BVB 2012-2013 Champions' League Thread [R]

Shaktar have sold Willian to Anzhi. So while this is will still be a tough match up Dortmund must be ready for, it never helps a team to lose their star.

 

I freely admit I don't know much about Shaktar. How big a loss is this? Do they have a capable back up option?

 

They'll still be dangerous as they still have some good attackers, but Willian was one of their two top players along with Mkhitaryan. It is a big loss.

 

Mkhitaryan is very good but Willian and Fernandinho are by far the two best players.
Willian was creating so many chances and scoring too. The opposition players simply can`t take the ball from him. He will be a massive loss. They will play us in 3 weeks. It is not enough time to adjust. Every attack was going through him.
Of course they still have Douglas Costa who has been tipped for stardom(''the next Ronaldinho) for 3-4 years. He's still only 22 years old. I remember he played very well last season.
Also, Alex Teixeira on the right wing looked promising in the Champions league games I saw.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot that they signed Taison. That guy is very good. I was wondering why they sold their best player. So they already had the replacement.

 

Eh, I wasn't as impressed with Fernandinho. Willian was their best player, but I was more impressed with Mkhitaryan than anybody else on that team. Costa and Teireira are talented, and bringing in Taison keeps them deep, but it'll Mkhitaryan that's at the center of their attacks from now on.

BTW Anzhi will be dangerous as hell in the CL next year. The combo of Eto'o, Willian, Traore, Boussoufa, Smolov and Zhirkov will be very hard to keep off the score sheet. With that slow and methodical style of play they'll be a bitch to play against so long as they adequately replace Samba.

 

I was extremely impressed with Fernandinho the three times I saw him this season. That boy can play for pretty much any top team in the world( of course not barca but the rest yes). He is 27, in his prime. Great dribbler, very quick, good passer, creative and tackles well. He is the type of midfielder Man City needs(I am not convinced of Rodwell,Barry, Garcia)

 

Think of this. Willian is quite among the best in the world on his position. Definitely better than most top clubs have on their wings. And if he wasn't our most useful player, he definitely was amongst top-3. All statistics also prove that. Also he made the most assists every season for the last 3 seasons. And I do believe that I'm not biased here. Quite a loss indeed.
Yes, Shakhtar had quite a good backup in every position and especially in attacking part of the midfield, so nothing really bad going to happen to us and we remain not much less dangerous attacking-wise, no doubts of that. And, as it was stated, we added Taison just in case of this. But they just can't play at Willian's level at the moment and maybe they'll never grow up to Willian's level at all. And Taison not a fair replacement to be honest. They not perform as brilliant.
So it will be a little bit easier for BVB, that's sums it up.

And that's a sign of big team and good management.

True and they were the main supliers for Mkhitaryan. He wouldn't scored as much without assistance like that.

DC is mentally weak person and player who probably spoil his crazy talent not living up to expectations. Also selfish on the pitch, underperformer, lack of stamina. He lacks all the things that Willian have. With Willian riddance he got another chance to change that. Not quite a threat he was at 2010.
He twice as gifted as Alex Teixeira, but Alex doing better just because he's motivated professional.

But he spends not nearly as much as Abramovic, Shakhtar budget is 90M Euro a season last 3 years and that's pretty much includes everything. Shakhtar quite a modest buyer too despite some beliefs, especially comparing to russian clubs like Anzhi and Zenit.
However, Akhmetov is a chairman every club can dream about, commited to the dream and pushing club forward in every possible direction, not just loads money on transfers.

Shakhtar just couldn't stop Willian being trasfered as Anzhi used release clause fee. But it seems strange to me as he dreamed to leave Shakhtar for world's top club making a really outstanding career and also to change the living place because his family was putting pressure on him being incomfortable in Ukraine. In reality he just downgraded both in club level and living place. Strange decision, logically could explained by the desire to leave Shakhtar and get paid twice as much he used to in Shakhtar.
But Anzhi trully a potential club and I give them like 50% chance to win this season's Russian league first time in their history. They could cause lots of upsets in Europe if they keep it up.

