2021/2022 Champions League: Not the Super League

teddykgb

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Jul 16, 2005
11,016
Chelmsford, MA
Annoyed that City played such a strong team with the Liverpool match this weekend.

In the end City mostly played PSG really well but were absurdly not clinical and conceded some great goals. This match wasn’t important enough to have played the regulars but I’m not disheartened by the performance
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
24,483
The 718
Amazing result. I wonder how this will be taken in Madrid.
Partially out of spurned- lover syndrome but also out of a sense that he’s in the armchair phase of his career and doesn’t really have the fire in the belly anymore, I predicted that Carlo wouldn’t last out the year at RM. if no one else in this group loses to Sheriff there is a real possibility that they don’t make it out of the group and that would be it for him. They desperately need that CL lucre.
 

Mighty Joe Young

The North remembers
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Sep 14, 2002
8,401
Halifax, Nova Scotia , Canada
Annoyed that City played such a strong team with the Liverpool match this weekend.

In the end City mostly played PSG really well but were absurdly not clinical and conceded some great goals. This match wasn’t important enough to have played the regulars but I’m not disheartened by the performance
It’s ok … Liverpool returned the favour. At least it was a rout so Salah, Mane, Milner , Henderson and Jota?) were all subbed
 

SoxFanInCali

has the rich, deep voice of a god
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Jun 3, 2005
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California. Duh.
With this game on Tuesday and the Liverpool-City match not until Sunday, I don't think conditioning will be a huge issue for either side as long as nobody was injured today.
 

Zososoxfan

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Jul 30, 2009
9,209
South of North
Today's slate (home team first):

12:45pm EDT
Atalanta vs. Youthful Lads
Zenit vs. Malmo
Benfica vs. Barca
Bayern vs. Kiev
RB Salzburg vs. Lille
Juve vs. Chelsea
United vs. Villarreal
Wolfsburg vs. Sevilla

Pretty terrific slate IMO. Juve vs. Chelsea brings intrigue as Juve have gotten off to a rough start domestically and Chelsea smarting from their weekend loss vs. Citeh. Wolfsburg vs. Sevilla pits 2 non-heavyweights who are performing well domestically, and United-Villarreal meet again in a rematch of the UEL Final.

Koeman will try to continue the good feels after Ansu Fati's return over the weekend and a badly needed 3-0 win. But they're going up against a soaring Benfica who have won all 7 Primeira matches and have a GD of +15.

Salzburg vs. Lille fills the slot of teams not many of us follow but could create a super entertaining match.
 

SocrManiac

Tommy Seebach’s mustache
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Apr 15, 2006
8,634
Somers, CT
I hold very little hope for Juve against Chelsea. Allegri hasn't been effective installing a system to this point. The team is leaking goals like crazy due to both team and individual gaffes. Dybala, one of the lone bright spots, got hurt early over the weekend.

I just hope this isn't to give Chelsea a closer look at Chiesa before swooping for him.
 

Zososoxfan

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Jul 30, 2009
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Roberto starting at RWB, and Luuk de Jong starting alongside Depay up top for Barca. Shambles. I'm Koeman out unless this formation morphs a lot more than the 3-5-2 it looks like.
 

Zososoxfan

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Jul 30, 2009
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Right on cue, Roberto gets beat to a ball over the top down the wing, then gets beat defending in space. TBF, MATS could've done a little better.

If Barca lose this match, Koeman's gone.
 

Zososoxfan

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Jul 30, 2009
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And right again on cue LDJ has a sitter blocked because he's not very good--fair play to the Benfica defender for an excellent last-ditch dive.
 

fletcherpost

sosh's feckin' poet laureate
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Jul 15, 2005
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Man Utd are not playing well. They're not creating much at all. Sloppy passing and slow build up play. Villarreal have had at least three very decent chances, de Gea's made one good save. Hard to say how much credit Emery should get for how he's set up his side, or if Utd are just so much less than the sum of their parts, or a bit of both.
 

Dummy Hoy

Angry Pissbum
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Jul 22, 2006
8,232
Falmouth
is Sheriff Tiraspol something? Or is that nothing? I know nothing about Moldovan football
Transnistria is a quasi independent region of Moldova that acts more Russian/Independent than Moldovian. Tiraspol is a city there. The club was founded in the 90s by exKGB types and is pretty well funded.
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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Oct 23, 2001
10,229
I understand why this happens, but Chelsea's approach to this game is everything that's wrong with the group stage. You would think that a match up like this would be a marquee event, but Chelsea are currently fielding a bunch of spare parts like Ross (he's still on the squad?) Barkley, Callum (ditto) Hudson-Odoi, Reuben Loftus Check and Ben Chilwell. And they're behind! They don't seem particularly bothered by it either.

Seems more like a preseason warmup than CHAMPIONS LEAGUE match.
 

Senator Donut

post-Domer
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Apr 21, 2010
5,500
Juventus went from looking lifeless against Empoli, trailing against Spezia, and now have defeated the champions of Europe using Bernardeschi as a false 9. What in the fresh hell?
 

Ramon AC

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Apr 19, 2002
3,234
What?
Interesting, thanks for the info
New York Times feature stories about Sheriff Tiraspol from 2012 and two weeks ago.
Sheriff was formed in 1997 by Viktor Gushan, a former K.G.B. officer, and is embedded in the private economy in Transnistria. Its distinctive black-and-yellow sheriff’s badge can be found on everything from supermarkets to gas stations.

