UEFA Champions League and Europa League

[aletem]

Horizont Turnovo - Hajduk Split 1:1 (Total 2:3)
Hajduk progresses through as expected, and once again well done to Turnovo! Turnovo did what Vardar couldn't in the past in the Yugoslavian league (they were always losing from Hajduk and conceding 3 goals). Turnovo was close at the end to win with 2:1 and maybe decide the game on penalties, but Hajduk had the experience and last year played against Inter and won 2-0, so you can't compare oranges with bricks. Again good for Turnovo!

 

[Milos-BC]

Today:

Ludogorets - Partizan


This will be a different duel than the one we had in the previous round, as over here we are not the favorites, and that is why the approach for this duel is different.

I know everything about Ludogorets, their team, and how they play, and I believe that the players know as well. Ludogorets is a great team, who is slowly becoming very dominant in Bulgaria, and they are already a team that scares many both in Bulgaria and the region.


They are very good in offense and in offensive tasks. They love to have a high possession of the ball, and they attack all the time. Their strongest weapon is a quick transformation from the phase of defense to the phase of attack, and the play via the right wing (Abalo) and the left one (Stoyanov). These two players, together with the attacker Marselinho are the most dangerous players of their team, IMO.

I would also add Beziak and the captian Svetislav Djakov as potential dangers, and Cosmin Moti, the defender is dangerous in the breaks.



Hopefully our left and right backs will be focused all the time, as that is where they will try to push the ball towards the goal. The right flank is more often used and the right side of the Ludogorets' team is stronger than the left one both in offense and in defense.


We have to survive the first 30 minutes of the match as in that interval they massacred Slovan, and they will also start a rampage from the first second against us as well. An early goal would increase our chances as they are psychically unstable and get confused when the opponent scores. Also, this is seen in the way that they get many late goals in additional time. Dinamo Zagreb scored two times against them in the additional time and Slovan once in the first matches.


With the smart play we can achieve a positive and active result before the second leg in Belgrade

I expect a lot from Petar Grbic, Ivan Obradovic and Eric Djemba Djemba who will all debut in this match for Partizan



And for the end, some pics of Partizan's training on the stadium of Ludogorets (Ludogorts Arena)

 

[lucian-crusher]

UEFA Champions League, 3rd round:

Dinamo Tbilisi - Steaua Bucharest 0 - 2
It was a balanced match until the 60th minute. The penalty that Dinamo got was the key of the mtch. As soon as Tatarusanu defended Xisco's penalty, Dinamo went down and Steaua got a moral boost and scored fast. Then we scored again and we had lots of other chances. The qualification in 90 % ensured and with tht we established a new record as we are the only European team to manage 10 qualifications in a row to the group stage of a European competition without ever geting a direct qualification

 

[ronny1988]

FK Austria Wien - FH Hafnarfjördur 1:0
We could have scored more goals but didnt used the chances.

 

[QwaarJet]

Hopefully Celtic crush Elfsborg tonight. New signing Derk Boerrigter might make his debut.

 

[Morty]

CL:
Molde FK 1-1 Legia Warszawa SA

I still think this is gonna be the end of Molde's CL tour, 1-1 at home isn't enough.

EL:
FK Baumit Jablonec 2-1 Strømsgodset IF
Tromsø IL 1-0 FC Differdange 03

Both Norwegian teams should have a decent chance here. Strømsgodset has an away goal that could prove useful, but they still need to score at home, which isn't guaranteed, while I think Tromsø got this under control, even tho 1-0 may be a little disappointing. Everything can still happen in both matches tho.

 

[QwaarJet]

Scottish results :

Champion's League

Celtic 1-0 Elfsborg

Europa League

Motherwell 0-2 Kuban Kraznodar
FC Minsk 0-1 St. Johnstone

Good results overall. Can't believe the Saints got another away win. Motherwell had the toughest task by far, not surprised they lost.

 

[lucian-crusher]

UEFA Europa League, 3rd round:

Pandurii Targu Jiu - Hapoel Tel Aviv 1 - 1
It was a big surprise as I tought Hapoel will win this. I think Pandurii has 40 % chances now!

Petrolul Ploiesti - Vitesse Arnhem 1 - 1
I am a bit disapointed here as the penalty from wich Vitesse scored didn't exist. Also, Petrolul had lots of chances that they missed. Now all they have to do is score in Arnhem and I am sure they will.

