Haaland is such a special player that he scored 2 goals even though he played for only 45 minutes in this match. I understand why Guardiola replaced him with another player this much early because he needs to think of the Premier League on one hand. Copenhagen were already an easy opponent for them and Haaland's leaving the field didn't affect Manchester City much as they still won 5-0. Manchester City are one of the teams that have the most impressive stats in the group stage. But the most important part will be their performance after this stage. Unless Haaland gets injured it really feels like they are invincible. 

It was interesting to see PSG losing points after 1-1 result by the way. I was quite confident about them to win this. PSG improved their dominance in the second half very much but still it didn't help. I appreciate Benfica's solid resistance. It was interesting to see Galtier replacing Messi with Sarabia in the 81st minute while they were searching for the winning goal.

Milan have been a huge disappointment so far and they haven't proven bookmakers wrong by their performance also. In fact, I found the odds for this match pretty awkward first because Milan were in a much better shape than Chelsea recently. Because Chelsea have newly changed their manager they have been in a new phase to adapt to his strategies.

But now we see a Chelsea that have an amazing performance in this tough match. They have dominated the match so far since the beginning. Milan have only 2 shots in this whole match and have zero in the second half. This is horrible for a team that are very effective in scoring goals normally. Their performance today is similar to Ajax's yesterday. The difference is the goal difference is three for Milan at least.  

I didn't understand why Porsche decided to withdraw from F1 this much quickly either. Audi and them both seemed very eager to be a part of this sport as engine suppliers in fact. There is no way this is related to some financial issues so I wonder what the reason behind was.

Anyway Red Bull had better continue to keep a good relationship with Honda indeed. They need to do their best to reach an agreement with them after 2025 also if they can't find another supplier. Winning in Japan would be a good step for this relationship to get stronger. So the team will be eyeing Verstappen and Perez much more than the previous races.  

Who could have thought that Ajax would be demolished by Napoli even in their home match? Personally I didn't at all.

I was expecting to see even the opposite. But Napoli were 5-1 ahead even before Ajax got that red card. I've no idea how Ajax gave up on the match this easily. They made a really good impression on the first match week. After that they were pretty ineffective in Anfield but I saw it as normal because of Liverpool's classical dominant game in their home stadium. But this was really too much. How can you let Napoli score 6 goals in your home? How can they be this much weak in defense? They at least didn't concede this many goals against Liverpool but couldn't defend Napoli well.

Now I can comfortably say that Ajax are very likely to continue their journey in the Europa League. Maybe it's still early to say it but their performance deserves only there not the Champions League.

Erik ten Hag doesn't seem like he is a big fan of Ronaldo. Otherwise no matter what he would give many more chances to Ronaldo in the starting eleven. He was one of the best players of his team last season by finishing the season as the 3rd most scorer with 18 goals in the league. As we have left the transfer window behind also he must be able to focus on his game now.

I think that we should see him in the starting eleven against Everton next time. If he starts to play for a much longer time in league matches I'm feeling confident that he will be very useful about scoring. Of course I don't expect to watch the old Ronaldo but making a good level of score contribution would be enough for the team. They need just this when they face offensively strong teams.

The Japanese Grand Prix is at this weekend.

I'm excited about this race because it wasn't held in 2020 and 2021. Bottas is still retaining his achievement as he won the last race in 2019. It is almost impossible to repeat this with Alfa Romeo now though.    Anyway if we don't see heavy conditions again then I think Verstappen is already very close to getting his first ever victory in Suzuka. There is no way any other driver competing with him at the same level under normal conditions now.

However if we see heavy rain then this race would be much more difficult for Verstappen also. It is already not an easy track and it would add an extra difficulty to the situation.

Inter have done a great job so far and ended the first half 1-0 ahead thanks to Calhanoglu's nice goal. Actually Barcelona had more dangerous attacks than them and they were in control of the match in terms of ball possession. However Inter showed us that this wasn't the most important thing in football.

However I still don't think that Inter can win here. Barcelona's performance wasn't so different from them as I said. I expect them to improve their performance even more in the second half and equalize the score as soon as possible. But it looks like they have a really difficult job as for getting a win. Inter are surprising us a lot after their poor defensive performance against Roma the last time. I wasn't expecting them to stay this much solid. Maybe Inzaghi found out a way to be more prepared for the Champions League.

Manchester City just showed how easy they can break the defense of every single one of their opponent no matter how strong they are in defense. Manchester United were pretty solid in defense in their previous big matches indeed. But they were really desperate against especially Haaland of course. After seeing the recent improvement many people waited for Manchester United to fight hard against them. But this match would have been ended even more horrible if Martial didn't score two goals in the last moments.

I wonder what Erik ten Hag is thinking now. The players must have been quite frustrated after playing this much badly. I saw Alex Ferguson and Ronaldo with quite unhappy faces. Ferguson must be really disappointed to see his old team being in such a desperate condition after having great years with them in the past. However he also had bad times at first of course. Ronaldo's unhappiness wasn't related to due to the score only obviously. He wasn't selected for the starting eleven once again in a big match like this.

