't solid; I was rhetorical in my answer.

But yes, things often evolve in an unpredictable way. Steaua shows more agresivity and their football is much more pleasing to the eye than Basel's. Usually this doesn't mean it is better.

I saw Basel against CFR Cluj last season, their game was less than mediocre. However they managed to play better and cope with strong teams in Europe League.

I've seen the difference between Steaua and Basel in the Europa League and can comfortably tablet Steau's superiority over them.

Basel are fun to watch yet are disorganized, erratic at times, have no defensive concept & rely on bouts of their pace or individual brilliance, or Yann Sommer.

The Romanian side are stronger, more resolute and their manager seems to act far better under pressure. I like Basel as they are more entertaining to watch yet I'd rather have my team face Basel, who are tactically open rather than a pragmatic, but astute Steaua.

Arquitescu wrote:I've seen the difference between Steaua and Basel in the Europa League and can comfortably tablet Steau's superiority over them.

Basel are fun to watch yet are disorganized, erratic at times, have no defensive concept & rely on bouts of their pace or individual brilliance, or Yann Sommer.

The Romanian side are stronger, more resolute and their manager seems to act far better under pressure. I like Basel as they are more entertaining to watch yet I'd rather have my team face Basel, who are tactically open rather than a pragmatic, but astute Steaua.

A wise man once said


Steaua doesn't rely on their individualities, if Chiriches leaves, Steaua won't be weakened. Steaua slowly becomes one of the perfect examples of team. I just hope they won't be in decline from some reason and continue with their actual form until they gain some money to buy a clinical finisher.

I don't get it yet why you (rwo) didn't notice Steaua's GK, Ciprian Tatarusanu who saved a lot of penalties in the last few years in Europe .

Vlad the Impaler wrote:I saw Basel against CFR Cluj last season, their game was less than mediocre. However they managed to play better and cope with strong teams in Europe League.

The CL quali matches last season came to a very early time in the season when Basel hadn't properly adjusted to the loss of Xherdan Shaqiri, Granit Xhaka and David Abraham, so you can't compare these matches to the later matches when they integrated several new players into the team.

In the current season, Basel only lost Aleksandar Dragovic who is already nicely replaced by Fabian Schär, so the comparison is not really apt.

Vlad the Impaler wrote:I don't get it yet why you (rwo) didn't notice Steaua's GK, Ciprian Tatarusanu who saved a lot of penalties in the last few years in Europe .

Because one can only watch so many matches and last season in the EL the German teams plus Basel took precedence, I'm afraid.

I hope Molde make it through

Solskjaer is the manager

Mats Daehli future goat who United let go back to Norway as he was home sick....depending what you read we have a buy back option on him too

In another thread i mentioned how lucky La real were with injuries last season, and now Mikel Gonzalez(starting cb) is out for 3 months and Griezmann might miss the first leg of cl qualifiers

It's really really nice to read (and know) about clubs other than the usual bunch. Vlad would you be a hon and keep up the good work with increased frequency!!!

Celtic, Basel and Steuau are the 3 strongest teams in the Champions route.

iftikhar wrote:It's really really nice to read (and know) about clubs other than the usual bunch. Vlad would you be a hon and keep up the good work with increased frequency!!!

The 2nd leg in Sweden will suit us more than the home leg did. Elfsborg will need to push forward which suits us perfectly as we are a very good counter attacking side with a lot of pace going forward, Samaras, Forrest and Boerrigter all have a lot of pace. We still need to replace Wanyama and Hooper though, Stokes and Kayal just aren't as good, if we want to do as well as last year.

If we get through I would quite like to get Legia Warsaw in the next round.

Our qualification process has been harder this year than it was last year. Elfsborg are better than Helsinki and any of the teams in the next stage are stronger than Helsingborg with the exception of Shakhtar Karagandy.

Both of the Egyptian players from Basel, Mohamed Salah and Mohamed Elneny, decided to travel to Israel with the team even though they got heavy pressure from people in Egypt to boycott the match as it is played in Israel.

I'm really glad they decided sport was more important than politics. Moreover, if two of the best Basel players would forfeit the game, it would actually be counter productive. I mean, shouldn't it be much more satisfying for the Egyptians if Basel actually manage to kick out the Israeli team?

The match Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC vs FC Basel 1893 will take place in Tel-Aviv on Tuesday, 6 August 2013, 19:00 GMT+2.


Mohamed Salah + Mohamed Elneny

Maccabi Tel-Aviv 3-3 FC Basel, Maccabi making an incredible comeback right now.

ioilersrock448 wrote:Maccabi Tel-Aviv 3-3 FC Basel, Maccabi making an incredible comeback right now.

That own goal of Schär was
For the second Maccabi goal, Basel's defense deserve a sound spanking, and the third goal was really a good one. Fortunately my favourite Swiss goalie managed to keep the result in the end against all adversity ^^

GC

Playing far more convincing than OL the whole match and it seemed only a matter of minutes until they scored their goal, but then one lapse of concentration allowed OL to break and score instead...

Maccabi Tel-Aviv 3-3 FC Basel (Basel wins 4-3)
Steaua Bucharest 1-1 Dinamo Tbilisi (Steaua wins 3-1)
Maribor 0-0 APOEL (Maribor wins 1-1 away goals)
Skenderbeu 3-2 Shakter (Shakter wins 5-3)
Fenerbache 3-1 RB Salzburg (Fenerbache wins 4-2)
Partizan 0-1 Ludogorets (Ludogorets wins 3-1)
Grasshopper 0-1 Lyon (Lyon wins 2-0)

Wait, aren't Fener banned from Europe for 5 years?

The playoff round participants will be decided on Wednesday. Here's a nice infographic with the qualifying tables:

https://i.imgur.com/EUqODj8.gif

For a more simple chart click here:

http://eurofootballweb.com/champions-league-201314-qualification/