Europa League Group G H I

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Europa League Group G H I

Post by JK »

Group G

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80 ... ge#Group_G

Sporting CP
Basel
Genk
Videoton


Group H

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80 ... ge#Group_H

Internazionale
Rubin Kazan
Partizan
Neftchi Baku


Group I

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80 ... ge#Group_I

Lyon
Athletic Bilbao
Sparta Prague
Ironi Kiryat Shmona
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Malko
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Post by Malko »

G : Sporting and Genk
H: Inter and Rubin
I: Lyon and Bilbao
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Post by zender »

Malko wrote:G : Sporting and Genk
H: Inter and Rubin
I: Lyon and Bilbao
I would agree with this
Only Genk might be swapped for Basel, this season Genk have such an enormous scoring problem.
After the first 2 games (home against Videoton and away in Basel) we could probably say a lot more..
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Post by Gorandinho »

I saw Genk yesterday and I must say they look like crap. They lack creativity in the midfield and miss Benteke's strength and power upfront. Also almost all of their defenders are injured for the moment lol
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Post by Dragonite »

Sporting

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Basel

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Genk

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Videoton

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Sporting lost 3 starters from last season: defenders João Pereira and Anderson Polga, and midfielder Matías Fernández. The signings were good: Cédric and Adrien Silva were recalled (they were on loan to Académica), Boulahrouz and Rojo were signed for central defense (Onyewu also left), Pranjic was also signed to fight with Insúa for the left back spot, Fernandes is the new defensive midfielder, and Labyad and Viola are more options up front.
Oh, there’s also other “signing”, that arrived 1 year ago, but was already cup-tied, so only now is available to play EL for them: Elias, the most expensive signing in Sporting’s history.
They reached the EL semis last season, perhaps they can reach them again this season, perhaps even go further.


Basel surprised the World last season, by eliminating Manchester United from the Champions League.
Their veterans Huggel and Chipperfield left, so did youngsters Granit Xhaka and Shaqiri… Abraham also left. But there were many more good players in their squad beside these. And the signings also seem good: Sauro, Díaz, David Degen, Salah, etc.
This season they already disappointed by not reaching the CL again: firstly they were almost eliminated by Molde, and then they were indeed eliminated by Cluj.
Fortunately for them they had the “EL cushion”. They can still keep some reputation with a good EL campaign.


Belgium had a prosperous summer: the transfers of Hazard and Witsel are the most relevant, but there were also Dembélé and Vertonghen… and then there was a Genk forward, Benteke, who joined Aston Villa for 8.8M€. They signed him 1 year earlier, from Standard Liège, for 1M€. Proportionally, it was way better than Witsel’s deal.
Comparing Genk’s EL squad with Genk’s CL squad last season, I can’t even say that they “lost” Benteke, because he wasn’t in the CL squad last season, he was cup-tied (played in the qualifiers for Standard Liège before being transferred).
They lost other players, though: Pudil, Vanden Borre, Camus, Tózser, De Bruyne…
The signings were expensive. Genk was Belgium’s biggest spender this summer: Tshimanga (2.5M€), Koulibaly (1.3M€), Hamalainen (1M€), Gorius (2M€), Joseph-Monrose (1.5M€), Kumordzi (0.7M€), and last but not least, De Ceulaer (3M€).
They spent almost as much as Sporting; and they spent more than Basel or Videoton… Of course, teams have more players beside the new signings; and money doesn’t matter, having the most expensive players doesn’t necessarily mean having the best players.


Videoton played a UEFA Cup final in 1984/1985, probably most people don’t know that (I didn’t). But what they did almost 30 years ago doesn’t matter, what they did this season does. To reach the EL group stage, they eliminated Slovan Bratislava, Gent and Trabzonspor. Slovan Bratislava played the EL groups last season, eliminating Roma to get there, and taking 1 point from Paris Saint-Germain that was crucial for its elimination. Gent played the 2010/2011 EL group stages, and fought for qualification against Lille until the last game, finishing just 1 point behind them. And Trabzonspor eliminated Lille from the Europe last season.
If Videoton eliminated all these teams, perhaps they will also be a hard opponent in this group.


Prediction:
1. Sporting
2. Basel
3. Genk
4. Videoton
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Post by Dragonite »

Internazionale

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Rubin Kazan

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Partizan Belgrade

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Neftchi

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Inter is the biggest favourite to win the EL this season (at least until the 8 CL teams arrive).
They have a new coach, Andrea Stramaccioni. He is 36 years old, Javier Zanetti is 39. It should be strange, to have a coach leading a group of players where some are older than him.
Some of their signings were excellent, the quality/price ratio is high: Samir Handanovic (6M€), Álvaro Pereira (10M€), Gargano (1.25M€, on loan), Guarín (11M€), Palacio (10.5M€), Cassano (included in Pazzini’s transfer, where beside Cassano they also got 7.5M€!!)…
And beside these veterans, Stramaccioni will also bring to the main team some of the youngsters that won the NextGen Series under his command.
They were eliminated by Marseille last season, and by Schalke 04 two seasons ago, so they are “vulnerable” to some EL teams. In this group, though, they aren’t in danger yet, perhaps later in the competition.

