Official 2014-15 Club Soccer/Football Discussion Thread

[bore]

And just as I write this, Celtic has won the challenge and will be re-instated:

Celtic have been reinstated to the Champions League after Legia Warsaw were handed a harsh penalty by Uefa for fielding an ineligible player.

Legia won the third qualifying round tie 6-1 on aggregate but brought on Bartosz Bereszynski for the last four minutes of their 2-0 second-leg victory at Murrayfield, while he was supposed to be serving a suspension.

Uefa on Friday punished the Polish club by awarding the game 3-0 to Celtic, meaning the Scottish champions progressed on away goals having lost the first match in Warsaw 4-1.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/aug/08/celtic-reinstated-champions-league-uefa-legia-warsaw

Boooo

[Gass3268]

Ted Lasso is back!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRqypM7jb5Y#t=156

[Keystone Phil]

Folks. I don't think I can stress enough how important it is that Napoli get through. We need all teams related to the Spanish federation to be embarrassed this year.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Awful. The kid was on for 3 minutes at the end of the game and had absolutely no influence of it, and the original 6-1 aggregate kills any argument that Celtic deserves to move on.

[Keystone Phil]

Probably a UEFA conspiracy. I mean, who besides Warsaw (and Rangers) fans didn't want to see Celtic and the fans in the CL?

[patrick1]

Oh wow, I completely missed this news but miss Henrik Larsson more.  Very poor display from Deila and co.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Given that we were talking about Scottish football here I also want to say lolrangers.

[Middle-aged Europe]

On Tuesday: UEFA Super Cup between Champions League winner Real Madrid and Europa League winner Sevilla. A Spain vs. Spain match just like the recent Champions League Final.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_UEFA_Super_Cup

On Wednesday: DFL-Supercup between Bundesliga champion Bayern Munich and Bundesliga runner-up Borussia Dortmund. Coincidentally, this will be the third year in a row that these two teams face each other in the Supercup (2012 was won by Bayern, 2013 by Dortmund).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_DFL-Supercup

[Keystone Phil]

P$G beat Napoli 2-1 in the super prestigious, massive Aqua Lete Cup in Naples today.

But on a positive note, Lavezzi was applauded while Cavani was jeered through the match.

[Tender Branson]

German Super-Cup starts in ca. 15 minutes:

Dortmund vs. Bayern

Live Stream here.

[Tender Branson]

Dortmund beats Bayern by 2-0 in the German Super Cup:

[Middle-aged Europe]

The commentators attributed Bayern's defeat to a "World Cup curse". No German club contributes more players to the German national football team than Bayern Munich. And because the Bayern players are exhausted after a World Cup participation, Bayern supposedly suffers a sub-standard season immediately following a WC. Which is good news for the rest of the Bundesliga because it levels the playing field.

Anyhow, Bayern was indeed pretty weak yesterday, with the notable exception of Manuel Neuer who was awesome as ever. But he can't replace a weak defense all on his own for 90 minutes. The way Bayern played it could have very well ended in a 5-0 without Neuer as goalkeeper. Dortmund's performance on the other hand was pretty strong and solidified their unofficial status as "Germany's Barcelona" (Dortmund has become to Bayern what Barcelona is to Real). So, the yellow ones are possibly on their way to their sixth Bundesliga championship.

[Tender Branson]

A Swedish columnist for the major newspaper Aftonbladet recently compared Red Bull Salzburg to Hitler and Fritzl:



http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/kolumnister/ronniesandahl/article19349861.ab



Red Bull Salzburg will play Malmö for the CL-Playoffs soon.

The perfect answer to this Swedish moron would be a solid trashing of Malmö ...

[Yeahsayyeah]

The cans just need to vanish! Of course, they may stay in Salzburg as you wish, but they should surely vanish from my (now ex-)hometown of Leipzig.

Nonetheless, the German Cup is starting it's first round (Friday till Monday). The mode is one match knockout.

The mode of drawing that is used nowadays automatically leads to no matches of Bundesliga sites against each other. But there is a history of upsets of highly regarded professional clubs by smaller ones. In 1994 FC Bayern was defeated by famous TSV Vestenbergsgreuth that later merged with Spielvereinigung Fürth to the now named SpVgg Greuther Fürth (which is of course the most silly name in German professional football). By the way I'm now officially rooting for "Uhlenhorster SC Paloma" from Hamburg in this round *g*

Some matches to follow:

Chemnitzer FC - FSV Mainz 05
Chemnitz is front-runner of the 3rd League after four matches, and Mainz was not very convincing in the Europa League qualifiers, which they lost against Asteras Tripolis from Greece

Vfl Bochum - VfB Stuttgart
Bochum is the front-runner of the 2nd Bundesliga and Stuttgart has a history of silly first-round defeats.

RasenBallsport Leipzig - SC Paderborn 07
Never mind what I said about Fürth converning silly team names... Matheschitz' German "project", fourth after two matches in the second league against last year's sensational first-league promoters Paderborn. This is probably a match, where no team is favoured.

Dynamo Dresden - FC Schalke 04
Will be automatically interesting because of the die-hard supporters on both sides.

Bayern has to play at Preußen Münster, Dortmund at Stuttgarter Kickers.

As I am now in Berlin: Union Berlin, the best of all clubs here *g*, has to travel to the Schwäbische Alb to meet their new 2nd league colleagues of FC Heidenheim, there.

The mediocre Western club of Hertha BSC has almost a bye, meeting Viktoria Köln from the Regionalliga West (fourth tier)

The German champion of 1908 and 1911, Viktoria Berlin, has won last year's Berlin Cup and is also competing. They are now in the Regionalliga Nordost and get a visit from Eintracht Frankfurt.

[Lief 🗽]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

What must Davey Moyes be thinking now?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

topkek

[Keystone Phil]

Today will be complete (in a Soccer sense) when ArsenaLOL lose.

[Bacon King]

Today will be complete (in a Soccer sense) when ArsenaLOL lose.

Crystal Palace was ahead but Arseanal just evened it up right before half time

If there's one thing everyone can agree on in Football/Soccer, it's that the English BigBux Megabastard teams are terrible

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Today will be complete (in a Soccer sense) when ArsenaLOL lose.

Crystal Palace was ahead but Arseanal just evened it up right before half time

If there's one thing everyone can agree on in Football/Soccer, it's that the English BigBux Megabastard teams are terrible

Arsenal are the least bad of those though...

[Lief 🗽]

Yeah Arsenal are loveable underdogs.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Yeah Arsenal are loveable underdogs.

lolno.

[Bacon King]

I first learned about English soccer from a guy who was a hardcore Spurs fan so the anti-Arsenal bias has probably stuck with me over the years

[Lief 🗽]

a guy who was a hardcore Spurs fan

I'm so sorry. You will be in my thoughts and prayers.

[Keystone Phil]

Yeah Arsenal are loveable underdogs.

...

[Tender Branson]

Tomorrow is the 1st Champions League play-off game between Red Bull Salzburg & Malmö !

My prediction: 3-1 for RBS



If they advance to the CL group stage, it would be the first time since the 1994-95 season that a team from my state (Salzburg) is in a CL group stage.

The referee tomorrow will be Nicola Rizzoli (ITA), who officiated the 2014 World Cup Final between GER & ARG.