Thursday Night Lights: 2017-18 Europa League

Zososoxfan

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OM put in another on some shoddy set piece defending. Payet may have the most accurate long ball in the game right now. Marseille not stepping off the gas either, going for another.
 

bosox4283

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Arsenal-Atletico now. Within 10 minutes, Atletico's RB is out with two reds and Simeone was just sent to the stands. It's going to be a long match.
 

fletcherpost

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Is "plucky Wolverhampton" a way to say that Atletico is playing horribly?
Sorry I meant to say Newport County. I'm trolling Arsenal. These are posts from the future. An FA Cup 3rd round replay in the year 2022.

Atletico is doing a job, but that's to be expected.
 

bosox4283

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I know Atletico is a man down but I hate it when Simeone just decides to park the bus for the second half. Play, go for it, try something. Sitting back and hoping for the best for 45 minutes is both boring and seems ineffectual.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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That's a great header by Lacazette.

Arsenal really need to try to pour it on here.

That Wenger's only real attacking option off the bench is Eddie Nketiah (121 career minutes of top level football) is a real failure of squad management. This is where you need strikers or wingers with fresh legs to put pressure on a defense that has to be exhausted. Iwobi is more of a midfielder and not the guy who will punish a defense.
 

PedroSpecialK

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Awful for Koscielny - looks like his Achilles is done

Listening to Alexi Lalas will never not be excruciating
 
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Time to Mo Vaughn

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Awful for Koscielny - looks like his Achilles is done
That was my initial guess as well, and it appears to have been confirmed on Twitter. Between his overall age and now this recovery, he may be at the very end of his time as a starting CB in the premier league. Certainly that'll be the case if he has Santi Cazorla's surgeon.
Salzburg nets the second! Arsenal getting outclassed by Atleti by quite a bit IMO.
I'm biased, but have not found it to be that one sided. Atletico has much better finishers, but Arsenal has put plenty of pressure on goal and could easily have had one go in.
 

Zososoxfan

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Fitting end to the Wenger era. Doesn't have the players to hang with Europe's elite. He did an admirable job but hung on far too long. Salzburg and Marseille coming to a terrific finish. 3 arguable handballs in the final 10 minutes of regulation.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

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I think he normally gets unfairly criticized, but Ozil was really nowhere to be seen in yesterday's match, and had a few really sloppy turnovers just outside the box. I do want him to stay on board, but he has not played up to his world class ability in the last month.
 

Dummy Hoy

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Listening to Alexi Lalas will never not be excruciating
Just brutal. Really gone down in my eyes the last few years...I thought he was a solid voice when he first got into the media gig, but he seems like he hasn't put in a hard days work in forever- just empty platitudes given in a tone that suggests a hot take, but falls flat every time.

I'm biased, but have not found it to be that one sided. Atletico has much better finishers, but Arsenal has put plenty of pressure on goal and could easily have had one go in.
I actually thought Arsenal played pretty well overall too. Atletico is very very good at what they do, which is to stifle teams like Arsenal, but the real problem yesterday was...

Fitting end to the Wenger era. Doesn't have the players to hang with Europe's elite. He did an admirable job but hung on far too long.
I mean, Arsenal kind of sucks at this level...who aside from Ozil (who had a bit of a no-show) was going to create anything special? It's a squad with players that range from questionable to nearly elite on their best day, and that's not good enough for later European knock out stages. I mean, what was Wenger supposed to do with that group against Atletico?
 

lars10

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Just brutal. Really gone down in my eyes the last few years...I thought he was a solid voice when he first got into the media gig, but he seems like he hasn't put in a hard days work in forever- just empty platitudes given in a tone that suggests a hot take, but falls flat every time.



I actually thought Arsenal played pretty well overall too. Atletico is very very good at what they do, which is to stifle teams like Arsenal, but the real problem yesterday was...



I mean, Arsenal kind of sucks at this level...who aside from Ozil (who had a bit of a no-show) was going to create anything special? It's a squad with players that range from questionable to nearly elite on their best day, and that's not good enough for later European knock out stages. I mean, what was Wenger supposed to do with that group against Atletico?
Lalas also talks super slowly like he's talking to people that have never seen a game before.. and as you say ends up saying things that are wholly disinteresting.

Isn't Arsene responsible for the players that are here though? And also responsible for the lack of development that many of them have seen? Also, the lack of structure and semblance of team... isn't most of that on the manager?

Arsene to me seems a bit like Harry Sinden at the end... complaining about player salaries, not wanting to spend money, with an owner that's cheap. But who is also trying to strike gold with cheap relatively unheard of young talent like he's done in the past.
 

Dummy Hoy

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No doubt he's largely to blame for the squad- I kind of meant to word it so that I separated Arsene the coach from Arsene the GM.
 

bosox4283

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Today -- why on a Wednesday? -- is the Europa League Final, Atletico vs. Marseille.

Simeone, who cannot be on the sidelines due his explusion against Arsenal, has opted for Gabi in the middle of Thomas. Gabi brings experience and it could be his last title game, so I understand the choice.

