UEFA European Football Forum

Lyonnais, i do not agree. If Gomis would have been a little less "Gachis", Lyon would have won 4-1......
Now 2-1 is not good, knowing that Prague needs only a 1-0 at home to come before Lyon in the direct opposition which could be very important concerning the second place in this group........

Malko wrote:Lyonnais, i do not agree. If Gomis would have been a little less "Gachis", Lyon would have won 4-1......
Now 2-1 is not good, knowing that Prague needs only a 1-0 at home to come before Lyon in the direct opposition which could be very important concerning the second place in this group........

100% agree. These wasted chances and/or this late goal due to lack of marking of our defenders are annoying for the goal-average. Remember what happened to Paris last season vs. Salzburg. More or less the same story.

However, if we play our games as seriously as we did yesterday, I think that we should not have to worry too much for the qualification (I hope).

It seems a pretty interesting group with Fehérvar, Lisbon, Basel and Genk so far. Some upsets... close ranking - I like that.

Even hard to say something so far.

Hungarians lost against Genk... won against Lisbon. All depends on how much it was because of their strong play against Lisbon... or the weak play of Sporting (?).

Lisbon drawing at home against Basel (the way the game was going that was ok)... but lost the game against Videoton.

Genk won against Fehérvar... draw in Basel (seems good so far).

And Basel with the draw in Portugal (what is pretty good). Then down at home versus Genk at halftime 0-2 and came back to 2-2 in last 20 min.


The 3rd round will be especially interesting, when Genk plays Lisbon and Basel visits Videoton!

Group G, another group that is upside down…
Basel should still be happy, though… firstly a draw against Sporting, an opponent that previously defeated them easily; and then, a draw against Genk where they were losing 0-2 and managed to recover to 2-2. Now with two wins against Videoton they should be leading this group when they host Sporting in match day 5.

This Sporting is unrecognizable!! Usually they played serious in the first games, and only started kidding in match day 4 when they already had 9 points. Now they started kidding in the first games, without collecting enough points first!
And obviously, Sá Pinto was fired because of the defeat in Hungary. That’s unacceptable. He was insolent believing that he could rest players and still win in Hungary. He was wrong. And now he paid the price for it.
I’m expecting a serious Sporting in the remaining 4 games, who will qualify with 11 or 13 points.


In Group H, everything happening as expected. Inter and Rubin should both be qualified after round 4.


In Group I, what the hell happened to Athletic Bilbao?!
Last season they were unstoppable, and now they tie at home against unknown Israelis, and now lose in Prague?!
Will they still wake up, or there are more humiliations waiting?

Dragonite wrote:
Group G, another group that is upside down…
Basel should still be happy, though… firstly a draw against Sporting, an opponent that previously defeated them easily; and then, a draw against Genk where they were losing 0-2 and managed to recover to 2-2. Now with two wins against Videoton they should be leading this group when they host Sporting in match day 5.

This Sporting is unrecognizable!! Usually they played serious in the first games, and only started kidding in match day 4 when they already had 9 points. Now they started kidding in the first games, without collecting enough points first!
And obviously, Sá Pinto was fired because of the defeat in Hungary. That’s unacceptable. He was insolent believing that he could rest players and still win in Hungary. He was wrong. And now he paid the price for it.
I’m expecting a serious Sporting in the remaining 4 games, who will qualify with 11 or 13 points.

There is no "first-born right" in sports that makes teams with bigger names automatically better than the other ones.
If you don't take your opponents seriously... you pay the price (as you said).

But it's a bit fishy to think it's only about how one side plays.
Fehérvár and Genk know how to play football aswell.

If you think it's only a naive Sporting... and when they play seriously it's all done... ok, maybe you are right.
And maybe not.

They have to play Genk twice first. And that's not easy to do.


Maybe it's due to the fact, that a lot of people consider Europa League as 'Loser Cup'.
But for me... except for few teams that can reach GS in EL and not in CL... and maybe 3-4 absolute top teams...