Rubin Kazan was an unknown team a few years ago, now we’re already used to it.
They have this habit of signing players who played against them before. Marcano and Orbaiz, who played for Olympiakos last season, are now playing for them. They did the same with Roman Eremenko (Dynamo Kiev), Natcho (Hapoel Tel-Aviv), Martins (Wolfsburg)…
Don’t they have scouts, they only notice players right in front of their nose?
They have a strong team, maybe they can even finish ahead of Inter, thus getting an easier opponent in the next round, and so increasing their chances to go far in the competition.

Partizan Belgrade has a weak team. Serbian champions for the 5th season in a row, they can’t be competitive in UEFA competitions. They are always eliminated in the CL qualifiers, the only time they weren’t, they then got a 0-0-6 in the CL group. In the EL, things haven’t been much better; they can barely win a single game.
They could “evolve”, if they knew how to sell the players that they have/had. For instance, Nastasic, who was signed by Manchester City this summer, they sold him to Fiorentina last summer for 2.5M€. Now Fiorentina sold him for 15.2M€, more than 6 times of what Partizan got for him. Couldn’t Partizan sell him directly to Manchester City (like they did with Savic, who now is in Fiorentina, for free!!) and cut Fiorentina from the process?
These teams who always cry that they are “poor”, they are poor because they waste the resources they have.

Neftchi, a team from Azerbaijan in the EL groups! Geographically, their closest EL team is Anzhi. They may be close geographically, but there are millions of euros between them. Anzhi has many famous, expensive players, while Nefchi has none.
Even without that, they already attracted people’s attention, by eliminating APOEL, last season’s CL quarter finalist. Can they do it again; can they eliminate Inter/Rubin?
I don’t think they can, it is a lot harder to succeed in a group with 6 games, than in a two-legged playoff.


Prediction:
1. Inter Milan
2. Rubin Kazan
3. Partizan Belgrade
4. Neftchi
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Post by Dragonite »

Lyon

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Athletic Bilbao

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Sparta Prague

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Hapoel Kiryat Shmona

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The last time that Lyon wasn’t in the CL, we were still in the 20th century, 1999/2000 season. And in that season, they were in the CL qualifiers, but were eliminated by Maribor.
13 seasons later, they aren’t in the CL again. They had a humiliating last season: barely finished above Ajax in that infamous group; they were eliminated by APOEL in the next round… and at home they were only 4th, behind Montpellier, PSG and Lille. I can’t believe that Remi Garde is still their coach, in the past Lyon dismissed much more successful coaches, and now they keep this one?
They too seem to be following the “Montpellier example”, rather than the “PSG example”. Very quiet in the transfers market, only 3 signings (Bisevac, Monzón and Malbranque, Lyon paid less than 6M€ for the trio), and important players like Lloris, Cris, Cissokho and Kallstrom all left.
Example of bad management: Cissokho was signed 3 seasons ago for 15M€, and now he was transferred for 5 or 6. Other example of bad management: Gourcuff was signed for 22M€ two seasons ago, how much is he worth now?
At least now Lyon isn’t paying anymore huge transfer fees than they may regret later.
In theory they are one of the strongest teams in the EL, they can go very far, perhaps all the way to the final.


Athletic Bilbao lost a very important player this summer, Javi Martínez, who was signed by Bayern for 40M€. Unlike other teams, they can’t just pick the 40M€ and sign players all around the world, they are restricted to the Basque Country.
Without Javi Martínez, I doubt they would have reached the EL final last season.
Their only relevant signing was Aduriz, from Valencia. I actually think that Valencia is better without him and with Paraguayan Valdez instead.
Had they also lost Llorente, it would have been a disaster. With “only” Javi Martínez missing, Athletic Bilbao is still a strong team that can reach the last stages of the EL once again.


Sparta Prague used to be a good European team, are they still good enough to fight for qualification in this group? I don’t think so.
The last time they played the EL group stages, in 2010/2011, they advanced from a group with CSKA Moscow, Palermo and Lausanne. And then, in the EL last 32, they “only” lost 1-0 against Liverpool. In the January transfer window, before that, they transferred two key players, Kucka and Bony. Who knows what would have happened with these two players? Perhaps they would have gone further… perhaps they wouldn’t have missed last season’s EL?
This season they already impressed by eliminating Feyenoord, the team that won the UEFA Cup 10 years ago; Can they do something bigger and put themselves between Lyon and Athletic Bilbao?