The money has helped Sheriff become the richest club in the Moldovan league, allowing it to scoop up talented young players in Africa and nearby Serbia. Its stadium is considered one of the best in Eastern Europe, a modern building with a training stadium next door and a hotel with accommodations that would not seem unfamiliar to the best teams in Europe.
…..
Soviet-era suspicion and paranoia persist in the Transnistrian capital, where no one — not fans, players, or the man on the street — will talk on the record. Even the woman playing accordion near Lenin’s statue did not want to talk about life. Instead, she squeaked her musical box shut and sat looking the other way.
…..
In presidential elections last December, the incumbent, Igor Smirnov, a strongman who had been president since Transnistria’s declaration of independence in 1990, was voted out of office and replaced by Yevgeni Shevchuk, a young lawyer and possible reformer.

Gushan’s Sheriff monopoly had flourished under Smirnov. According to a 2010 United States Department of State report, “The company also effectively controlled the Obnovlenie (Renewal) Party, which held a majority of seats in the region’s legislature.”

But Renewal is also Shevchuk’s former party. According to the Transnistrian government’s Web site, Shevchuk was also once deputy director of Sheriff. But don’t try to sort all this out.
At first glance, Sheriff’s story may have the air of a fairy tale, but the details — fittingly — are rendered in shades of gray. Tiraspol, the city where the team is based, may be in Moldova as far as UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, is concerned. Sheriff may be the current, and essentially perennial, Moldovan champion.
…..
Its team is full of imports, drawn from Africa and South America and much of Eastern Europe, while its rivals can only afford to field locals. “It rarely buys players for big money,” said Leonid Istrati, a prominent agent in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital. “But only Sheriff can afford good level players. Before, a few other teams could. Now, they can’t.”
…..
Its roots, reportedly, lie in the region’s historic smuggling. Transnistria’s liminal status, its porous borders and its opaque history — it is home to one of Europe’s largest weapons dumps — have long made it a haven for all manner of illicit activity, from gunrunning to drug-trafficking and cigarette counterfeiting.

In 2006, the European Union’s border monitoring force estimated that if the territory’s import statistics were accurate, every single person in Transnistria was eating more than 200 pounds of frozen chicken legs every year. Even Sheriff’s founder, Viktor Gushan, has admitted that his company has had to operate “between things.

Now, though, Sheriff — the conglomerate and the club — is everywhere. It runs a chain of supermarkets. It runs gas stations. It has a winery and a television channel and a phone network. “It is important to remember that the Transnistrian area works entirely for Sheriff Tiraspol,” said Ion Jalba, a journalist and commentator in Moldova. “In Tiraspol, everything is controlled by this company. There are Sheriff shops and Sheriff fuel stations. The soccer club is like a child fed by the whole separatist area.”
…..
“The people who run the club do not care about the money,” Testemitanu said. “They already have money. They do not need $20 million. They control a whole country. It is about reputation, about being in that top league, in the Champions League.”
Now that Sheriff is there, though, now that it has finally made it, all that happens is that the difference is entrenched. The last wisps of the final shade of gray disappear, and everything becomes black and white.

This is what Sheriff has been waiting for; it is what the rest of Moldovan soccer might have been dreading. It crystallizes the inevitability of Sheriff’s winning the league, again and again, into perpetuity. Watching from Moldova, it is not a fairy tale about a plucky hero, but quite the opposite. It is the final victory of the giant. “For Moldovan football,” Jardan said, “this is the end.”
 
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SocrManiac

Tommy Seebach’s mustache
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Apr 15, 2006
8,634
Somers, CT
I hold very little hope for Juve against Chelsea. Allegri hasn't been effective installing a system to this point. The team is leaking goals like crazy due to both team and individual gaffes. Dybala, one of the lone bright spots, got hurt early over the weekend.

I just hope this isn't to give Chelsea a closer look at Chiesa before swooping for him.
I guess I was partially right…
 

67YAZ

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Dec 1, 2000
8,729
Milner & Keita in for LFC. Am glad Suarez is not starting because it always feels like he relishes getting at his old clubs.

Atletico Madrid v Liverpool line-ups

Atletico Madrid: Oblak, Felipe, Kondogbia, Hermoso, Koke, Trippier, Lemar, De Paul, Carrasco, Joao Felix, Griezmann.
Subs: Lecomte, Gimenez, Suarez, Correa, Renan Lodi, Llorente, Herrera, Matheus Cunha, Vrsaljko.

Liverpool: Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Matip, van Dijk, Robertson, Milner, Henderson, Keita, Salah, Firmino, Mane.
Subs: Fabinho, Konate, Gomez, Adrian, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Minamino, Jota, Tsimikas, Origi, Phillips, Kelleher, Williams.
 

SocrManiac

Tommy Seebach’s mustache
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Apr 15, 2006
8,634
Somers, CT
I won’t be watching this one. I find Atletico one of the most unpleasant clubs on the planet to watch. They’re not interested in playing the game, they’re interested in testing the rule book.
 

Pesky Pole

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Jul 31, 2001
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That was an incredibly long VAR review for something that didn't look close to offside. I wish we had an idea of what they were reviewing. Goal is good regardless and Atletico is back in this one.
 

67YAZ

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Dec 1, 2000
8,729
Pools biggest issue this season is letting opponents back into matches. It’s a bit reminiscing of 2017 & 2018. During the championship season, Liverpool killed off matches with the tenacity and efficiency of Michael Meyers. This season they’re back to being Jamie Lee Curtis.