[EU] Champions League 2008/2009 (11 Viewers)

[Sadomin]

You do reallize that we've spent more than 100 million euros in the past 2 seasons alone !! Other than sissoko and amuari who did really impress from all those players we've signed ?

As for fiorentina almost all the players that they've signed this summer impressed with the exception of vargas. Felipe melo, jovetic, gilardino those three players impressed for sure Plus all of them are still young and have many years ahead of them. Fiorentina definately have done a better job in the market.

So far,
Acceptable:

Tiago (if he continues like this)
Molinaro (same as above)
Poulsen
De Ceglie
Iaquinta
Sissoko
Amauri
Manninger
Grygera
Salihamidzic
Mellberg

(Take the price of the latter three into consideration)

Poor:

Almirón
Andrade
Criscito
Nocerino

(The fans would have butchered the management had we not brought the latter two back)


Sure, we could've done much better but it's not a disaster. We have better squad depth and quality than Fiorentina.

 

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[JCK]

You do reallize that we've spent more than 100 million euros in the past 2 seasons alone !! Other than sissoko and amuari who did really impress from all those players we've signed ?

As for fiorentina almost all the players that they've signed this summer impressed with the exception of vargas. Felipe melo, jovetic, gilardino those three players impressed for sure Plus all of them are still young and have many years ahead of them. Fiorentina definately have done a better job in the market.

Then why did we qualify to the Champions League second round and they CRASHED OUT?

 

[Fred]

Then why did we qualify to the Champions League second round and they CRASHED OUT?

because you had a better core of players not because you had a better Mercato.

 

[JCK]

What's the point in this whole discussion?

I prefer our mercato to Fiorentina's, I prefer our squad to theirs and I prefer our manager to theirs and if anyone disagrees with me they can go support the purple bitches for all I care.

 

[vimo]

What's the point in this whole discussion?

I prefer our mercato to Fiorentina's, I prefer our squad to theirs and I prefer our manager to theirs and if anyone disagrees with me they can go support the purple bitches for all I care.

exactly? what's the point of this discussion? Fiorentina did a good mercato? so?? You know, considering their core-players and their aim for the current season, they HAD to open their wallets. And to be honest, it's not like they're dominating the serie-a with their 'monster-transfers'. take into consideration that they lost important people like ujfalusi... but so what?
Honestly i'm happy with juventus' transfer campaign. i'm happy we didn't go for the expensive flaminis and everything. i mean, look where those 5.something million / season are sitting now... We did a decent job, securing the contracts, and strengthening what was needed. once we have another LB/RB, so that we have a little more options back there, i think we're back on track again, and can look for buying the prestigious players à la diego etc.

But let's stop this discussion now; this is the CL-thread. And we're better in CL then Fiorentina. Full stop

I have a question though, do we know against which group we're playing after the groupstage? Probably not i guess, this will be chosen at the end, right? so who do you guess will finish 2nd in the other groups? (I'm assuming we'll finish 1st, will be difficult not to)

 

[only-juve]

because you had a better core of players not because you had a better Mercato.

 

[Alen]

because you had a better core of players not because you had a better Mercato.

Oh, but you seem to forget the opinion of many members during the summer.
Last year we finished 3rd, only few points above the 4th placed Fiorentina.
This happened, according to Cronios, because Milan underachieved, we overachieved and Fiorentina had to play European matches till May.
If they didn't play in Europe, or if we played in Europe, they'd have finished above us, which implies that they were better than us. If not better, than certainly on par with us.

With their "superior" mercato the expectations were that Fiorentina will be better than us this season. Much better mercato+much better coach was a guarantee for that.

Instead, we're better than them in serie A, we're topping our CL group and they''ll be eliminated from CL.

Fiorentina did buy good players but, as i said in the summer, they aren't stronger than last year. They lost their defensive leader Ujfalusi and they lost their brain Liverani. They only added more quality in attack.

Felipe Melo+Commoto+Zauri is still weaker than the players they had in MC and DR/DC last year (Liverani+Ujfalusi). They were already good in LB even before they bought Vargas.
Only Gilardino and Jovetic might be considered as good re-inforcements and we strenghtened the same positions ourselves, even more imo, with Amauri and Giovinco.

With Poulsen, Mellberg, De Ceglie etc we actually added more quality because they are all better than the players we had last year on the positions they cover. (Poulsen>Nocerino, Mellberg>Criscito, De Ceglie>the 2nd LB which we didn't even have last year)

Our mercato was better !

 

[Osman]

What's the point in this whole discussion?

I prefer our mercato to Fiorentina's, I prefer our squad to theirs and I prefer our manager to theirs and if anyone disagrees with me they can go support the purple bitches for all I care.

Agreed except the manager part.

Their "mercato" and squad gets way too overrated by some here. But I prefer their coach to ours.

 

[JCK]

You do reallize that we've spent more than 100 million euros in the past 2 seasons alone !! Other than sissoko and amuari who did really impress from all those players we've signed ?

As for fiorentina almost all the players that they've signed this summer impressed with the exception of vargas. Felipe melo, jovetic, gilardino those three players impressed for sure Plus all of them are still young and have many years ahead of them. Fiorentina definately have done a better job in the market.

