After giving it some thought, I'd rather watch a loop of Kim Jong-Un setting fire to a pile of kittens and puppies than see Mourinho and Chelsea win the Champions League.
Liga dos Campeões de futebol em Lisboa: Dog Days of Summer
- Thread starter Titans Bastard
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JayMags71 said:
Fortunately, it seems like that won't be a problem anymore (at least this year).
Second time in three years that the final is between two teams in the same league. It was pretty rare before then (Liverpool/United a while back and Madrid/Valencia several years before that) -- but I guess that makes sense since the field has expanded beyond just champions.
Blech. These two play their fifth game of the year. At least they didn't just meet in the cup final, only in the semis. Nobody ever agrees with me, so I'm shouting in the dark, but I wish they would modify the draw rules to require same-league teams to meet in the semis unless there are 3 or 4 of them.
Blech. These two play their fifth game of the year. At least they didn't just meet in the cup final, only in the semis. Nobody ever agrees with me, so I'm shouting in the dark, but I wish they would modify the draw rules to require same-league teams to meet in the semis unless there are 3 or 4 of them.
I'm speechless. After the gut-punch Torres goal, I was devastated -- I thought there was no way Atletico would score a goal. I envisioned Mourinho parking the bus for the remainder of the game and Atleti desperately trying to score against a well-organized defensive unit.
Then, it all changed -- three goals, all merits of Aletico's talent and game plan. Better yet, none of Atletico's starters will miss the final because of yellows.
Cholo walks on water in Madrid.
Then, it all changed -- three goals, all merits of Aletico's talent and game plan. Better yet, none of Atletico's starters will miss the final because of yellows.
Cholo walks on water in Madrid.
Wow, an all Madrid final. Real going for La Décima. Atléti going for their first Champions League. There should be a heavy dose of morbo in that game. I'm pretty excited for this.
DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
Yeah, 44 tournaments without two clubs from the same league squaring off in the final and then we get five in 15 years. I wonder if it's not just a case of an expanded field, but also a natural by-product of the total dominance of the four biggest leagues. Seventeen of the past 18 finals have featured two clubs from this quartet (the lone exception was '04). Probing deeper, 38 of the last 40 semifinalists were big four. At least the '70s and '80s had some variety. Makes me wonder what clubs have the best shot at breaking this hegemony (PSG, Benfica, etc.).
LTF said:
Juve and PSG can do it, but I'm not holding my breath on SLB getting in there. The cash gap between the top 8 teams in this year's competition (the 4 EPLs, FCB/RM, Bayern, and PSG) is continuing to widen vs their competition. Benfica's revenue is just too low to compete barring a one or two year run where everything comes together perfectly (Like FC Porto from 2002-2004). Milan and Inter should still be a powers, but they are completely mismanaged now.
Expanding the field and introducing the group stage prior to knockout rounds has squeezed out Europe's version of the college mid-majors.
It's good to see Atletico there though. They're not far removed from being a selling club. Torres, Aguero, etc netted them a ton of money, and they've spent it wisely.
teddykgb said:
Atletico is still a selling club, I think. While this year's Champions League success will help the team pay down some debt, the team still owes a ton of money to the Spanish government. Of note, two of the team's players could be gone soon: Courtois belongs to Chelsea and some club, maybe Chelsea, could buy Costa over the summer.
soxfan121 said:
Your words are weapons. I honestly only meant what I said. But you are correct to assume that my default view of the world is that it's Sheikh Mansour's world and we're just living in it.
They sold Falcao last summer. Granted, they might not have had a full stake in him, but that was last summer. They're still a selling club. Are they making progress on that new stadium? Isn't that part of the debt problem?
In Europa League news, Benfica defeated Juventus 2-1 on aggregate and Sevilla defeated Valencia on away goals (3-3 aggregate) to set up an all-Iberia final.
I read that Benfica's victory actually means Portugal will pass Italy in the UEFA co-efficient rankings and will thus formally be the 4th strongest league in Europe. This doesn't impact Champions League spots (both nations, as well as France, still get one berth to the playoffs and two berths to the group stage), but symbolically I thought it was pretty interesting.
I read that Benfica's victory actually means Portugal will pass Italy in the UEFA co-efficient rankings and will thus formally be the 4th strongest league in Europe. This doesn't impact Champions League spots (both nations, as well as France, still get one berth to the playoffs and two berths to the group stage), but symbolically I thought it was pretty interesting.
I think at least a little that's a testament to how overvalued Europa League is in the co-efficient and to how much a single head to head result in later rounds. Serie A has declined, for sure, in comparison to other European leagues, and its results in Europe were poor, but I think it is righting the ship these days.Billy R Ford said:
So, digging into the coefficient a bit deeper, Portugal's ascendancy over Italy next year appears to me to have pretty much exactly one cause -- Portugal topped the coefficient list in 10/11 and will still have that season count toward its overall coefficient next year, but the 09/10 year drops off, so Inter's champions league win drops off.
If you break down Portugal's 10/11 season, it seems relatively absurd that they were ranked as high as they were. They piled up points due to a somewhat perfect storm. First, they only had 5 teams qualify for european qualification. That actually is a benefit, because in the end, the co-efficient is determined by the average of the teams that qualify for Europe. So, your coefficient is a lot higher if you put 5 strong teams in than 5 strong teams and 1 less strong team. Second, the Portuguese teams piled up points in the qualification rounds, and then the teams that they put into the Champions league lost at exactly the right point -- they got points in the CL, and then were able to parachute in on the Europa league and pile up more points. So, you end up with a situation where they had exactly one win in the CL knock out rounds that year -- Benfica -- which then racked up more points in the Europa league (including drawing another Portuguese team in the semis, ensuring one would advance to the final).