Trencin - Astra Giurgiu 1 - 3
Great result for Astra! The qualification is solved so the Play-Off awaits!

 

[Farahim]

Qarabagh 1 : 0 Gelfe

 

[aletem]

Didn't Differdange eliminate a Dutch team? Also, I am amazed at the progress from the Kazakh teams. Shakthor Karagandy has almost sealed its way to the play-offs, where hopefully they will get an easier opponenent.

 

[Morty]

Didn't Differdange eliminate a Dutch team?

Yeah, Utrecht. I just can't get over the fact that they're from Luxembourg. I should blame the media really, they made a huge deal out of it when Käerjéng knocked out Lillestrøm, because comparing the size of Luxembourg and Norway, there should be no way that a small Luxembourgian team could beat a Norwegian team. In reality tho, it doesn't work like that.

 

[lucian-crusher]

Didn't Differdange eliminate a Dutch team? Also, I am amazed at the progress from the Kazakh teams. Shakthor Karagandy has almost sealed its way to the play-offs, where hopefully they will get an easier opponenent.

When Karagandy sent BATE Borisov home they took over their coefficient os they went to the seeded teams for the 3rd round. They got Skenderbeu there and this double is historical, because we will either have a team in the UEFA Europa League group stage for the first time in history, or a team there Even if Karagandy will lose the Play-Off in UEFA Champions League, they will move to the UEFA Europa League group stage wich is a great performance for them

 

[Little]

Good start for udinese, that wins against siroki 3-1.

 

[Milos-BC]

UEFA Champions League qualifications


Ludogorets 2:1 Partizan


We lost the first match against Ludogorets, but I have to saythat the play we have shown was much better than in the duels against Shirak. I think we even overestimated the Bulgarian team, and that is why we didn't achieve an even more active result than this. However, since this result is very good, and based on what we have shown, I am a much bigger optimist before the second leg today.

We took their strongest weapon - the possession of the ball, and didn't let them have it + we killed the tempo of the match, exactly what we should have done. Ludogorets is a very aggressive team that creates a lot of chances against their rivals , but against us they had only one good one, when Beziak managed to break through on our left side in the first half. We were better in the first half and in the second as well, until we scored. From that moment it looked like we are scared of leading, and those 13 minutes after our goal were the worst in the entire match and we got two goals. The first one was a result of our bad and weak right side, and seems like we forgot that Marselinho always shows up "from the second plan", so he tied. Then we made one cardinal individual mistake and that resulted in another goal. These individual mistakes happen from year to year because we are scared, I don't know how to explain it otherwise........Other than that, we had a chance to tie to 2:2 in the last moments, but we didn't.

Today, it will be much better as we have Aleksandar Mitrović in the attack, who came back from U19 European championship, where we became European champions, and Djemba Djemba will play from the first minute. What he (Djemba Djemba) shown for 20 minutes of play in Bulgaria was top-class, and he wasn't in Manchester United for nothing.........We musn't be in a hurry today, as one goal will lead us to the CL playoff, and if we hurry, we will leave a lot of space behind for the dangerous counter-attacks of Ludogorets. We need to beware of their show-ups from the second plan in the attack and to stop their long balls to the lateral players. We got the first goal like this.

If we play organized and motivated, and if we give everything we have in these 90 minutes, we will eliminate Ludogorets.


UEFA Europa League qualifications


Chernomorets Odessa 3:1 Crvena Zvezda

Zvezda had a lot of luck not to get at least 5 goals from the Ukranian team. They played a terrible first half, and even though Cheronomorets players don't have a special technique, they were making little children to Zvezda in the first half. They were destroying with long balls to the space in 16 m of Zvezda, as Zvezda's defense is extremely weak and indolent. Krneta is for a circus and not for the soccer club. It is no wonder that Partizan kicked him out of our school, now he can make Zvezda happy with his failures They are lucky that only 2 goals came in from at least 8 chances of the Ukranians. In the second half, Zvezda pressed harder, Chernomorets was satisfied with 2:0, and after a single mistake in the defense, Zvezda scored. After that Zvezda made a foolish penalty (they think this is Jelen Super Liga, and the referees will pretend that they didn't see what they are doing ) and so, after Antonov scored, Chernomorets won with 3:1.

Zvezda's chances in the second leg are minimal. Almost non-existant.


