CL & EL Draw

[BaZ87]

The last 16 for the CL has just been drawn:

Leipzig - City
Milan - Spurs
Liverpool - Real
Dortmund - Chelsea

And another noteable tie, PSG - Bayern.

We had a 50-50 chance of getting one of Bayern or Real so a difficult game was always on the cards. Thankfully the matches aren't until February where hopefully we'll be in a much better position and we'll have a chance to avenge last seasons final defeat. Tricky ties for Chelsea and even City but Spurs have had a friendly draw.

 

[BaZ87]

Sorry @HACO, it was 60-40

 

[BaZ87]

That was some ninja skills there @Rotty

 

[BaZ87]

It never ceases to amaze me how defeatist supporters of PL sides are when it comes to European ties. We always seem to overestimate European sides and or downplay PL sides whenever a PL side draws a top European side. Yes, Real and Bayern are very good sides but we've kind of done ok in Europe playing the best sides around over the past 5 years. We absolutely could lose to Real (or Bayern had we drawn them) but I can guarantee that Real will be more disappointed with the draw than we are.

 

[BaZ87]

For a team that finished first (Madrid), getting Liverpool (last year's finalist) is a bad draw so they're rightfully disappointed. For a team that finishes second like Liverpool, getting a top team is expected.

My comment wasn't specific to you or even the Liverpool - Real tie but a wider point we see all the time when PL sides are in Europe. We always overestimate European sides as if they're invincible. Yes Real are a fantastic side but we play against top sides in the PL multiple times each season and always hold our own. Real (or Bayern) are not as good as City, who we played and beat despite being at rock bottom these opening couple of months of the season. We sometimes seem to get hung up over the names of these clubs rather than the actual players we'll be facing. It's the same with Utd and Barca now - there will be plenty of people automatically writing Utd off as if this was Barca of 10 years ago.

 

[BaZ87]

PL teams in Europe are unpredictable, both unpredictably good and also unpredictably poor. PL champions don't usually fare all that well in Europe. When a PL team surprises Europe with good performances, it's often the underdog PL team team rather than the PL champion coming to Europe and bulldozing over everyone in the way that Bayern, Madrid or Barcelona have done in recent years. I think the sentiment is justified.

We've consistently had clubs in semi finals and finals for a number of years now. The PL may not have had that many winners but only one side can ever win a trophy and sometimes you need a bit of luck along the way. Take last season as an example, Liverpool, City and Chelsea were all better than Real and if you replayed all 3 of those ties 10 times, Real would have lost 8 or 9 times out of 10.

Despite this little Britain mentality, the best PL sides are at least on a par with the best sides in Europe these days.

 

[BaZ87]

I'll take last season, despite being "better" than Real none of them managed to get a result. You don't get do-overs or hypothetical wins. It's the actual result that matters. PL teams, even when they are "better" quite often underperform against top European teams when it matters. Liverpool has always been the exception here, usually performing better-than-expected in Europe, and the results show the difference.

I used last season as an example to show that while only one side can win the competition, multiple sides could have justifiably won the tournament without it being any kind of shock. And if you want to look at actual results, 2 of the last 4 CL's have been won by PL sides and 5 of the 8 finalists have been from the PL. Your point about PL sides not being sides not doing well in Europe seems to be based on 10 years ago rather than more recent times because the PL has clearly been the most dominant League.

 

[BaZ87]

I'm basing my judgement on the last decade or so, rather than the last couple of seasons.

Our of the last 10 CL winners, 6 have come from La Liga, 2 from Bundesliga and 2 from PL. Europa League is no different, out of the last 10 winners 6 are from La Liga, 3 from PL and one from Bundesliga. How this translates to PL being the most dominant league I don't know, but I think you're the one who is slightly biased. It's quite obvious that Spanish teams have dominated European football by a large margin. PL teams are a distant second.

I'm not sure how 10, 9 or 8 seasons ago is particularly relevant to today. The squads, managers and everything about those PL and other European clubs are completely different It's clear that in recent seasons the PL has become the most dominant League in Europe.

 

[BaZ87]

I'd argue La Liga has been, due to the number of winnings in both CL and Europa League. But yes, obviously PL teams have gone to the later stages of the CL quite often lately, we've had at least one finalist in the 4 out of the last 5 seasons, two of them were all-English. That's impressive but domination comes from sustained periods of winnings, not "almost wins". 2 wins in 5 years isn't that (yet). Of course if PL teams win 3-4 in the next 5 years, this will be a PL-dominated decade. But we're not there yet.

As I tried to explain earlier, only one side can ever win the CL however if the PL is continuously getting multiple sides in semi finals and finals then it's a clear sign that PL sides are as strong as any of the top European sides.

Anyway, we're just going round in circles. My initial point was simply that there's a very pessimistic outlook from supporters of PL sides when it comes to Europe when the reality is no where near as bad as they make out. This obviously does not apply to @adam cool dude, he's 10x in the opposite way.

 

[BaZ87]

The European Cup is and always has been the most prestigious trophy - the only reason Pep has said otherwise is because City keep failing to win it.