Posted on 05/21/2015 6:04:09 AM PDT by kevkrom
Odds are this will be Brendan Rodgers’ final game for Liverpool. Not as much drama this season as a few years’ ago when City won it in injury time, just as United thought they had it sewn up.
Europa League is kind of like the NIT of European Soccer.
Funny, that’s exactly the analogy I use when explaining Europa to the casual fan.
Thanks for the ping.
I know...it’s like the 3rd place game at the World Cup...totally worthless.
Messi!!!!! Goooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!
I don't understand why Suarez didn't get an endorsement deal from a dental benefits plan or a network of dentists.
Yep, Europa League definitely didn’t help Everton in the league this year, they’ll be lucky to finish in the upper half.
He’s been behaving at Barcelona, and I hope for his sake and their sake this continues. He seems to have matured.
What a talent! As long as he can keep his teeth to himself.
Barcelona and Real Madrid too, always get the best talent. That part I don’t like and yes, Barca has Suarez.
Thanks for the ping, everyone enjoy the games.
If not said, Hull need to defeat Man Utd. and Newcastle needs to draw or lose and then, Newcastle goes down, a lot of people want that.
Jake Livermore, Hull player, has played for the U teams of England tested positive for cocaine.
Injuries can pull a team down, also something like this. I also wonder if maybe other Hull players could be using, those kinds of things have happened. I think the NO Saints years ago with one of their sorry teams was thought to have had a lot of players using drugs.
I’m happy if a Seville, a Fulham, etc. can have a chance at silverware myself meaning the Europa.
Barcelona, Real Madrid, onto AC Milan and other teams, too many trophies, has not Real won the CL 10 times.
Except that it also places a severe drain on your following season, as opposed to being a bone thrown to the not-quite-good-enoughs for the current season.
IMHO FIFA (& UEFA especially) allows way too many unnecessary tournaments/cups. Europa, Gold Cup, the now defunct Cup Winners Cup, Confederations Cup...
How many tournaments do we really have to have to prove something?
Tottenham if they win this week will be in the Europa Cup for the 5th or 6th year in a row. Pochettino even said it may be better that they don’t qualify for that competition so they can focus more on the domestic league.
RM has 10 CL trophies.
IIRC it used to be that nobody cared about the Euro tournaments. If you were an English team, you probably wanted to win The FA Cup, even more than the League, and Europe was more of a novelty.
Now it’s all about Europe, and the good clubs pretty much now blow off the FA Cup, and care more about being Top Four than necessarily winning the League.
On the other hand, though I wouldn’t agree with the analogy myself, one could also say Continental Cups like the Gold Cup and Euro Cup pale compared to the World Cup, why hold those?
Real Madrid especially has always been able to get the best players, Di Stefano, Puskas up to Zidane. Barcelona in the last 20 years moreso with Ronaldinho and Messi. I’d say too, both teams have had a number of stars from their own country of Spain.
So, it may be a good argument if one says Liverpool doesn’t need to fool around with a Europa League schedule.
So, I definitely think it is a mix of good and bad.
Makes sense, Juve big underdogs vs. Barcelona. The Catalans.
Also, they just make it so these clubs play as many games as possible to make money for UEFA and FIFA.
They should play less games in the Champions League, that’s another problem with the schedule of games. Same for the Europa.
Newcastle stays up, Hull down,
Spurs take 5th and in the Europa League, Liverpool blown out.
http://us.soccerway.com/national/england/premier-league/20142015/regular-season/r25191/
I do admit, with the Europa league, some of the early matches midweek have dreadful attendances especially if it is playing against some relatively obscure team.
Man Utd. might have taken it easy on Hull I heard someone say, Bruce played for them.
I still think the players let Bruce and Hull City down, Bruce did kind of okay.
6-1?!?!?!?! Are you kidding me?!?!?!?!
No way Rodgers is back now.
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