Champions League 2020-21

1,924 Views | 22 Replies | Last: 3 yr ago by akm91
Mustang1
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Draw happening Oct 1:


OregonAggie
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I believe the broadcast is 11am on the CBS Sports Network...I think.
Mustang1
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deadbq03
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akm91
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Here's the link to the livestream of the draw:

UEFA Champions League Draw


Groups A&G shaping up to be tough:

A: Bayern & Atletico Madrid
G: Juve & Barcelona
"And liberals, being liberals, will double down on failure." - dedgod
deadbq03
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Thanks. I got screwed by time zones and missed the start.
deadbq03
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City and Dortmund the big winners regardless of how Pot 4 shakes out.
akm91
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Group D and H are pretty tough:

D: Liverpool, Ajax, Atlanta
H: PSG, Man United, Lepzig


City, Chelsea and Dortmund have by far the easiest groups
Barcelona, Juve, Bayern, Real, Atletico must be happy with the draw as well
"And liberals, being liberals, will double down on failure." - dedgod
jeffk
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deadbq03
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I'm biased as a Bundesliga follower, but I agree with the announcers that B is rough. Gladbach's coach is very good and they have some raw talent.
gambochaman
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wth is a ferencvaros
deadbq03
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FiveThirtyEight has updated their Champions League odds already.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/champions-league/

It's not surprising which Pot 3 teams have better than 50% chance to advance:
Inter - 61% (8th in SPI for this field of teams, so possibly Pot 1 caliber strength)
Atalanta - 59% (chances are higher than their SPI due to Ajax probably being a Pot 3 team in the Pot 2 draw)
Leipzig - 58% (9th in SPI for this field of teams)

And yeah Group B is going to be really interesting to watch... they give Gladbach a 32% chance to advance. Despite their strength, Real Madrid only have a 78% chance to advance. Weakest in the group is Shakhtar with 29% (another shouldn't-be-Pot2-team).
Aston94
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Champions League Group Predictions:


Group A: Easiest group I think for the top 2.
Bayern Munich-W
Atletico Madrid-2nd
Lokomotiv Moscow-3rd
Salzburg-4th

Group B: Fun group, bad 2nd pot team (Shaktar) and good 3rd pot team (Inter) makes this really interesting
Real Madrid-W
Inter Milan-2nd
Shaktar-3rd
Borussia M.-4th

Group C: Man City get the gift of Porto as their 1 pot team, and Olympiacos as their 3rd. Marseille as a 4 pot team is interesting
Man City-W
Marseille-2nd
Porto-3rd
Olympiacos-4th

Group D: Liverpool gifted a pretty light group, should easily advance, although Atalanta is a good 3rd pot team
Liverpool-W
Atalanta-2nd
Ajax-3rd
Mijdytland-4th

Group E: Sevilla and Chelsea should battle out for 1st, other two battling for 3rd
Chelsea-W
Sevilla-2nd
Rennes-3rd
Krasnodar-4th

Group F: Lightest group? Borussia Dortmund had to be celebrating last night.
Borussia D-W
Lazio-2nd
Zenit-3rd
Brugge-4th

Group G: Fun group, should be dominated by Juve and Barcelona
Juventus-W
Barcelona-2nd
Dynamo Kiev-3rd
Ferencvrosi TC-4th

Group H: Group of Death, will be a challenge for United to get into top 2. I am really looking forward to the Leipzig-United-PSG games, should be great soccer.
PSG-W
Leipzig-2nd
Manchester United-3rd
stanbul Baakehir-4th


deadbq03
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Nice picks.

I'll disagree on the first three: going chalk for Group A (although I thoroughly agree with your sentiment that Salzburg isn't as dangerous as people think... they lost a ton of players) and I'll be boring and go chalk after City in C.

I'm gonna go bold with B and say that Gladbach sneaks in over Inter.

An X factor this year might be rest. After the UEFA Supercup, Lewandowski commented that they were totally smoked... and they had the benefit of 6 weeks between the end of the Bundesliga and the August CL restart. Other leagues basically rolled straight from league play to CL/EL in August. Will be interesting to see if fatigue takes a toll on teams that played in August vs teams that did not. Or if extra rest helps teams from leagues that never restarted in the summer. Or maybe 5 subs will mitigate this and we'll see deeper teams win out.
ChipFTAC01
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Will be interesting to see if the non-CL/EL teams fare a little better in their domestic leagues. Maybe the PSG/Juve/Dortmund troika fall of their perches?
deadbq03
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Really wish there were time stamps on my edits two posts above.

First time I've ever been this right about anything.
ChipFTAC01
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Well PSG and Bayern (brainfsrt and said Dortmund in my post above) are still top of the table but Juve is in 4th.

Love something interesting happening in Spain. Barca and RM have won 17 of the last 20 titles. Last time they both finished outside the top 3 was 04. What a boring league.
Mustang1
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akm91
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Lampard got the team that probably is the most dangerous against their preferred style of play.
"And liberals, being liberals, will double down on failure." - dedgod
deadbq03
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akm91 said:

Lampard got the team that probably is the most dangerous against their preferred style of play.

FiveThirtyEight has updated their predictions and says that matchup is the tightest one, with Chelsea given a slight edge.

Liverpool (56%) - Leipzig (44%) is next tightest.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/champions-league/
akm91
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ChipFTAC01 said:

Well PSG and Bayern (brainfsrt and said Dortmund in my post above) are still top of the table but Juve is in 4th.

Love something interesting happening in Spain. Barca and RM have won 17 of the last 20 titles. Last time they both finished outside the top 3 was 04. What a boring league.
Looking at the big leagues in Europe: EPL, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, La Liga, Serie A
  • EPL - Six different teams have won in the last 20 years; five different in the last 10 (4 for the last 5)
  • Bundesliga - Five different teams in the last 20 years; two different in the last 10 (1 for the last 5)
  • Ligue 1 - Seven different teams in the last 20 years; four different in last 10 (2 for the last 5)
  • La Liga - Five different teams in the last 20 years; three different in the last 10 (2 for the last 5)
  • Serie A - Five different teams in the last 20 years; two different in the last 10 (1 for the last 5)

So the reality is that most of the big leagues in Europe in recent times are dominated by one or two teams with the exception of EPL
"And liberals, being liberals, will double down on failure." - dedgod
deadbq03
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While it's clear that the EPL is the most competitive at the top, I'd argue that there are other measures of how competitive a league is.

No other league has had it's Champions League spots dominated by the same 3 teams the way La Liga has... 8 years in a row with the same 3 teams earning spots. In the other leagues, there's just 1 team each that can boast the same feat of 8 berths in a row (City, Bayern, PSG, Juve). So this is perhaps why La Liga feels like it's the same old story every year.

Also if you look at the number of teams who made any UEFA competition at least 3 times in the last decade, in the EPL just (The Big) 6 teams managed to do this. In the Bundesliga, 10 different teams made European competition at least 3 times (with just 18 teams in the league); Ligue 1 and Serie A have 9 each (with fewer bids); La Liga has 8.
ChipFTAC01
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Interesting looking back at the last ten seasons, for the 2011-2012 uefa lineup, you had United, city, Chelsea and arsenal in the CL. But the europa league was Spurs, Fulham, Stoke and Birmingham!
akm91
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Don't know if # of different teams that qualify for UCL really speaks to parity.

Bayern won by more than 10 points the last 4 out of 5 years.
PSG won 4 out of the last 5 years, all by more than 10 points

I guess there isn't any one single measure.
"And liberals, being liberals, will double down on failure." - dedgod
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