Vojvodina 2:2 Bursaspor

Vojvodina is the biggest surprise of all 3 Serbian clubs, and what they are playing so far is an atomic football for both Zvezda and Partizan. They have many experienced quality players and I think they could win the title this season. They weren't scared of the huge name of Bursaspor and played very offensively and brave, and it is just too bad that they weren't rewarded with a better result. Marko Nikolic deserves only the best comments for everything he did with Vojvodina so far. As I said earlier, he is by far the best coach in .

Vojvodina has small chances in but if they play like this, anything is possible, and they shouldn't be excluded. They have more chances than Zvezda, for sure.

 

[DanielLuis]

Shakther Karagandy from Kazhakstan managed to qualify for the playoff of the Champions League. Even if they lose they will go directly to the group stage of the Europa League, which means that they will be the first kazhak team in the group stage of a european competition.

 

[lucian-crusher]

UEFA Champions League, 3rd round:

Steaua Bucharest - Dinamo Tbilisi 1 - 1 (3 - 1 agg.)
And with that we managed to establish a new record. We are the only European tem to qualify for 10 seasons in a row for the group stage of a European Competition without ever geting a direct qualification. We didn't play our maximum last night, mainly because of the great result we got in the first leg + we saved our energy for the derby against Dinamo Bucharest on Sunday. I am very happy that Maribor eliminated APOEL so that Dinamo Zagreb went to the seeded teams pot. Now, I hope we don't met Legia Varsovia or Ludogorets in the Play-Off. I would be very happy if we will play against Karagandy!

 

[Verjamem]

Today, 20:45
Legia Warsaw - Molde FK (first match 1-1)
I hope that Legia will improve their game, and finally will play a good match and deserve on qualyfing to next round.

 

[Milos-BC]

Partizan 0:1 Ludogorets

Sadly, we are eliminated from the CL. A better team, at this point, went through definetly, and they deserved it. This was the best performance of Partizan since the beginning of the season. We outplayed Ludogorets both in the first and especially in the second half but we had no idea or solutions in the attack, and some players are still hiding from the ball, so that costed us of a better result. Almost all of these new acquisitions showed that they were ""spot on", however some of them came too late. If they came earlier and if everything was done more systematically, we would've knocked out Ludgorets now.

Generally, we didn't deserve to lose the second match as well, and the penalty that was whistled was too harsh, red card, not to mention........but it doesn't matter, it is our fault that we didn't use our chances and it doesn't matter if it is 0-1 or 0-0, we are out in both cases. I am not too disappointed as EL is more realistic for us, but some things did disappoint me, above all our coach Rašović. I think he is a great coach with a lot of knowledge, he loves Partizan and this is, and always will be, his home, but he didn't yet show what I expected from him. He looks frightened and clueless on the bench, while in Teleoptik (our subsidiary) he was full of energy and was actively participating in the leading of the match. Now he looks like someone who is about to cry. A 36 years old Obradovic, and Djemba Djemba with 1 training are the best physically prepared players of Partizan and they are in much better condition than the players who passed through his program of preparations. That speaks about the preparation period........and the play from the preparation matches completely disappeared. This is now a play with no taste and no smell. I know that preparation matches are one thing and these matches are something else, but where did the initial idea disappear, that is again up to him to find out............there are more things that I don't like, but these the most. He has my support, but the level of Partizan requires much more than this.

We'll see how will the draw for Europa League play off be lucky for us tomorrow and that is where we must pass.

 

[QwaarJet]

Elfsborg 0-0 Celtic : Celtic through 1-0 on aggregate.

Celtic are seeded for the play-offs and will play one of

Austria Wien
Legia Warsaw
Maribor
Ludogorets Razgrad
Shakhter Karagandy

Best draw would be either Ludogorets or Shakhter. Legia would be the worse draw, but Celtic are more than capable of beating all of these teams. They'll need to play better than they did against Elfsborg though.

 

[aletem]

Aktobe, Vojvodina, FC Minsk, Rijeka, Karabakh, Kukesi and Dila Gori are among the surprising qualifiers in EL play-off round! I do hope few of them can go to the group stage! Differdange was close, as they lost on penalties from Tromso. Still, they had a great season!!

Oh, and I hope Karagandy gets Dinamo Zagreb in the play-off. I find it pretty stupid to have a seeding in the play-offs. That way we can have Milan vs. Arsenal and one bad team will be out!!