I think Nuno has been told the priority is getting back into the CL so I am not surprised at all by the selection. Frankly, there is really no incentive to waste first-team players in this competition.
I opted for vacuuming mom's pool, instead. That way I could hop in and splash around a bit to avoid the temptation to check back in on the match before it ended. I'm not gonna get worked up about this, as we should deal with them easily enough in the return leg, should we decide to do so. But that is the question, and if the answer is not to do so, then I will be supremely pissed off. We can still put out a 'weakened' side and take care of the tie, but perhaps a bit more of an attacking threat, and certainly more in reserve wouldn't exactly jeopardize our League season. We got a tad bit of a bad break in drawing a competitive team from the Portuguese league, rather than the eastern European minnows that will comprise most of this competition. I realize how pathetic that sounds, but the only point is that whereas the side we put out today would've probably taken care of business against most of what's out there, we clearly need a bit more cohesion against an established, organized Portuguese side. Again, I'm not worried, as we've got plenty enough to deal with them at home without resorting to a Prem-like side. But it'll take more commitment than what Nuno's set out today.
Sunday, handily beat the defending champions. Thursday lose to last season’s 5th place Portuguese Liga team. I know, not much worth taking from this match, but the juxtaposition is was as apt as it was expected.
The way they played today, they couldn't have handled anyone. If the point of this is to get the young players some game time, we need to put out a stronger team next time or else there won't be any more games for the young players.
This is such a crap competition from the perspective of the top 10 FA's and more so for the top 5. The prize money is garbage; likely doesn't even cover player insurance premiums for the year if you win the whole thing. So why risks your 1st or 2nd team in the first place? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Europa_Conference_League#Prize_money Then there is the amount of spots awarded. The only purpose this competition serves is to to get teams from the top 5/10 touring in lower tier FA's so those teams can charge ticket premiums. That's it. And, if the top 5/10 run out their youth or just field crap teams it defeats the whole purpose UEFA set. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Europa_Conference_League#Qualification UEFA need to pull their heads out of their backsides and realize a lower tier competition isn't going to be attractive outside of lower tier teams. No one from the big teams are going to risk star players on some goat pasture
Did you watch the game yesterday? It was no goat pasture. And our team - which included Gollini, Romero, Gil, Lo Celso, Doherty, Winks, Davies and Sessegnon - was soundly beaten. We aren't going to win the league or either domestic cup. This is Spurs' only chance to win something, but it won't be a cakewalk.
Roma's starting line up vs. Trabzonspor, seems pretty strong: 1 Rui Patrício 2 R Karsdorp 23 G Mancini 3 R Ibañez da Silva 5 M Viña 4 B Christante 17 J Veretout 22 N Zaniolo 7 L Pellegrini (c) 77 H Mkhitaryan 14 E Shomurodov If UEFA had really wanted to promote lower league participation they should have left out the largest countries completely, and allowed some team from Belgium or Slovakia become a European champion. But they didn't, probably for the reasons you describe, so I'm all in to try and win it. To Pook's point, the ranking of Pacos really puts them in Europa League territory, similar to a team like Antwerp who beat us in the group last year. When you look at the rankings of all the teams it's quite embarrassing the difference between us and Roma vs. the rest.
No I didn't watch the game yesterday. You know why? There's no TV deal for the league! Gee I wonder why that is? Lack of interest maybe on the part of broadcasters? So we had a good pitch to play on and we still didn't even field a decent team. Want to speculate what kind of team we are going to field and a shitty pitch?!? No shit we aren't going to win anything domestically with the dead wood we have. Thanks for stating the obvious. Win what? Some shit competition that's only purpose is the line the pockets of crap teams that couldn't qualify for better competitions when this competition didn't exist. Sorry if I don't excited for this competition. It's nothing more than a distraction.
I am telling you that is the priority of the Board and if Nuno wants to keep his job he will focus on the league and the domestic cups, not some useless competition.
If Spurs are in it, it's not useless, and it's more than a distraction. We're not utter shit, and we can compete on different fronts. But we've a changed and changing squad and it's gonna take a bit of time to gel - especially when we 'deprioritize'. Geebus. It's a long way to go yet, people.
Exactly. If they want to advance in this competition, they just need to play some better players - guys who might put some shots on goal. If it wasn't for one stupid mistake, it would have ended 0-0. Well, just 6 more days until we find out how seriously Spurs are taking this competition. I think it would be embarrassing to go out at this point, but I guess some people are hoping for that.
Believe me Nuno would be absolutely delighted if we go out and if we do finish top 4 and win a domestic cup, nobody would give a flying fadoo about how we did in the Europa Effing Conference League.
And if we win the League, no on will mind when we get dumped from the domestic cups. So let's just win the League, then. Sounds like a plan.
The problem with that is a lot of cup-winners would have to drop out because they would have also qualified for the CL. The ECWC was a big competition back in the day when only 1 team from each association qualified for the EC.
That's it in a nutshell. The 'lesser' UEFA tournaments will always be a shadow of the former UEFA Cup/CWC due to the bloating of the Champions League. And there's nothing to be done about the bloated CL. Too many 'big clubs' won't dare reduce their likelihoods of getting in. And I agree that the Conference is a crap tournament, but we're in it, aren't we? And there is nothing honorable/respectable/laudable/enjoyable/virtuous-in-any-way about not making a fist of it. Deprioritizing is fine - I'm not bent out of shape about last Thursday - but not to the point where it's clear that we simply don't care.
Another reason to give it a go is the Champions League changes planned to start 2024. That includes places for the 2 highest-ranked teams who haven't otherwise qualified. If all you care about is CL, success in this competition could contribute to getting us there, by improving our ranking.
If we have a good team, we will be in the CL. If we need points from the Conference League to have a remote chance of getting into the CL, the club will really be in sad shape.
Having a good UEFA coefficient is very much worthwhile, particularly for a club like us, should we get back into the CL. The group stages there are much easier navigated coming out of pot B than pot C. Failing in the 'lesser' tournaments does us no favors, unless one thinks the League is the only football that matters.
Stronger on paper than last week, for sure. But still very little cohesion in attack. Kane and Moura have played together plenty, but beyond that ... I could see us struggling (again) to threaten. Hope I'm wrong, of course.