It looks like this round won't be easy at all for Aston Villa.    Lille stood really strong even though they lost by 2-1 away. I couldn't count how many times they wasted big goal chances. They wasted an important chance to equalize the score in the stoppage time also. This could be the signals of how tough it will be for Aston Villa in the second leg.

Aston Villa have been my favourite to win the Conference League trophy so far and they still are. However Lille can really surprise people like me if they get better at finishing next time.

I'm even thinking of making a small bet on Lille to qualify for semi finals just for fun. 

Do you think Sebastian Vettel would like a seat at Aston Martin even if he decides to return? I'm not sure about that after having really bad memories with the team.    He wouldn't like to be the teammate of Stroll in the first place.    Stroll isn't the worst driver on the grid maybe but he still needs to put a lot more into his effort.

If Vettel makes such decision I would expect him to eye the Mercedes seat which will be empty after Hamilton joins Ferrari. I guess the German team would lean towards such deal also.

However I don't think he will return as a driver anymore.

I also agree with you guys about Immobile's performance. Look at the change in his performance over the last 3 seasons below.



His scoring skills are like gone all of a sudden...    He really looks like he doesn't want to play competitively anymore. It is sad to see a striker like Immobile in this psychology. Maybe someone will say he is 34 years old now but this isn't an excuse truthfully. There are many other quality strikers who are still scoring so many goals at this age.

His contract expires in 2 years but if I were in their place I would find a better scorer this summer.

Poor Liverpool got a really horrible result... I don't know if they had a worse day than that in the season so far. They played really effectively in fact, couldn't take advantage of a lot of goal chances.    Otherwise this match would never end like 0-3. Atalanta will probably play a highly defensive game and look for counter-attacks only next time.

When it comes to Leverkusen this would have surely ended by a way bigger score. You were just unlucky otherwise I think over 2.5 goals was one of the best choices for this one.

Benfica did a pretty good job. They are quite strong in home matches. 

Newcastle - Tottenham maçı var şu an ve açar açmaz art arda Newcastle goller buldu 2-0 öne geçti.    Tottenham için kalan haftalarda maksimum puanları toplamak çok büyük önem taşıyor. Çünkü Aston Villa ile 4. sıra için kıyasıya çekişiyorlar ve şu an aynı puandalar. Tottenham son haftalarda Manchester City, Arsenal ve Liverpool'a karşı zorlu maçlar da oynayacak. Yerini koruyabilir mi kestirmek zor. Emery Aston Villa ile çok iyi bir sezon geçiriyor ve onlar da en az Tottenham kadar Şampiyonlar Ligi'ni hak ediyor.

Benim favorim yine de Tottenham. 

Belgium and Portugal are also good examples from today. Belgium wasted their best generation over the years. They could have been way better as a team like winning at least one championship. However nowadays they are mostly relying on Lukaku's extra contribution. He isn't performing like this at Roma now in fact but he has a lot of goals scored for Belgium lately. 

Ronaldo is still at the centre of Portugal squad. Portugal still have really skilled other players also but Ronaldo's number of goals in the Euro qualifiers was just a lot. He is also carrying his national team like Lukaku does for Belgium.

I wasn't expecting Alonso to be in such hurry to extend his contract with Aston Martin. I'm quite surprised.    Because Aston Martin doesn't have too much to offer for Alonso at the moment. The car isn't good enough no matter how hard he is trying to get the best result anyway. I wonder if they guaranteed him something for the future.

The Chinese Grand Prix could be more enjoyable. We are likely to see many more overtakes than the Suzuka one which is what I like the most while watching this sport. 

There is a sprint race too this time, yeah. I remember McLaren's success with Piastri in a race last season. He won a sprint race finishing right ahead of Verstappen. I wonder if we would see such result from McLaren this season too.

PSG hiç beklemediğim bir şekilde evinde yenildi. Mbappe'den beklentilerim oldukça yüksekti ama resmen sahada yoktu. Buna rağmen PSG'nin 2 gol atması yine iyi işti. Defans anlamında ise her iki takım kötü olsa da Barcelona çok iyi bir şekilde 2-1'den dönerek kazandı.

