Manchester United are presently the laughing stock of world football, second perhaps only to Chelsea in that regard. In all competitions this season their record is 11 wins and 12 losses. Some of the powerhouses to defeat Man Utd this season include Galatasaray, Crystal Palace, Brighton and Bournemouth.. and Copenhagen of course, the mightiest of them all.
Exactly how impressed am I supposed to be by yet another Man Utd banter loss? Exactly how seriously should I take Bournemouth because they destroyed United 3-0 in their own home? Of course exactly none of this has to do with you being from Denmark.
And Bayern is ?
Your still missing the point the point is that your attitude = underestimation and that often cause issues, that is why meating the on paper weakest team might not always be the best draw. Having a team with a certain level guarantee the team know they have to put in an effort and that the coach didn’t fill in a weaker team in a season where they are in a championship run. Secondly you avoid parking the bus teams.
Also knowing what we are best against is actually also a good thing, we are actually good against the better teams also those who wants ball possession. The fear of meeting stronger teams are just odd if you know our strengths.
You have this incredible ability to focus on an absolutely obvious and mundane point and then overexplain the shit out of it as if people here are 8 years old.
Obviously the likelihood of facing a strong team in the CL is high. Obviously if we aim to win it or go deep in the competition, we should expect to face top teams at some point. But what's wrong with taking an easier route if the opportunity is there? Is it less noble or something? Aren't you constantly going on about being "realistic" when it comes to finances?
That wasn’t actually what I wrote, I wrote that the odds of meeting one IN THIS SEASON have that consequence due to how the group stage went.
If you knock out a stronger team early in the knock out face it kinda logically won’t be there later on for you to meet, your mainly just postponing the unavoidable. In reality you actually reduce the risk of meeting a stronger team later on after all there there is now one less.
Those the idea that meeting a stronger team earlier on make the route easier is false, it all depends on who won the groups, who was pairs with whom in 1/8 and who won the two encounters. It all depends on how things fall out sometimes by chance. That’s why we got the absolute weakest path seen in a decade last year, there no guarantee that meeting the strong team in 1/8 actually equal a harder path, in some years it will in others not.
Here's some realism for you. We desperately need the money from competing in the CL and the payment for each round we progress is like a lifeblood to us. Whether we have to beg, borrow or steal, getting far in the CL should be considered of tantamount importance to our financial sustainability/recovery. On that particular metric, it's actually significantly more important than the scudetto.
Here is some reality check for you next years tournament is changed, your focused too much on here and now short term. Winning the league is important in case you missed that here is why!
- Slot one: This place will go to the club ranked third in the championship of the association in fifth position in the access list, which is determined by the UEFA association club coefficient ranking.
- Slot two: This place will be awarded to a domestic champion by extending from four to five the number of clubs qualifying via the Champions path of the competition's qualifying process, which will consist of four qualifying rounds.
- Slots three and four: These places will go to the associations with the best collective performance by their clubs in the previous season (i.e. the association club coefficient of the previous season, which is based on the total number of club coefficient points obtained by each club from an association divided by the number of participating clubs from that association). Those two associations will each earn one automatic place in the league phase ('European Performance Spot') for the club ranked next-best in their domestic league behind those clubs that have already qualified directly for the league phase.
Anyway. That opportunity for us to take a much easier route was there (not according to you apparently) but the opportunity was squandered.
It is a theoretical easier route in the 1/8 there still PSG and they are no easier then many of the group winning teams. There is also porto and Leipzig that are no worse then Dortmund.
The chances are larger that you meet a weaker team but it’s purely statistically as it dos not actually mean you paired with them.
Also there no guarantee that the entire route will in the end be easier it entirely depends on the draw.
In fact, the opportunity was squandered three separate times by starting the likes of Sanchez and/or Arnautovic at Sociedad, at Benfica, and in the group decider. Those are the 3 hardest games on paper, no? And yet we did not play our strongest lineup, or even our starting forward duo in ANY of these three games. Lautaro and Thuram each started ONE of these games - never together - while these fucking losers Sanchez and Arnautovic started two each. And that's how you end up with 3 points from these 3 games.
It might have been easier in first round if we avoided Porto and PSG if not it would not be easier it all depends on who you are paired with.
Also running our starters tired because of some theoretical advantage that might end us drawing PSG is just that theoretical.
With this we might draw Dortmund, what is best we cannot know before the draw is made.
Last year we ended second and it gave the easiest route.
Also out main goal is winning the Scudetto we already accomplished our goal for CL, this is what is budget for progress from the group stage.
Let's cut the shit for a moment. You excuse the team or the coach for failing to win a critical game against a much, much smaller team. I do not. You try to justify it by inflating the fuck out of these Europa League level teams because that's a preferable viewpoint to you than the idea that the coach and team simply fucked up.
No I’m just saying your underestimating them, and that underestimating any team at this stage is incredible dangerous thing to do, walk over dos not exist for Inter at this stage. I don’t grasp how this goes so much over you head. I never said these teams where not easier on paper but I’m actually also looking at what type of tactics and style of play we are good against and that is teams that in fact has a certain level and want to play. We trashed Milan and Napoli for christ sake, we are better against these sort of teams then we are against lower quality ones that like to park the bus.
Also these teams are always there in 1/8 because there simply isn’t enough strong teams in Europe to actually fill up 16 spots with only strong teams. So your EL quality is a bit of a joke statement. they are playing in 1/8 because they are good enough to be there, that’s the quality of 1/8 and it’s been that way for decades, in fact it was worse before until they increased the amount of teams from the bigger leagues.
Now you're trying to further rationalize it by giving some ludicrously unnecessary primary school lesson about facing adversity and "to be the best you gotta beat the best."
As you might say, there are no guarantees, no black and whites in football. If Limone TRULY wanted to focus on the scudetto only he would've outright abandoned the CL and played the likes of Klaassen, Di Gennaro and Yung Sarr every game. But no, obviously, he used his first team across the group stage. So he has, evidently, attached some degree of priority to the CL as well. The only question is how much and did he get that balance right. But whenever people question that balance some of you lot start getting inexplicably uncomfortable and start putting stupid blanket statements over everything.
Oh gosh our objective was to just progress from the group stage that was our objective in this CL as it always is that is what the club budget with. They do not budget with things like 1/4 and 1/2… Also drawing an on paper weaker team dos not actually equal you sure to beat them. These teams often make surprises we seen this on so many occasions now. We seen this somehow mange to play themselves into semifinals and even on occasion finals.
