UEFA Champions League

I’m telling you a 4-2 Set loss to Barcelona in a Champions League final at the Emirates with 39 year old Lewandowski about to retire scoring ‘the final shot’ in the 93rd minute to clinch the CL while Barcelona celebrate on top of the Arsenal logo painted in the middle of the pitch would make my soul leave my body as I depart from the world of men, permanently.

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Not surprised at all.

Btw Messi’s highest rated season 18/19?? Absolutely no way.

I can remember the first leg versus Liverpool. He was fucking incredible that night.

Ah but what about a Game 7 when 55 year old player/coach Granit Xhaka coming back from his red card in Game 1 of the series scores a brace for Arsenal to defeat Barcelona?

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I am surprised by Juninho being so high.
I guess the amount of games worked in his favour.

Ronaldo fanboys rattled to see him in 4th :joy:

He was superb.

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I loved him. He was the main man in that big Lyon team. Hate it when they only talk about his free kicks, he was a top player even withouth those. Was always frustrated why he wasn’t more in the NT.

But his rating does seem a bit inflated. Surely he’s not the second best CL player in the last 20 years, only behind Messi.

Time to post this again when Juninho is mentioned

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Yep. Free kicks were indeed out of this world.

Plus, he scored a few against prime, or close to prime, Kahn, Casillas, Valdes etc, from ridiculous positions and made them look like kids. We will probably never see anything like that again.

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why are we playing on thursday… so we are away on thursday and then away again on sunday at city,

at least we are not playing one of the giant but still, the gap of only two days in between especially for Partey and Jorgino might be too much… or at least one of them as Rice will be back

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I’m excited for this new format. The group stage had gotten so stale, hardly worth paying attention to most groups where the winners were obvious and finishing first or second was largely meaningless.

It seems like we should treat this format a bit like a league situation. We mainly should want the best teams to drop points as finishing top eight (automatic qualification to knockouts) and top four (automatic qualification plus seeded into the draw) are real rewards.

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Agreed, looking forward as well.

Loved it when I was playing Football Manager 2024. It brings such a different challenge and it’s interesting from first to last game. You really want to finish in the top 8 to save yourself from two more games.

Will have to get used to the group stage not being wrapped up before Christmas though. Two games in January will feel weird.

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Yeah, the calendar will definitely be an adjustment. I’m not sure how much we’ll even know at Christmas. The way its structured I think maybe 90% of clubs will still have a lot to play for going into matchweeks 7-8. Maybe a couple will be eliminated but the top four and top eight spots will probably still be highly contested and a lot of other clubs will still need results to qualify for the top 24 and the playoff round.

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Jhon Duran still not getting a start for Villa smh.

Hope villa get battered

No Unai Emery Europa League buff here, good luck Aston Villa.

Should get a start against Wolves