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Heroes Community > Tavern of the Rising Sun > Thread: The Soccer Thread
Thread: The Soccer Thread This Popular Thread is 119 pages long: 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 ... 91 92 93 94 95 ... 100 110 119 · «PREV / NEXT»
Storm-Giant
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posted December 11, 2014 01:33 AM

Statistical chances of possible round of 16 CL Draws


...it's time for Bayern's annual winter vacation to London
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fuChris
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posted December 11, 2014 04:02 AM

Looks like another ManCity-Dortmund round, not that I'm complaining.
Is it me or do Chelsea get an easy ride to the quarterfinals every year? Juve, Shakhtar Basel or Leverkusen are not going to stop them not even on their best days.
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OhforfSake
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posted December 11, 2014 04:10 AM
Edited by OhforfSake at 04:14, 11 Dec 2014.

Well look at the amount of really strong teams (Arsenal, Atl. Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Münich, Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Paris SG, Real Madrid) you can potentially add more if you like.. and take into consideration that there are teams who for reason or the other flops and doesn't get into CL or pass the group stage, and you end up with 8 really strong first positions and few really strong second placed teams.. finally add to that the limit of teams from same countries can't draw each other and you get what you see.. so I wouldn't say it has that much to do with luck.

Edit: It's "interesting" to see what Italian football has come to. It's 7 years ago Milan won CL during a period where they were one of the best team over 5 years and had 2 trophies from this time.. Now the by far strongest Italian side, Juventus, winning the league with incredible ease, isn't expected much chance against a standard top English side such as Chelsea.
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fuChris
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posted December 11, 2014 09:17 AM

Serie A is becoming like the bundesliga.
1 big team with superior finances(Bayern/Juve) that is running away with the title atleast half of the time and a constant rotation of good but not great teams behind them that are just not up to the task.
The question is, will portugal or france overtake them in the UEFA ranking?
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OhforfSake
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posted December 11, 2014 09:33 AM

Well the thing is that in the 90's and up until relatively recently, Serie A was a clear top league, top 2 from 1985 - 2003, top 3 from 2003 - 2010. At which point the Bundesliga overtook them and they've been fourth since.

Bundesliga on the other hand was not a constant in top four before  2009.

What happened recently is that the increased success of Bundesliga teams while the Italian teams have decreased in success quite a lot meant that now Bundesliga and Serie A has more or less switched place.

Bundesliga may not have achieved the score of La Liga or Premier League yet, but they're closer to Premier League than Serie A is to the Bundesliga.

As it looks this year Portugal is rather close to Italy, but it's also the closest we've ever seen as Portugal is higher than "ever" and Italy is on the low side. France with PSG might have the quality needed.. I don't really see Juventus as Bayern, Juventus have more titles than any other Italian teams, but unlike in Germany, the two Milan teams are obvious second in rank.. I don't see any obvious "second in rank" in Germany.
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fuChris
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posted December 11, 2014 10:04 AM

Inter and Milan havent been the "obvious" second rang since 2011.
To compare them to bundesliga teams they would be like Dortmund and Schalke of the 90's. A regional rivalry, both with catastrophic management but ridiculously large fanbase to help them stay afloat. Schalke is still in ~150mill debt and Dortmund has only managed to write off its debt in the last couple of years. And they still have downpayments for the construction of their arenas for the 2006 WC. Previously they almost went bankrupt due to the horrible management.

AS Rome is like Leverkusen, always good for second place but never going to win the league.
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OhforfSake
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posted December 11, 2014 10:17 AM

I meant through all time.

In Italy it's Juventus with 30 titles and the two Milano teams with 18 titles each. But e.g. Milan has more success than Juventus in CL. The rest goes from 9 and down.

On the other hand in the Bundesliga there's Bayern with 24 titles and otherwise the rest isn't that far from one another. They go from 9 and down.

German teams have for long been.. below average, but now they qualify through the CL group stages again and again.
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fuChris
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posted December 11, 2014 10:59 AM

They haven't been as good because they failed to capitalize on international TV markets like the English, Spanish and Italian leagues.
Serie A still makes more revenue from selling their TV rights than the Bundesliga so there is still some catching up to do, not to mention the multimedia behemoth that is the Premier League and the Barca-Real pair that literally carries the whole spanish division.
Back in the day Bayern decided they wanted to be the Real of germany and started behaving like that. Unfortunately there was no german Barca they could compare to and so we end up with the last 25 years of Bayern dominance. Hamburg, Bremen, Stuttgart, Leverkusen and Mönchengladbach all had a chance to grab on to the top but all failed. Now it's Dortmunds turn again and I hope they stay up there with Bayern because the world will end before Leverkusen win anything. Wolfsburg shows promise tho...

