I've read the name of Sparta's scorer Christina Marie Burkenroad, and it's somehow familiar to me. Had you posted anything about her in the past, @ASU55RR? In that case I can't manage to retrieve that post.
I did in the Yanks abroad thread since the club has a video on youtube in which she shares some past hardships: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/yank-women-abroad-2019.2092345/page-12#post-38085826
Thanks, I was looking for that post on the international boards and of course I wasn't finding it. I am happy that this strong girl is being successful with her team.
Remaining matches. Tonight's action. Round of 32 - First leg: Fiorentina 0 - 4 Arsenal Miedema 18, 51, Little 32, Evans 55 Spartak Subotica 2 - 3 Atletico Madrid Slovic 45+2(p), Matic 79 - Da Silva 20, 55, Virginia 90 Anderlecht 1 - 1 BIIK Kazygurt Vanhamel 71 - Litvinenko 53(p) RC: Rus 66 (And) Braga 0 - 7 Paris Saint-Germain Katoto 7(p), 32, 61, Formiga 41, Diani 47, Huitema 90+3, 90+5 Lugano 1 - 7 Manchester City Dickerman 41 - Stanway 26, Mannion 48(p), Bremer 65, 77, Weir 83, Beckie 85, Wullaert 90+4
I wanna bet that Huitema was a late sub, but she anyway made sure her minutes were counting! Impressive that Lugano managed to keep it tied in first half! (Although the floodgates opened later in 2nd half! ).
No real surprises today... *maybe* BIIK drawing Anderlecht, but BIIK has always seemed to punch a bit above what we'd expect. And no more home wins! (One of the away wins was technically by a lower-seeded team, but IIBH Arsenal is only unseeded b/c/o UEFA's silly rolling-five-year coefficient system.)
She had a short spell in Norway for Grand Bodø a couple of years ago. You might have picked up that name in "my" thread. Good to see Burkenroad is having success. I also noticed Shade Pratt in the Braga line-up tonight. She played in Norway too recently for Røa and Stabæk, but struggled to find a starting spot. I admire these American journey women, who are far from making their NT squad, but come overseas to seek a future as pro footballer in whatever league they can find in these exciting times when Euro club woso is blossoming like never before. They are following a dream and I applaud that.
BIG news: Change coming to Women’s Champions League....16-team group stage could be introduced by UEFA in 2021, replacing the current knockout format throughout.2-team quota per country set to become 3 (Chelsea missed out this season as Arsenal and City qualified)https://t.co/uYAQBpm08O— Rob Harris (@RobHarris) September 13, 2019
I'm excited and also hesitant at the news... A 16-team groups stage when top countries can send 3 teams each to the competition overall sounds maybe a little restrictive. If *just* the top 4 nations get 3 teams each, that could be 12/16 group teams, especially if they're all dropped straight into the groups. It also shortens the drama of the KO phase. I guess what could potentially work is have nations 1-4 get 2 direct group stage spots each and nations 5-8 get 1 direct spots each, then have the champions/non-champions qualifying playoffs for everything else as the men currently do. Even that's still a bit restrictive, though, as you'd have the X champions from nations 12+ play for, say, 2 spots and the 12 non-champions from nations 1-12 play for another 2 spots. Maybe just have the champions from 1-8 get direct groups spots and then do 4 playoffs spot for other champions and 4 playoff spots for the 16 non-champions? Ugh, I still don't like it... I'd like a 24-team group stage feeding in to an R16, honestly.
I think her role is even more important this season since her main strike partner (and last years lead goal-scorer) Andrea Staskova moved to Juventus. She says that she wants to return to NWSL one day if possible, but has been (along with Megan Dorsey) complimentary of the club's level of professionalism and the city as a place to live which is probably helping them attract more American players. The big problem for the two Czech giants is that they are the only 2 truly professional sides in an 8 team league, and its hard to push yourself when you regularly are beating other teams by 10 goals - Slavia already have a +21 goal differential 3 games into the season, including a 2-1 against Sparta. Plzen has a good youth team for women's players that the Prague teams often raid (Svitkova, Votikova...), but haven't invested at all in a legitimate professional team despite being the 3rd big club on the men's side. Slovacko seem to actually have an interest in being semi-professional, but even on the men's side its a poor team in a small city. I will say though, for the first time I do actually notice that the game is growing in Czech, not rapidily, but just a steady increase in interest and quality of younger players.
Agreed, my take from the article is the big clubs want preferential treatment and avoid playing each other in the early rounds ie direct qualifcation to the group stage and also more slices of the cake by having 3 teams for the big nations which we all assume would be the top 4 : Germany, France, England, Sweden. This year we had 62 entries so that would mean maybe 66 entries with the new format. Clearly the big 4 won't get 12 out of 16, otherwise they might as well rename it the big 4 tournament. So top 4 get 2 teams in that's half of the field set and 8 places available via the play-offs. With a qualifying round group stage as it is right now and the group winners get to fight for the 8 slots against the champions 5-12. And I would be surprised to see them adopt the champions route and the non champions route like in the men's competition, because the big countries do not want to play each other before the group stage. Chelsea v Montpellier as a play-off game has no value. They would rather see Chelsea v Limassol and Montpellier v Breidablik.