Diğer maçta Barcelona 3-2'nin avantajını kullanmak için sağlam oynar. Mbappe eğer sorumluluk alıp takımının kazanmasına yine katkıda bulunamazsa işte o zaman PSG'nin turu geçme ihtimali bence çok düşük.

I had a good laugh at this when I saw it.    Poor Palmer, trying his best but still the team are in terrible shape...  Palmer is absolutely the best thing that ever happened to Chelsea. He is the most productive player in the squad by a huge difference to others. At least he is showing his skills easier since he joined Chelsea. Because he wouldn't find this much chance at Manchester City that's why he left.

Guardiola must be missing him especially after seeing this performance of him. He tried to convince Palmer to stay first but the attempt was in vain.

Liverpool - Atalanta maçı beklediğimin çok aksi yönünde gelişti. Liverpool'un evinde 3-0 kaybetmesi çok şaşırtıcı. Aslında skor böyle gözükse de Liverpool'un oynadığı oyun çok iyiydi. İnanılmaz sayıda fırsat harcadılar ve direkten dönen topları da vardı. Atalanta az geldi öz geldi ve 3 gol birden attı. Herhalde sezonun en şanslı günlerini falan yaşadılar. 

Halil Umut Meler yönetimiyle Süper Lig'de çok eleştiriliyor ama bu maçı iyi yönetti evet. Nedense bizim hakemler yurtdışı maçlarında hep daha iyiler.

Livakovic turned out to be an overrated goalkeeper truthfully.    His performance at Croatia in the last World Cup was really amazing but it looks like he can't show the same performance outside national team. Sometimes I think even the substitute goalkeeper İrfan is better than him and I don't know if I'm exaggerating it.

Krunic - Zajc was definitely a bad choice, I totally agree. I just don't understand İsmail Kartal. He acts like he doesn't know much about football but he is privileged to be here. He is really poor when it comes to player choices.

One of the reasons Fenerbahçe had this much problem was definitely this. At least they managed to score 2 goals and didn't give up on the competition.

Hepinize iyi bayramlar arkadaşlar. Koskoca bir Ramazan ayı bu sene de geride kaldı ve bayram vaktine geldik. Yine "Nerede o eski bayramlar!" dedirten bir bayram oluyordur diye tahmin ediyorum.    Gerçekten de benim küçüklük zamanlarımdaki bayramların tadı da ayrı güzeldi ama eskiler eskide güzel tabi ki.

Ozmo çikolata demişken Ozmo Mini Eggs diye bir Kinder benzeri paketli çikolata var son zamanlarda çok popüler olmaya başlamış stokları bitirmişler.    Ben de bir merak etmedim değil güzel diyorlar.

It is matchday!    In fact we can look at that matchup from that aspect also. Milan and Roma are facing each other at least 2 times every season. If we see lots of goals in both legs here it would be still nice to watch for me though. 

Yeah, I definitely remember those Liverpool - Atalanta matches. Especially Liverpool's huge win like 5-0 was incredible. I guess Liverpool would advance here but we could at least watch better matches than the ones they had against Sparta Prague.    I think the best kind of finale would definitely be Liverpool - Leverkusen. Xabi Alonso vs Klopp would be great to watch.

Liyakat, liyakat... Bunun olmadığı bir ülkede her zaman yolsuzluk ve benzeri olaylara maalesef mahkumsunuz. Ülkemizde de yolsuzluk derecesi o kadar yükseldi ki önü alınmaz hale geldi. Bu hem iktidar hem muhalefet kanadı için geçerli. İki tarafta da yolsuzluk örnekleri fazlasıyla var. Buna bir dur demenin yolu tabi ki var o da seçim. Garantisi olmasa da bu gibi durumlarda yeni bir yöneticiyi denemek her zaman daha mantıklı seçenektir.