Those competitions are both very good. Happened a couple of times that the EL winner did beat the CL winner in Supercup now.

Good luck to Sporting.
But don't expect it to be "an easy walk" trough the group.

Genk will show Sporting that Belgian club football is on the rise again !!

patje13, hope you are right. For 2 reasons:
I always liked the belgian football, especially in the late 70s early 80s......
And every loss of Portugal gets my favorite country, France, closer to recover the 5th place in the ranking.
BTW, my favorite belgian club is always Standard Liège, where my compatriot Guy Hellers played. Guy Hellers is presently the leader of the formation center in Dudelange at F91.

patje13 wrote:Genk will show Sporting that Belgian club football is on the rise again !!

A win for Genk would be really nice. It will depend on the attitude that Sporting will bring.

Genk couldn't ask for a better time to play against sporting, everything is going really well for them right now.

oh Yeah

Well, I for one am looking forward to Dragonite's Group G thoughts...

OL now have a great option for qualification. One single win in the last 3 games should be enough.
In itself it's not such a great performance (Bilbao excepted, it's not a group of derath!) but the boys did the job and it will enable Remi Garde to make some turn-over in the last games.

@ air

About Group G :

who could have believed that ? At mid-course, 2 teams that should be in pot 4 took the advantage against two teams that should be in pot 1.

However, I still wouldn't bet on the qualification of both Genk and Videoton. Genk must now travel to Portugal and... Hungary. So here is an advantage for Videoton but they have to go in Switzerland and Portugal (remember they lost 3-0 in Genk). But I can't imagine Videoton taking 3 victories at home (too "surprising") so that's why I believe Genk will leave Hungary with at least 1 point.

If Genk don't lose in Portugal, they'll be sure to remain ahead of Sporting. And the 3 teams will lose points so I would see Genk through for sure.
Same goes for Videoton in Basel.

But I expect two victories for the home teams (Sporting and Basel)

G. Genk and Videoton (Basel)
H.Inter and Rubin
I.Lyon and Sparta

In Group G, the minnows are having the time of their lives…
Genk is winning games! I didn’t know that they could do that, they already did it twice. The first time was against other minnow, but now it was against a big team.
Sporting is still a big team, isn’t it? A few months ago they were playing the EL semis. Now they’re in danger of not even advancing from this harmless group.
The management is terrible. They fired Sá Pinto after the Videoton defeat, but in 3 weeks they couldn’t find a replacement, so caretaker Oceano was in charge for the Genk game. Now they have a second defeat, and the coach that they have now is Franky Vercauteren?!?!
Sporting, enjoy this EL season, because it may be your last for a while. Not because you’ll finish third like you wish and will be playing the CL instead, but because UEFA will kick you out with their FFP rules.
And the other minnow, Videoton, also won again. They already have more wins in just 3 games than Debrecen did in 12 (6 CL + 6 EL)!
I think that the only scenario where Sporting and Basel both qualify is if they win their games against the minnows, draw their game, and the minnows also draw their game. Almost impossible. Most likely, one of Sporting or Basel will go out… and possibly both.


In Group H, everything happening as expected, the big teams are giving no chance to the minnows. Short wins, but they’re still wins.


In Group I, well, if Stuttgart is the rotten apple of German football, then Athletic Bilbao is the rotten apple of Spanish football. All the other Spanish teams have 2 or 3 wins already; Athletic Bilbao hasn’t won yet, not even at home against Hapoel Kiryat Shmona! Now, if Lyon loses in Prague, Athletic Bilbao can be out even if they win their remaining 3 games - Lyon and Sparta Prague would both have 12 points, and Athletic Bilbao would only have 10… That draw against the Israelis can be fatal, if nobody else drops points against them.
Of course, things can be over for them a lot sooner, if they can’t even defeat Lyon next week.