Well, the UWCL does already have precedent for mixing champions & non-champions in the qualifying stages... But my thought was that, if they adopt a good group stage, there are enough lower-nation votes that a champions path to the groups sounds like a lock to me. As much as the big countries would want an easy path to the groups, I would doubt UEFA as a whole would let that happen.
Crunched some crude numbers based off my elo ratings (that I haven't updated since August 1st)... Teams in green have their home match in the second leg. Orange numbers on the left are just highlighting the close outcomes from the first leg. R2 is the final, R32 is the current knockout round. Of note, two things that stand out to me. 1. The ratings really love Piteå and are really unimpressed with Brøndby. Piteå outshot Brøndby 19-2 in the first match but still fell 1-0. The next leg should be very interesting as Piteå is on the road. 2. BIIK and Zurich are rated very highly to move on but they had a lot of trouble in their matches against some minnows. I don't think the +80% ratings are incredibly accurate but we'll see how the second legs go. As far as looking forward, tough opponents teams are going to want to avoid in the second pot are Arsenal and Atletico Madrid. Fiorentina got a very tough draw with Arsenal in the R16 and paid for it, despite having the higher coefficient.
Slavia vs Hibernians about to kick off, no idea on crowd. While Slavia stuck to their commitment to play all WCL matches in the Eden Arena they had a scheduling overlap as the men's team were the "home team" for a cup match and had to play about 25 minutes away in Zizkov. They are in a good position, there was an interesting little interview with defender Deneisha Blackwood. My personal favorite part is: And Slavia score in the first 5 minutes, hard to see Hibernians overcome a 4 goal deficit.
FT Slavia 5 - 1 Hibernian LFC (2052 attendance) Slavia advance 9-2 aggregate, the margin in the first leg was probably a little harsh on Hibernian but overall a clear gap in quality.
Tonight's action. Round of 32 - Second leg BIIK Kazygurt 2 - 0 Anderlecht Rose 27, Litvinenko 85(p) BIIK Kazygurt won 3-1 on aggregate. Lyon 7 - 0 Ryazan-VDV Le Sommer 18, Parris 21, 88, Cascarino 40, Hegerberg 55(p), 90, Renard 90+2(p) Lyon won 16-0 on aggregate. Wolfsburg 5 - 0 Mitrovica Neto 24, Harder 29, Jakabfi 38, Wolter 55, Gunnarsdottir 86(p) Wolfsburg won 15-0 on aggregate. Fortuna Hjørring 2 - 0 Vllaznia Møller 6, 87(p) Fortuna Hjørring won 3-0 on aggregate. Barcelona 2 - 1 Juventus Alexia 32, Girelli 38(og) - Staskova 79 Barcelona won 4-1 on aggregate. Bayern Munich 0 - 1 Kopparbergs Göteborg Blomqvist 81 2-2 on aggregate. Bayern won on the away goals rule. Twente 1 - 2 St. Pölten Kalma 8 - Zagor 6, Mikolajova 51 Twente won 5-4 on aggregate. Slavia Prague 5 - 1 Hibernian Divisova 5, Kozarova 37, 60, Svitkova 69, Szewieczkova 90+1 - Gallacher 20 Slavia Prague won 9-2 on aggregate. Manchester City 4 - 0 Lugano Beckie 5, 33, 49, Bremer 78 Manchester City won 11-1 on aggregate. The remaining seven matches are played tomorrow.
Bayern were streaming the game - there's a clip of the goal in SVT's report: - https://www.svt.se/sport/fotboll/goteborg-utslaget-ur-champions-league
As suspected, Swedish teams have better chans against the top team in fall than in early spring (being in season). And the UEFA reward system for top teams from uncompetitive leagues is not good as a ranking system.
Second round seeding 1 Lyon (FRA, holders) coefficient 129.865 2 Wolfsburg (GER) 112.575 3 Paris Saint-Germain (FRA) 99.865 or Braga* (POR) 3.630 4 Barcelona (ESP) 91.160 5 Bayern München (GER) 67.575 6Slavia Praha (CZE) 59.870 7 Manchester City (ENG) 59.655 8 Brøndby (DEN) 50.045 or Piteå (SWE) 17.655 Could be seeded 9 Fortuna Hjørring (DEN) 47.045 10 FC Zürich (SUI) 44.230 or FC Minsk* (BLR) 16.625 Unseeded BIIK-Kazygurt* (KAZ) 34.580 Glasgow City (SCO) 34.085 or Chertanovo (RUS) 8.580 Atlético Madrid (ESP) 33.160 or ŽFK Spartak* (SRB) 17.955 Sparta Praha (CZE) 32.870 or Breidablik* (ISL) 10.930 FC Twente* (NED) 26.900 Fiorentina (ITA) 26.890 or Arsenal (ENG) 17.655
it wasn't all bad, I saw parts of the game, Goteburg scored in about the only shot on goal they had, and it was really late. in the match. But I don't see BM going far this year; besides in dire need of a top notch striker, their insistance of still playing, Jorgi Low's outdated, painfully slow, total futebol crap. PS or rather PSG as the 2nd top tean in Europe, especailly after Caro Hansen left Wolfsburg
Oh shucks, this ends an American team from winning the Champions League this year, lol (look at Lugano's lineup) Manchester City vs. Lugano - 25 September 2019 - Women Soccerway