Hapoel Kiryat Shmona doesn’t happen to be French or Danish, so instead of being directly in the CL by winning its domestic league, they had to get through 3 qualifying rounds. They succeeded in the first one, against Zilina, they also succeeded in the second one, against Neftchi, but they failed in the last one, against BATE Borisov, so now they are in the EL.
An extra hurdle to get to the EL wouldn’t be so bad either, but there are many teams like Hapoel Kiryat Shmona in the EL - Neftchi, for instance, the team that they eliminated in the CL qualifiers.
They don’t have a chance to advance from this group, but perhaps they won’t end up with a 0-0-6 either.


Prediction:
1. Athletic Bilbao
2. Lyon
3. Sparta Prague
4. Hapoel Kiryat Shmona
Last edited by Dragonite on Thu Sep 20, 2012 13:13, edited 3 times in total.
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Lyonnais
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Post by Lyonnais »

Dragonite wrote:Lyon

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great job Dragonite as ever :up:

some corrections in the Lyon line-up

Lovren rather than B. Koné in central defence
Monzon rather than Dabo as a left-back
and Malbranque rather than Fofana in the midfield
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Post by Dragonite »

Lyonnais wrote:
Dragonite wrote:Lyon

Image
great job Dragonite as ever :up:

some corrections in the Lyon line-up

Lovren rather than B. Koné in central defence
Monzon rather than Dabo as a left-back
and Malbranque rather than Fofana in the midfield
Done! :wink:

UCL_Lover’s corrections backfired; my initial sketch was much closer to Olympiakos’ lineup yesterday.
Hopefully yours won’t. 8)

Lyonnais, what will be Lyon’s attitude towards the EL? Do they intend to win it, and play full strength to do so, or they intend to focus on the domestic league and use reserves in the EL?
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Post by og2002gr »

Dragonite wrote:Done! :wink:

UCL_Lover’s corrections backfired; my initial sketch was much closer to Olympiakos’ lineup yesterday.
Hopefully yours won’t. 8)

Lyonnais, what will be Lyon’s attitude towards the EL? Do they intend to win it, and play full strength to do so, or they intend to focus on the domestic league and use reserves in the EL?
Υοu are excused -of course- not knowing.
In Greece they still wonder how Zardim came to those selections!
Some players played their first game as starters this season (and probably their last one).
I am waiting for your Panathinaikos proposed line-up 8)
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Lyonnais
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Post by Lyonnais »

Dragonite wrote: Lyonnais, what will be Lyon’s attitude towards the EL? Do they intend to win it, and play full strength to do so, or they intend to focus on the domestic league and use reserves in the EL?
Aulas criticized so much the other clubs (namely Lille who sent their reserves one season to play the KO rounds) that they had no choice really than claiming that the Europa League was a true objective.

To be honest, I don't know. For Marseille, it's almost sure that they won't play it but for Lyon, I still have some hope that they'll try.

My 2 cents. If we beat Sparta then Hapoel, I think that we'll have a very good option for the qualification. So I think that they'll try to win the 2 first games with the best possible team to rest some players afterwards.

It will be interesting to see what kind of line-up he will put vs. Sparta whereas we have a very important game at Lille on Sunday.
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Post by Malko »

Lyonnais, i hipe that Aulas is as clever to know that the points they get (or don't) in Europaligue are very impirtant for Lyon once they will play Championsleague again (concerning seeding in Pot 1,2,3 or 4).
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Post by patje13 »

3 - 0 for Genk,
We erased the mistake of gent against videoton. Now lets go for first or second place !!
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Post by Malko »

Good gane for Lyon, winning 2-1 vs Prague which did not lose the 5 last games in euroean Cups....
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Post by Lyonnais »

Good win for Lyon from an accounting perspective and good performance on the pitch although Sparta had some situations in the last minutes. Given the amazing number of chances wasted by Lyon all game long (namely by Gomis) it would however have been very frustrating for Lyon not to win this game.
Grenier certainly the best since the beginning of the season was again very good. Generally speaking our midfield was performant and I'm proud to say that this midfield is 100% lyonnais. Grenier, Gonalons and Malbranque were all raised in the academy (altough Malbranque spent most of his career in England afterwards before coming back this season).
Unfortunately we lost Dabo on injury (head trauma). Bad luck for him.

For Sparta, very nice goal and good performance of Kadlec.

At last, irritating Ukrainian referee I have to say.

Next game in Israel. If we are able to win this one, we'll take a good option for the qualification.
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