Lucien Favre has qualified for the knock-out stages of the Champions League for the first time in his life. The knock-out stages are therefore uncharted territory for him. Favre has so far only played the last 32 of the Europa League twice, and both times he was knocked out, not a good omen. Let's hope he's not overawed by the fact that he's playing the knock-out stages of the Champions League for the first time, though it wouldn't be surprising if it was so.
I think too much is made out of this result. The opponent was going into the game with the intention of "not losing" and parked the bus from the get go. On the other side, it was eveident by the flow of the game that Favre placed most imprtance of qualifying for the knockout rounds, especially after our escapades last year, and the team played very conservatively without taking any unecessary risks. I can count on one hand the total number of attempted one-on-ones by our players to try and break the defense which tells me that there was no emphasis of taking risks. Do I agree with the lack of ambition? Hell no, but I do understand that after last year's showing the goal from the get go was making the knockout rounds and so that mission is accomplished. I also think most teams would struggle against such a compact, park-the-bus style but that will notbe the case in the knockout stages where we will have much more open games and systems that will favor our style much more and I am confident that BVB can play with all teams that are left in the competition.
I hope we win the group though as it could avoid a bigger euro team like real or Barca. However we all know we have to beat them at some point if we wanna win this thing.
That argument doesn't hold water. By half time it was clear that Brugge was going to have a hard time scoring so losing was never at risk. We'd have given up more low quality chances. The risk would have been worth the reward. On the flip side, we should have pulled all the stops to win because not scoring 3 points carries a bigger risk. Brugge need to get at least a draw in a couple of weeks. Until then our chances of a quarter final matchup in the CL is fairly slim.
I don't get all the fear about facing a big team in the next round. I know on paper a weaker team increases the odds of advancing, but BVB plays better against teams that want to play football. I mean sure you can get smoked if things go awry, but this season the team has answered most every challenge. BVB has a pretty good club. Burki is having a good season, the young CBs are miles of ahead of last years crew, I did like Socratis but he was clearly not up to it anymore. Hakimi is da bomb if you like fullbacks that get forward even if they are sometimes not the greatest defender. LP just put together a couple of pretty solid performances. Witsel is a difference maker, Reus is playing like, well Reus and it is a thing of joy to watch. Sancho and Puli can both be good on their day and Paco isn't doing bad at all. On their day that lot ought to be able to play with anybody.
I'm happy that Borussia Dortmund won their Champions League group for a number of reasons, like being the only club in our group that has actually WON a Champions League and finishing above Atlético which was a personal must for one who despises Spanish football as much as I do. Remember this is Favre's first ever foray into the knockout stages of the Champions League, so let's hope we get an accessible opponent like Roma, that way Favre won't have as much trouble getting the grip of the knockout stages.
If we win the CL its great. But if we dont then I want us to lose in the final. Its about making as much money as possible. So the weaker the team we face, the better.
My wishes..... I'd love to see a Dortmund-Liverpool final! On the way, I want us to beat one or a couple of the rich clubs like City, PSG and Bayern. I'd love to see Liverpool get revenge on Madrid. I have a feeling we'll get Totenham in the next round.
This is a great opponent for a first round knockout stage. A good team but one, any team with any aspirations should be able to beat. If we lose to them, we're not a Top 10 team, so it would put things into perspective.
Tottenham it is. Not an easy team but not too hard either. I think we have a chance to right last s season's wrong, where we lost both games, plus we get another chance to exorcise a few demons and finally win at Wembley Stadium. It also helps that we no longer have that useless dimwit Castro to fvck things up for us. About the other matches, I'm kinda rooting for Juventus vs Atlético, and I also hope Liverpool absolutely wreck Bayern, which would leave them with only domestic competitions to focus on but that's fine by me, as we'll need to stay competitively sharp until the season ends, because we've all seen what happens when you win the league too early.
This year's round of 16 is absolutely cracking. The match ups are fantastic. Bayern vs. Liverpool and Atletico vs. Juventus are awesome. So glad I will get to watch all of these awesome matches. United have finally started the process of kicking out Jose Mourinho. So perhaps even the United vs PSG matchup could be a cracker come Feb.
Spurs are definitely a winnable draw for us as we match up much better against them then last season plus we're a whole different team then a year ago. I have faith in Akanji being able to physically hang with Kane and Witsel and Delaney to neutralize Eriksen. The issues will be dealing with Son and Ali as we will need Hakimi and Piszczek to be on their A games.
It might be better for us if Bayern remained in the CL as long as possible. I think it helped us a little bit in our two latest title wins that we weren't in any European competition after the winter break anymore.
Yeah but if Bayern suffer an early exit leaving them with only domestic competitions to focus on it will force us to keep our competitive edge, and we need to stay sharp for the latter stages of the Champions League. Remember how having no competition domestically was (thankfully) Bayern's undoing in the Champions League.
Absolutely not. Them hanging around in that competition makes them financially stronger. KPMG and Deloitte have both revealed how the gap between us and them keep on increasing.
It's a shame to see Kane out, but it does increase the chances of us going through. Tottenham are going through an injury crisis at the moment, but I expect quite a few will be back for the games. With the latest developments we have to be favourites.