News: FSU EuroCups 2013/14

Sucks to be a Spartak fan these days.

 

Schalke just bought Prince from Milan I'm fukin pissed. All Metalist's fault

I said the same thing, this group is 2nd or 3rd toughest

 

goliath we're obviously looking at the prospects of reaching the knock-out stage. Shakhtar and Zenit both have a better chance than CSKA to get in the top two.

 

This is true, yet Dima is right Shakhtar still have the better chance of advancing to the knockout than cska

 

Good result for Shakhtar, expected from CSKA who was missing many starters but it was always going to be a struggle anyway.

 

Huge result for Shakhtar. Sociedad only lost 1 game at home since Oct. 2012 (last month v. Atletico). They virtually went undefeated in Anoeta last season, running Real and Barca off the park. Even more impressive considering Shakhtar's poor form the past few weeks. I was skeptical they would advance but now all of a sudden they are in really good shape.

Expected from cska. Will they cash in on Honda this winter? Milan been waiting for 2 years now

 

Shakhtar were rubbish in the first half.
Kucher was terrible on the ball. You can really see the difference between his level of play and Rakitskiy's. When Sociedad pressed (and they did basically the whole game) Kucher was scared to make a pass forward and was basically either passing it to Srna or Pyatov. It was sad to watch. Rakitskiy on the other hand made some really good passes and runs from defence. A defender these days must know how to be able to push the ball forward when his whole midfield and attack is getting pressed and covered. Although Kucher ended up making a tackle on Vela on that semi one on one that possibly made up for his shit play.

Same can be said with Hubschmann who was fairly slow and scared of the ball along with being average in winning the ball and rightfully subbed off later in the game. Lucescu really needs to play Stepanenko more often so he gets more experience.

Adriano terrible in the first half. 2nd half started to win headers and hold the ball up and lay it off. Still just an average performance overall. Same can be said for Costa - average at best. Taison was pretty decent and helped on D, probably the best of the attacking line-up other than Teixera who scored 2 very good goals, especially the 2nd. I was expecting him to step up in this game and he really did. Fernando was hard working and overall had an acceptable game. It was hard for him to win the midfield battle alone, because Hubschmann was not helping much.
Srna made some usual defensive mistakes that he always tends to make, and his age isn't helping either. He did make one good cross that Costa laid off for Teixeira for the first goal. Shevchuk - average. Pyatov was solid.

 

Yea they were very cautious in the 1st half. Somewhat better in the 2nd half. It always looked like the game would end 0-0 or Sociedad would knick it 1-0. 2 great goals by Shakhtar though, should've been a 3rd but Adriano missed the target completely 7 yds out on the near post.

Kucher almost cost them that goal. For some reason he was 5 yds behind Rakitsky when Sociedad was getting ready to play the through ball. He tried to recover but luckily the ball was played before he could get level with Rakitsky so he had a decent angle to recover to block that shot. How slow Kucher is it was a miracle he got there just in time to tip it wide.

Yea hopefully we see more of Stepanenko pairing with Fernando, I can't stand Hubschman. Ridiculous he's been a 1st team regular all these years.

Pyatov was solid except for that one blunder. He tried to casually tip the ball over for a corner and his hand-eye coordination failed him, the ball tipping the upper 90 bar and falling to a Sociedad player in a dangerous position. Another fortunate moment they didn't get scored on from.

 

I had one eye on the Zenit game. Really unimpressed by them. A lot of these guys have been together for multiple years with the same coach. Really poor showing I thought. Atletico didn't even have Diego Costa, good god...

 

Zenit also missed Lombaerts and Shirokov, but Atletico was always going to be favored. I don't see Zenit getting out of this group.

 

Why didn't Shirokov play? and where is Criscito, not as good as Ansaldi or what? who was that keeper, some young Russian dude?

 

Criscito's about come off a knock and Shirokov picked one up and is out for three weeks.

Lodygin's the keeper's name. His family are ethnic Greeks from Russia, he's played for the Greek u21's but wants to play for Russia.

 

Apparently Chernomorets took over in the second half as the home side grew tired.

 

Impressive win by Odessa, wow coming back from 1-0 down in Europe to win? Very un-ukrainian like. These guys seem to be playing for their coach, they buy into everything about him. They will spill blood and do anything for him. So impressed by them.

Solid away win for Dnipro but mad it tense on ourselves, should have made it 2-0 earlier

Dynamo just disgraceful

 

You guys were just relegated 2-3 years ago, amazing turn around. This coach is special, players will do anything for him.

On the Russian side disappointing for Kuban but its their first go at Europe, plus starting away is never easy. Ok result for Anzhi I guess. Nice win for Rubin in their Seattle Sounders jerseys

 

Kuban fans in Rusia aren't going to take this too kindly. Swiss boys going to be in some hot water in the return fixture lol

 

Ha, nice.