Don't get me wrong, Portugal dominated the Europa League in 2010-11, and having an all Portugese final should be rewarded. But any system that puts them ahead of Spain that year has to be a bit suspect. Spain put three teams into the knockout rounds in the CL, two teams went to the semis (and had to play each other) and one won the competition. And even then, the only reason they didn't come out ahead of Portugal is that Portugal put only 5 teams into European competition, while Spain has 7 and their worst team didn't do very well. The bottom line, if you want to know why Portugal is going to jump over Italy this year, you can make all sorts of arguments about Serie A and its rough ride and decline, but in the bizarre world of UEFA coefficients, here's the correct answer: Because in 2010-11 Maritimo knicked a few games in the qualification round of the Europa League, while the 7th best Spanish team, Getafe, didn't.
Anyway, the bottom line is that Portugal's jump over Italy will be a one-hit wonder. Their magical coefficient year of 2010-11 drops off next year. Even if Benfica wins the Europa league, Portugal has not had a very good season in Europe -- they look to come in around 6th. So, once 10-11 drops off, they will have three years at 6, 5 and 5. Just looking at the last three years, it seems virtually impossible that anyone can come close to Italy for 4th place after next season, including Portugal, Russia and France.
Here's web site if you want to play around with it. http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/
If you break down Portugal's 10/11 season, it seems relatively absurd that they were ranked as high as they were. They piled up points due to a somewhat perfect storm. First, they only had 5 teams qualify for european qualification. That actually is a benefit, because in the end, the co-efficient is determined by the average of the teams that qualify for Europe. So, your coefficient is a lot higher if you put 5 strong teams in than 5 strong teams and 1 less strong team. Second, the Portuguese teams piled up points in the qualification rounds, and then the teams that they put into the Champions league lost at exactly the right point -- they got points in the CL, and then were able to parachute in on the Europa league and pile up more points. So, you end up with a situation where they had exactly one win in the CL knock out rounds that year -- Benfica -- which then racked up more points in the Europa league (including drawing another Portuguese team in the semis, ensuring one would advance to the final).
Don't get me wrong, Portugal dominated the Europa League in 2010-11, and having an all Portugese final should be rewarded. But any system that puts them ahead of Spain that year has to be a bit suspect. Spain put three teams into the knockout rounds in the CL, two teams went to the semis (and had to play each other) and one won the competition. And even then, the only reason they didn't come out ahead of Portugal is that Portugal put only 5 teams into European competition, while Spain has 7 and their worst team didn't do very well. The bottom line, if you want to know why Portugal is going to jump over Italy this year, you can make all sorts of arguments about Serie A and its rough ride and decline, but in the bizarre world of UEFA coefficients, here's the correct answer: Because in 2010-11 Maritimo knicked a few games in the qualification round of the Europa League, while the 7th best Spanish team, Getafe, didn't.
Anyway, the bottom line is that Portugal's jump over Italy will be a one-hit wonder. Their magical coefficient year of 2010-11 drops off next year. Even if Benfica wins the Europa league, Portugal has not had a very good season in Europe -- they look to come in around 6th. So, once 10-11 drops off, they will have three years at 6, 5 and 5. Just looking at the last three years, it seems virtually impossible that anyone can come close to Italy for 4th place after next season, including Portugal, Russia and France.
Here's web site if you want to play around with it. http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/
Billy R Ford said:
Italy is still in 4th place and will retain it by about 4 to 4.5 points depending on what happens in the EL final. As DDB says, next year Italy will be defending 15.5 points (Inter) while Portugal will be defending 10 points. When you chop off the 09/10 results, Portugal has a very slight lead, but Italy could easily fend them off and retain 4th place at the end of next season if Italian clubs even slightly outperform Portuguese clubs.
I recommend this site for tracking coefficients -- it's incredibly comprehensive and you can look at future years' rankings to see who has a "head start".
DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
Along the same vein, there's a constant churn in the rankings between #6 and #11 or so in the coefficients. This is because the leagues outside of the elite lack the depth in quality to maintain a high coefficient. For example, Portugal put up a monster 18.800 coefficient in 2010/11. They were able to do this because their big clubs crushed it in the Europa League (both finalists and a semifinalist), but also because their allocation for that season was based on their 10th place ranking. Crucially, that means they had only 5 teams instead of 6. In terms of achieving a high coefficient, extra slots hurt Portugal badly because the 6th entrant into European competitions will be weak and will drag the coefficient down.
The most extreme example of this is Romania's absurd 16.833 coefficient in 05/06. Steaua and Rapid both won their EL groups; Rapid made the QF and Steaua made the SF. Dinamo picked up a few points in qualifying and in the EL groups, but didn't advance. A respectable showing for Romania, but nothing spectacular....but they had the highest coefficient of anyone that year because they had only three teams. They jumped from 25th to 10th in one year and climbed to 7th the next year. Once their EL entrants jumped from 3 to 5 to 6, it was impossible to come close to the same level of success with the like of Vaslui and Otelul Galati.
Portugal, Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Greece, and Belgium have been leapfrogging each other like this for a long time. It is a testament to the pure strength of Portugal's big three (and primarily Benfica and Porto at that) that Portugal has been able to pass France for 5th and even challenge Italy.
But if Benfica craps out early, Paços de Ferreira and Marítimo ain't picking up the slack.
There are just four clubs in Portugal that can do anything in Europe: Benfica, Braga, Porto, and Sporting. Sporting looking like it's back to being respectful will help, but may be offset with a decline to Braga.
I openly mock the EL as Europe's NIT, but the club REALLY wants this. They've lost 7 straight finals since winning the '62 European Cup. I really hope they do it.
I openly mock the EL as Europe's NIT, but the club REALLY wants this. They've lost 7 straight finals since winning the '62 European Cup. I really hope they do it.