Liyakata önem veren birini seçtiğin gün de zaten bu gibi problemler yavaş yavaş ortadan kalkacaktır. Refah içindeki ülkelerdeki yolsuzluk yaşandığında bu olaya karışan yöneticiler direkt istifa ediyorlar. Aradaki fark işte.  

I totally agree with you about this topic. Small countries have bigger issues with growing players like Ronaldo. They aren't like Brazil for example which has a population around 217 million and which is a football country also. However I agree on another thing that Portugal still have skilled players. The thing they will only need is to have a strong team effort after Ronaldo retires. 

Portugal or some other national team can't just rely on one player to be carried. This is nonsense if you really want to become successful.

Argentina did this by relying on Messi over the years and barely managed to become a World Cup champion.

Kesinlikle harika ötesi bir geceydi. Real Madrid - Manchester City maçını izlemeyi tercih ettim ama diğer maç da çok güzel geçmiş. Oyunun sürekli bir orada bir burada bir görüntü vermesi çok sevindirdi. Tüm goller birbirinden güzeldi açıkçası. Ancelotti bence akıllıca bir taktikle sahaya çıktı. Şampiyonlar Ligi'nde iyi gitmiyorlardı ve Manchester City hücum anlamında aşırı etkili bir takım. Etihad'da yine de bence bu derece rekabet edemezler. 

Arsenal de kazansa güzel olurdu ama beraberliğe engel olamadılar. Son anlarda Saka'ya verilmeyen bence net bir penaltı var. Bunun dışında bir de Arsenal tarafı için tartışmalı bir penaltı konusu varmış. Hakem yapılan hatanın çocukça olduğunu söyleyip affederek penaltı vermemiş yani ilginç eğer böyle bir seçeneği varsa da.

It was a football feast yesterday definitely!  

Have you noticed that all the time Real Madrid - Manchester City matches are very enjoyable to follow? I remember a match Real Madrid won by 4-3 before and this one also ended by a score like 3-3. Both sides did their best to win and I can't say one side deserved more than the other. Thankfully Real Madrid showed a really good performance to make the match more entertaining. I was afraid of them to play like they did against Leipzig.  

It was a really unfortunate result for Arsenal also. I really wanted them to win. But if you can't win home then I don't have much hope in the rematch...

By the way Saka's penalty should have been given in the last moments. I think it was also a big referee mistake and this might not be the only one too...

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By the way have you seen this? This is an AI prediction for next Champions League winners until 2103. Still no Arsenal...  

I would like to add an interesting detail about this topic also. During the race the team offered a different plan than Leclerc thought of. It didn't made sense for Leclerc to gain positions so he offered his own plan. The team trusted him and applied his plan instead. This really helped Leclerc climb to 4th position at the end of the race. 

However this situation also shows how problematic Ferrari still are when it comes to planning strategies. I mean their plan was far worse than Leclerc's and probably it was going to cause him to finish around a position in which he started. 

Once again Liverpool failed in the task of beating Manchester United...    The first half was completely dominated by Liverpool. Shots were coming at Onana like rain but Liverpool scored only 1 goal in the half. This was going to cost them really a lot. Then Manchester United's comeback came as a shocker. Salah at least helped his team save 1 point but this is a really bad result for Liverpool.

Because now Arsenal have taken the lead from them. The points are equal though but it is still an important advantage.

Arsenal have the toughest fixture though as far as I see. I wonder if we will see Arteta's journey ending up with sadness again... 

İkisi de kayıpsız geçti hocam. Manchester City ilk geriye düşse de Crystal Palace'ı 4-2 geçti. De Bruyne 2 gol ve 1 asistle on numara oynadı. Real Madrid karşısında da Manchester City'nin en önemli silahlarından birisi net. Arsenal tahmin ettiğimden çok daha rahat bir şekilde Brighton'ı 3-0 geçti. Liverpool Brighton karşısında zorlanmıştı o yüzden bi şüphelenmiştim. Liverpool'a gelince şu ana kadar 2 maçta da Manchester United'ı deviremedi. Bu maçta bana sanki bu seriyi kıracaklar gibi geliyor ama göreceğiz.