Eh maybe it will be France's year in european competitions. I've always wanted ligue 1 sides to take the uefa cup more seriously. Any of our teams left can take it, if they make it a priority.
Only St. Etienne will make it a priority because the other 2 teams are chasing Champions League spots. That being said, PSG and OM will be favored in their matches. St. Etienne will be underdogs again but the Champions League is out of reach for Bremen which means they can focus on the UEFA Cup which isnt good news for ASSE.
there is vast improvement in french clubs this season. 3 teams in the last 16 is an improvement. whether uefa cup is priority or not, the quality of the teams have improved. (this is reflected in L1 as well top 5 clubs are going at it ) a french only final would be dream come to true
Un 1-1 fatal au Barça ? Aussi étonnant que cela puisse paraître, Barcelone n’a jamais réussi à se qualifier en Ligue des Champions après un résultat nul 1-1 à l’extérieur. Cette situation s’est produite à deux reprises. En 92-93, au 2e tour, les Catalans avaient été éliminés par le CSKA Moscou (1-1 en Russie, 1-2 à Barcelone). idem en 1/4 de finale en 2002-03, face à la Juventus (1-1 en Italie, 1-2 après prolongation à Barcelone). Is that true ? that Barça never qualified itself when it brought back a 1-1 draw from the away match.
Yeah but two matches are not enough to indicate a trend. Realistically, Lyon has an uphill battle at the Camp Nou.
good UEFA cup week for french clubs... even bordeaux pulled off a miracle, in a perverse kind of way!
I know a lot of you wanted the St. Etienne-Milan matchup but I'm glad its Bremen instead because it will be a more competitive match and greater chance for an upset.
So Marseille advances past Ajax into the quater finals and St. Etienne gets knocked out by Werder Bremen. PSG plays today.
i must admite that tyrone mears, who in his first appearances seemed a perfect goat to me, was good against PSG and very good against ajax. bonnart has lost his spot or i'm much mistaken.
He's pretty poor going forward, in my opinion, so against the lesser teams I'm not sure how useful he'd be. And he's messed up the offside trap a couple time, but that could easily be a communication thing. But, yea, he's surprised me.
PSG are up 1-0 late. Beautiful header by Hoarau on a free kick. Le Guen looks like a genius for bringing him on for Kezman so late. Giuly, Makalele and Rothen arent even playing.
PSG hold on and win 1-0. First time since 2004 that we have 2 French teams in the UEFA Cup quater-finals. Good job guys.
None of my feed worked to the end of the game, I missed the goal as well. Anyway, happy to see the PSG in the QFs.
It looked like Giuly and Rothen were ready to come on but they never did. After the goal was scored they werent needed. I hope for the quater-final legs all the starters play but I guess they wont happen since they still will be fighting for a CL spot. I wonder if Hoarau will start. Whoever they play will be much stronger than Braga. Rest Makalele if you want because he's 36 but Giuly and Rothen need to be out there.
The next round will be very hard. Its very hard to win in Eastern Europe and the Ukranian teams season is just starting. I dont know what to expect other than to hope for the best.
Will we ever win the European Cup... ...or should we first learn what that strange word "win" means ?
Of course, some French club will win the European rugby cup (someday). On a quand même vu de beaux arrêts, aujourd'hui.
This is the last year of the UEFA Cup before it becomes the Europa League. That means no French team has or will ever have won it. I dont know what to say about that really. Swedish, Belgian, Turkish, Russian and now possibly Ukranian teams all have won it but no French. Kinda embarassing if you think about it really. That being said, PSG was really not good enough to win it or make the final. They lost to a team thats the best in its league and PSG isnt even one of the best 5 French teams at the moment. Not to mention Le Guen refused to play all out to win it. As for OM, I think they were good enough to make the final if they had all their players available but they didnt so they lost to the 2nd best team in their league. Its not an embarassing defeat either but a disapointing one though Im sure all their fans would rather win the league anyway. We'll see what happens next year in Europe but we had 2 Uefa Cup quater-final teams this year and next year in Europa league we could easily have zero at this same time so really you have to capatilize on your chances when you get them because you just never know when they may come. As for Champions League, we know where thats headed in that certain teams are pretty much ticketed already out of the group stages while the French teams (OL, OM, Bordeaux or who over) will have to scratch and claw as usual to advance out of the group stages. It doesnt look good for Thirez's "footpro 2012" plan at the moment. 2 Champions League quater finalists and 1 winner ? Yeah right we cant even make the UEFA Cup semi finals.