This match may also be both the last chance for Torres and Griezmann to win a title with Atletico. Torres is moving on and Griezmann is heavily linked to Barca.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

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Today -- why on a Wednesday? -- is the Europa League Final, Atletico vs. Marseille.

Simeone, who cannot be on the sidelines due his explusion against Arsenal, has opted for Gabi in the middle of Thomas. Gabi brings experience and it could be his last title game, so I understand the choice.

This match may also be both the last chance for Torres and Griezmann to win a title with Atletico. Torres is moving on and Griezmann is heavily linked to Barca.
This is awesome. I was just lamenting the loss of mid-week soccer to have something on in the background, and had no idea this was happening today.
 

bosox4283

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Griezmann had a brilliant match and Atletico's defense remained solid to give Atleti a comfortable 3-0 win. Marseille had one off the post around the 80th minute that may have changed the flow of the game, but Atletico comfortably won and played the better match.

This Europa League title is Atletico's third since 2010. Impressive run, for sure, since this stretch also includes two Champions League finals.
 

Titans Bastard

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Spanish clubs have won eight out of the last nine Champions League and Europa League competitions. Everything starting in the 2013/14 season except for Man U's Europa League win last year.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

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Weakest major domestic league? Allows their star players to get more rest over the course of the season and focus on matches in Europe or against the other power clubs in Spain?
 

Senator Donut

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Weakest major domestic league? Allows their star players to get more rest over the course of the season and focus on matches in Europe or against the other power clubs in Spain?
It’s a combination of two things.

1. Barcelona and Madrid do well in Champions League because they are the best teams in the world and extremely deep.

2. Sevilla and Atletico do well in Europa because they’ve usually far out of contention and have stopped caring about the league. All the other nations in Europe don’t seem to care about Europa (at least up until the NIT winner started getting a spot in the big dance next year).


I think Spain and Italy both have little depth in their leagues right now. I would especially like Serie A to return to 18 clubs. However, it likely doesn’t make much of a difference because Italian teams have been god-awful in Europa (looking at you, Udinese). England’s biggest issue is just too many fixtures. Replays and two cup competitions is crazy. Italian clubs in Europe start in the last 16 of Coppa Italia.
 

Infield Infidel

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Another upside for Italy is 23-player gameday squads, so it's easier to rotate minutes and get PT for young players in blowouts. On the downside in Italy, Coppa Italia has two legged semifinals.

Edit- game day squad
 
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bosox4283

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2. Sevilla and Atletico do well in Europa because they’ve usually far out of contention and have stopped caring about the league. All the other nations in Europe don’t seem to care about Europa (at least up until the NIT winner started getting a spot in the big dance next year).
I'm defending Atletico for the sake of defending Atletico, but you're underestimating Atletico's European record.

2013-14: Champions League final (oh, how that Ramos goal in 93' still stings!)

2014-15: Champions League quarterfinals

2015-16: Champions League final (I still get teary-eyed when I see the photo of Juanfran apologizing to the fans for missing that penalty kick)

2016-17: Champions League semifinals

This year, Atletico crashed and burned in Champions League. So, in the last five years, Atletico has played in one Europa League and won the title, and has played in the Champions League four times, reaching two finals and one semifinal.
 

InstaFace

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Sure, but his point was that they're out of La Liga contention come early spring. That's true this year (albeit with a runner-up finish, they were >10 points behind Barca by March this year), was certainly true last year, was not true in 2015-16, was true in 2014-15, and of course they won the league in 2014.
 

trs

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Sure, but his point was that they're out of La Liga contention come early spring. That's true this year (albeit with a runner-up finish, they were >10 points behind Barca by March this year), was certainly true last year, was not true in 2015-16, was true in 2014-15, and of course they won the league in 2014.
True but top-heavy describes most European leagues now. Germany has been like this for almost a decade, France the same, Italy as has been mentioned hasn't had a strong league since the mid 00's, and everyone likes to point to the EPL as an example of a strong top-bottom league, but I would argue that this is simply not the case. Very few teams were in contention this year, and let's be honest, Man City didn't look very vulnerable. The travel schedule for the EPL does not cover much geographic territory (save for European matches of course, but that's more or less the same for everyone), and at this point I would take almost any 3-10 Spanish team against similarly-placed EPL teams (and the UEFA club rankings bear this out, especially recently -- https://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/club/index.html)

Your point about being out of contention early in the Spring is true to an extent, but let's not forget that the Europa League heavy lifting is in February, when it was still very possible for Atletico to take La Liga, and in terms of the Champions League you almost have an opposite scenario. In the quarterfinals, in early April you could argue that none of the 8 teams had much to play for domestically at that point, comfortable leaders in the EPL (Man City), Bundesliga (Bayern), Serie A (Juve), Liga (Barca), and then you had teams "comfortably" out of 1st and able to focus on Champions. Sevilla was a strange case for sure and could certainly be looked at as focusing their efforts on Europe, given that they still have a negative goal differential in domestic play. Real Madrid could probably field two entirely separate XIs and get to the quarters with both of them.

Without some sort of redistribution of wealth, this will only get more pronounced and leagues will continue to get bicameral.