Champions league and Europa league thread (General)

Been watching Roma -Vitesse. Wow, Roma are really bad. Vitesse should be up 0-1 but Openda missed a sitter.

EDIT: and right at the stroke of halftime, Roma get a garbage goal on a carom inside the box. I'm sure Mourinho will now bunker his team down and go for the 1-0 win. How I hate the man.

 

Feyenoord were the only Dutch club to take care of business tonight. AZ got royally screwed with a late penalty call that clearly was not. PSV tanked again with a leaky defense but did end up even at 4-4. Vitesse couldn't come back from the fluke goal against Roma who were really bad. Let's hope that things turn out better next week with all four in action in the return leg along with Ajax at home against Benfica.

 

Did you see the awful call against AZ in the 90th minute. No way was that a penalty as the defender clearly got to the ball. VAR would have overturned it.

 

Vitesse have Roma at home; I'm not so sure this is done and dusted.

 

My bad, I thought it was a home game for Roma because of their shirts.

 

Correct, no VAR.

 

Not really. I don't think the Europa League had them last year and this new Conference League has a lot of teams from small countries that don't have the money to implement VAR in their leagues.

 

It's not saying much but Ajax are much better than Juventus. I wonder if de Ligt will try to force a transfer this summer. Juve have so many holes to fill and a lot of aging players.

 

In what regard: de Ligt wanting to leave Juventus or Juventus having a poor team and too many old players? First they have a bloated payroll and were fortunate to off load Ronaldo to stupid ManU. Other than de Ligt, their back line is old (Cheillini and Bonucci) or not very good.(Rugani). The FBs are rubbish and can neither defend nor link up well. the midfield is a mess, even Klaassen is better than any of their starters.. Dybala plays maybe every other match and even then not the whole game. Their best player Chiesa went down with a knee injury. Morata is on loan and not worth keeping They really lucked out in getting Vlahovic who forced a transfer from Fiorentina.

 

I have probably watched 2.3 of all Juve matches this season and regularly post over on their forum (you can go over there and see how their own supporters rate players. I did not say all the players were old but a significant number are. I noted that Chiesa was hurt and he was probably the most dangerous attacker on the team before Vlahovic joined in January. the other players you note with the exception of de Ligt, have not played well at Juve and are dead weight under Allegri. Whether they would be better under another manager is an open question. Kean has not impressed at any club he has played for. McKennie works hard but is a Klaassen-like MF. Rabiot is a cipher, he plsys well for the French NT but is pretty awful at Juve. Bernadeschi is not outstanding.

Cuadrado's best days are behind him and he stays on the ball too long and is quite selfish. Alex Sandro and Danilo are past their prime. Demiral was poor for Juve but is playing well for Atalanta. They tried to get rid of Rugani but nobody would take him. Kulusevski was quite bad and Juve spent too much money for him.

Dutch football is played at a much higher tempo than Serie A. Players are not as good in terms of the top group of teams but beyond the top group, most Italian teams are very poor.

[quote[Well after the CL exist the management will come to terms with and start building the team around the youngsters they have.[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, they have real money problems at Juve, not as bad as Barcelona but the debt is high. It is one of the reasons they are pushing for the breakaway league. they are lucky in that the remaing sechedule other than the match against Inter is quite weak and they probably will hold on to fourth place by the skin on their teeth.

 

AZ lose in extra team to a Norway team that has not played a league match since November (they have a long winter break because of cold weather). Disappointing.