And we sold players for around 35 Million € which makes our spendings around 65 M € over two seasons compared to Fiorentina's 75 M € ONLY this year.

 

[soulslider]

Then why did we qualify to the Champions League second round and they CRASHED OUT?

Because they are LOSERS and always will be LOSERS , it doesn't matter what team they have

 

[Alen]

No CL this week, but it doesn't mean we can't do some calculations here

As you know, we'll most probably win our group. We need only 2 more pts against Zenit and BATE to win the group theoretically, but we can also win the group even if we lose both matches.
Since we'll be first, in the next round we will get one of the second placed teams.

Lets see the options :
- We can't get the team from our group, so Real (or less probably, Zenit or Bate) won't be our 2nd round opponent
- We can't get an Italian team, so Roma, who'll most probably win the 2nd place in their group, also isn't a possible opponent.

This leaves 6 more options.
From Inter's group, where the perdenti will almost certainly top the group, we can get one of Anorthosis, Panathinaicos or Werder. Atm, Ano have 5pts, Pao have 4 and Werder have 3. In the next round we have Inter-Panathinaicos, Anorthosis-Werder. Obviously, with a win Anorthosis will be 2nd because Inter will probably beat Panathinaicos and secure the 1st place. Anorthosis are a force at home in CL (they've beaten Rapid 3:0 and Olympiacos 3:0 in the qualifiers, and in the group they played 3:1 with Panathinaicos and 3:3 with Inter).
So, hopefully Anorthosis will be our potential opponent. Werder is the one we won't like to get, but their chances to come 2nd are limited. They must beat Ano away and Inter at home.

From Manchester's group it's going to be either ManUtd or Villareal. We do great against the Spanish teams and awful against the English, so no need to tell you who the preffered possible opponent is here.

I'd say the same about Liverpool's group. No-one here wants Atletico but they're still easier to beat than Liverpool, imo.

From Barcelona's group it's going to be either Barcelona or Sporting, but Sporting is more likely.

From Arsenal's group, Porto will most probably be 2nd.

Fiorentina's group is the last one. Beh, i don't want Fiorentina to proceed, but in this case i'd like them to be 2nd. If they are 2nd we won't play them because they are Italian and we won't risk to play one of Bayern or Lyon. But Fiorentina must beat Lyon in Firenze and Steaua in Bucharest and they must hope that Bayern will take at least a point away from Lyon.
Tough to expect that but we can hope.

In an ideal, and still possible scenario, our opponent in the next round will be one of Sporting, Anorthosis, Porto, Atletico or Villareal.

Realistically, our opponent will be these same teams, but Lyon also included.
In the worst case we'll get one of these teams : Werder, Porto, Barcelona, Liverpool, Manchester, Bayern/Lyon.

 

[Maher]

good article Alen , hope juve face Sporting or Anorthosis

 

[Azzurri7]

English teams are hard to beat If you play them in England the 2nd leg. I don't fear them so long we will play home in the 2nd leg.

 

[Maher]

English teams are hard to beat If you play them in England the 2nd leg. I don't fear them so long we will play home in the 2nd leg.

with capello liverpool defeated us although we played the second match at home

 

[Azzurri7]

Thats why Capello is called Crap. We had one of the best squads ever. He can always suck my cock in Champions League. He can use his old fashion tactic in Serie A only. English teams screwed him up.

With Ranieri it's different. He knows how to play in CL.

 

[Badass J Elkann]

with capello liverpool defeated us although we played the second match at home

MAHEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR IS ONLINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BURKE WE TRACKED HIM!

 

[Alen]

Manchester eliminated us in 1999 when the 2nd leg was played in Turin.
Liverpool eliminated us when the 2nd leg was played in Turin
Arsenal eliminated us when the 2nd leg was played in Turin.


These are the only knock-out encounters we had with English teams.
In the groups Manchester were also killing us in Turin (0:3 in 2002/2003).

I don't think home/away is of huge importance here, Rab. It's just that the English football doesn't suit us. That's why i prefer if we can somehow avoid the English teams.
We avoided playing English teams in the knock-outs in 1996,1997,1998 and 2003 and these 4 were our best CL seasons.

But i kinda agree with you. Even if we get an English team i think we'll do better with Ranieri at the helm.

 

[Azzurri7]

Two of the three matches you mentioned were under Capello, man. Two of these matches were played with same style same tactic and it was obvious that we were loosing from the 1st leg when we were humiliated and not only out-played.

Some would probably laugh at me here, but Ranieri's style in Europe is what we really needed since Lippi left.

 

[Badass J Elkann]

nope i agree id rather have ranieri in europe than capello in europe, ranieri at least is not as stubborn in his style and selection like capello was. capello fair to say was a little to predictable where as ranieri you can never know what you're getting

 

[Azzurri7]

The most fucked up part in Capello days.....was the time when we were getting ready to face L'Pool at home and Arsenal.... he didn't change his fucked up tactics nor his style. He's very stubborn thinking Champions League is Serie A where he can use his tactic to defend for the 90min and not attack but wait for one of Ibra,Trezeguet,Del Piero,Mutu to make something out of nothing.

God, even the Bremen game was funny how we qualified.