 

I like him but I was underwhelmed with his passing, didn't seem to make the incisive pass from deep very well. He moves the ball to the attackers reasonably well and can run at the defense, but if you leave him with the room he won't kill you with his passing range. As for him on City the fits not bad, but I do like Garcia quite a bit more as he's better defensively and a quicker distributor. He's no Busquets, but I do think he's a little ahead of Neustadter, who I also rate higher than Fernandinho.

 

Couldn't agree more on the first part of your post.
Mhitaryan is a man who putting attacking efforts of Shakhtar into goals. In Lucescu's current vision ST should mainly pick up trough balls and either go for goal or pass back and safe the ball (which Adriano doing most of the time) and also draw attention of the defenders, creating spaces for incoming midfielders. So he always ditched high-scoring strikers over those who can play well teamwise facing own goalkeeper.
Mkhitaryan (plays at AM position in centre) is the man who using his speed to enter that spaces and score (Fernandinho made most of the assist on him that way), basically he's a true striker, despite playing under Adriano. Also he use roaming, positioning to score some one-touch long-shots receiving passes from wing (Willian was just great for making them).

What Adriano did was just stupid and the whole thing was very sick. But I believe he just didn't process it properly. Also I believe all the hype they made of it was just a double standart hypocrisy. Barca actually won a UCL match vs Shakhtar just because they scored like that. Lots of clubs did it. And only Shakhtar "reputation" was put on the risk and only Adriano who ever were banned for it. On this part I disagree with UEFA authority.
Also Zenit scored somewhat similar against us like a week ago http://video.shakhtar.com/en/v4661 It didn't help them much though. Also second Shakhtar goal is a pure example of Ferna-Mkhitaryan combination.

 

They bassically are wingbacks and they attack a slightly more than do defensive duties. Rat (left) and Srna (right) both in the club since 2003 and they're very good assistants. Both are captains of their national teams. Rat sometimes lose it and play awful (need to be replaced long time ago), but Srna always was solid and amongst top players on his position on the planet. He enjoyed his best years lately and started declining a bit this season due to age. Shakhtar not so good defensively overall, but high skill of ball/game control take away most of the harm from it.
There was 2 formations under Lucescu, 4-1-2-1-2 (which transformed to 4-2-2-2 at times) and since 2009 and now it's 4-2-3-1. That's the only formation Shakhtar use these days.
Pyatov's solid, but prone to do stupid mistakes in the most important games which cost Shakhtar away Chelsea game for example. He has some sweeper duties and do them well, with those exeptions.

 

There's former ukrainian NT players as fullbacks - Shevchuk (l) and Kobin (r). And if Shevchuk (the fastest player by top speed at Shakhtar btw) is nearly equal replacement for Rat, if Srna gets injured we're pretty much screwed, yeah.
There will be no environmental consequenses. I laughed so hard when Marco Reus said that it's harsh that it might be -20 in Ukraine, while in fact in Ukraine was warmer in that day than in Germany, I've checked. Stereotypes. Also Donbass Arena has heating system that adds up to +14C comparing to the street.
I agree on similarity part, actually, I've seen it watching BVB games. I've pretty impressed with Borussia perfomace right now, it's a little scary. Shakhtar has no official fixtures before UCL game, but we playing lots of friendlies, all the results (including all the recent friendlies) this season: http://shakhtar.com/en/matches/ just watch the date.

 

Ask the English, Spanish and Dutch champions

 

Very well said guys.

 

I am particularly interested in this weekends BVB match. Our defense has only conceded once in the last three matches. Playing at Leverkusen will be a tougher test. I think we will generate our chances versus Shaktar. BVB always seems to be good at generating chances, but I want to feel good that we can limit their chances.