And Milan would not have been nearly that successful in the CL without Inzaghi. They haven't been since he hanged up his boots.
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Storm-Giant
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posted December 11, 2014 03:56 PM

There's a lot of chances for potential rematches.

Chelsea - PSG (last season SF)
RM - Schalke (last season QF)
Bayern - Arsenal (last TWO seasons Ro16 )
Dortmunt - MCity (two seasons ago Group Stage)

At the very least we should get a couple of sick matches in Ro16
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fuChris
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posted December 15, 2014 12:20 PM

The draw:

Paris Saint-Germain v Chelsea
Manchester City v Barcelona
Bayer Leverkusen v Atletico Madrid
Juventus v Borussia Dortmund
Schalke v Real Madrid
Shakhtar Donetsk v Bayern Munich
Arsenal v Monaco
Basel v Porto


I'm literally shocked we didn't get Arsenal - Bayern this year.
Otherwise some pretty epic matchups.



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OhforfSake
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posted December 15, 2014 01:59 PM

Yeah, but we got PSG - Chelsea, City - Barca and Real - Schalke.. SG was pretty spot on I guess.

The way I see it, not knowing what form the teams will be in when the games start:

PSG - Chelsea can go both ways with Chelsea as slight favorites.

Barcelona is favorites against City if for no other reason than City have never performed in CL and Spanish team in general do well against English sides.

Atl. Madrid are favorites against Leverkusen, but Leverkusen have good chances in my opinion. I think they'd have suffered more against Real Madrid, because Real is very consistent when it comes to matches vs. teams that are expected to be a level below them.

Dortmund are probably big favorites against Juventus, though I've this tendency to look at games like it was 98 and then it'd be the opposite, so it's so odd for me to say.

And as mentioned before, Real are big favorites against Schalke.

Finally, I see Bayern, Arsenal and Porto as favorites, with surprisingly Basel as my best candidate for making a surprise and Shaktar as the least likely to do so.



Now considering Arsenal was a second place team, their draw was a really lucky one.. the same goes for Basel in my opinion, but I am sure Porto won't complain!
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Storm-Giant
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posted December 15, 2014 02:07 PM

3 rematches of last season

Good draw for RM, feasible for Atleti and a though one for Barça, although they are still favourites.
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OhforfSake
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posted December 15, 2014 02:11 PM

Don't worry SG, I'm sure your beloved Barca team will do just fine!
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Storm-Giant
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posted December 15, 2014 02:17 PM

Yes, it would be to expect too much to see them fall at Ro16
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VokialBG
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posted December 15, 2014 08:17 PM
Edited by VokialBG at 20:24, 15 Dec 2014.

Can we get Bayern - Arsenal later?

Most interesting IMO: PSG v Chelsea and Juve v Borussia. I do not expect many suprises. Its very likely that almost all winners will get to the next stage. But the two maches here are harder to guess.
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OhforfSake
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posted December 15, 2014 08:22 PM
Edited by OhforfSake at 20:29, 15 Dec 2014.

If both go through, they might meet next round.

What about Porto - Basel and to a degree Atl. Madrid - Leverkusen?

I almost believe Leverkusen stand better chances against Atl. Madrid than Juventus against Dortmund.
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Storm-Giant
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posted December 15, 2014 10:13 PM

VokialBG said:
Juve v Borussia

Nah, recent history shows that Italian teams suck at Europe, BVB has it ez

Surprises can happen, but the only 'even' match I see is PSG - Chelsea. Let's not forget last season all group-stage winners advanced to QFs.
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OhforfSake
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posted December 15, 2014 10:45 PM

Well both PSG and Chelsea have teams capable of winning CL, so I gotta agree.

Also Real Madrid - Schalke will be interesting. Will real finally win a game after more than 50 years of defeat in every game? Will Christiano Ronaldo finally make a goal that is not an own goal? Will Bale stop running backwards? It'll be very interesting!
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Storm-Giant
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posted December 20, 2014 10:20 PM

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
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William
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posted January 01, 2015 07:05 PM

We had a panic buy in Balotelli, the team are only JUST starting to gel and even then we can only put in half arsed efforts against every single side. We desperately need a new goal keeper as Mignolet is absolutely rubbish. We need Sturridge back immediately. How we can fall from grace from just one player is beyond me but my god something needs to change.
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