Congrats to Vitality on this hard-fought win over Liquid by 3-2!

It was such a lovely series to watch. Liquid proved themselves to be a really strong and dangerous team despite not winning the championship. Actually they had a big advantage while they were 2-1 ahead in the series. But Vitality were still mentally solid and they made a huge comeback which deserved the appreciation. Mirage and Overpass maps were the most exciting ones as there was a high level of competition and both of them ended after OT. On Vertigo which was the last map, Vitality showed a solid performance and got the win by 16-11.

For Liquid side, YEKINDAR performed as always. NAF's performance was also quite impressive. For Vitality side, ZywOo had a superb series. Especially his 51-kill effort on Mirage despite losing the map was incredible. I believe he was the most performing player of his team. Magisk was on another level too in general. dupreeh wasn't very effective mostly but his contribution to the win on Overpass was crucial. He got a really important clutch there also.

It looks like nothing has changed about Inter after the international break. Actually it was a long enough break for them to collect themselves and focus on their game much more. For example, Juventus did this very well and destroyed Bologna right before their Champions League match. Inter had a more challenging opponent like Roma of course but they should still have been able to win in Giuseppe Meazza. They lost by 2-1 instead and made things even more difficult for themselves.

I expect them to be not very prepared against Barcelona as well. But Barcelona are in a pretty solid condition now. No matter where this match is played, I think Barcelona would defeat them anyway. Therefore Barcelona win @1.82 is pretty attracting to bet on.

It was nice to see a different driver winning a race finally after a long time. Because Verstappen won the previous five races which started to make things boring for us. Perez had a wonderful race and he completely deserved the win by his high effort. He raced under the same conditions with Leclerc in the end so Leclerc should have been more concentrated on his race after catching up with Perez so much. He was the victim of his own mistakes I believe.

Everyone was waiting for Perez's penalty to be announced. There was an expectation of 10-sec penalty however they decided upon an only 5-sec penalty which was enough for Perez to retain his victory. I hope that this punishment is exactly the same in the rule book also. Otherwise it's a big disrespect to the rest of the drivers. We've already witnessed a huge mistake at the end of last season so FIA shouldn't have the luxury of acting however they'd like anymore.

Manchester United still seems to be after Frenkie de Jong despite adding Casemiro to the team already.

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/soccer-transfers/story/4751862/manchester-united-and-frenkie-de-jong-saga-to-continuebellingham-also-a-target

They were looking for a defensive midfielder and spent a lot of money to sign Casemiro. His contract details are really enormous for a 30-year old player. But he was still a great choice for the team as he was one of the most reliable players at Real Madrid by his impressive performance. However he hasn't played in many league matches for now and we don't know if he will adapt to the team easily. Maybe Manchester United want to have an even stronger midfield. Because after losing Pogba they needed to strengthen the area. But I don't think that they will be able to transfer de Jong before next summer.

PSG did the expected and won the match. However it wasn't a too comfortable win for them truthfully. Mbappe's absence was felt until he entered the match and he was the game changer as he scored the goal to win. If Neymar was able to play better there wouldn't be even a need for Mbappe. By the way Messi's free-kick goal was really a usual one for us to see from him.    It was nice to see advertising boards turning to "GOAT" after Messi touched the ball. 



PSG have a more difficult job to do these days because they are in a competition for the lead with Marseille on one hand. They need to concentrate on the Ligue 1 and Champions League at an equal level to maintain a decent form. I believe that they will still manage to do this successfully.

Bitcointalk Profile Link:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1217918
Current amount of posts: 3282
bech32 BTC Address for payouts: bc1qfmvxm48dkm6f06lnn35pmd659zu02se4fpsmpu
EARNED merit in the last 120 days: 32

I'm an old participant.

Pep Guardiola's unique system is hard to be replaced for Manchester City. This is the main reason they don't even think about sacking Guardiola for not winning the Champions League.

The team have a solid game plan for many years and this is the main factor they have been dominant in the Premier League in this period of time. They have added some other championships to their collection in the meantime of course. Last season was an opportunity for them but they were really unlucky against Real Madrid. Luck factor is also important for a team and Manchester City experienced this very badly. This season the expectation from them has got bigger after Haaland came and started to play like a beast in a short time. Guardiola might finally reach his main goal with this team to relieve finally before deciding to leave the team in the future.

England - Germany can definitely be one of the best matches I've seen in the recent times.

After Germany brought the score to 2-0 I was like that was it. Maguire is one of the worst and most overrated defenders ever. Because of him they conceded 2 goals. The first goal was really unbelievable. There was nothing dangerous first but Maguire made things difficult for his team suddenly. He lost the ball and caused a penalty. I wish to see him being sold by Manchester United to a small team.

However England made an insane comeback in 12 minutes. They scored three goals and got 3-2 ahead. The first goal made a huge impact on the team and they used the momentum in a great way. But Germany still were able to equalize it which was due to Pope's fault also. It is nearly ending 3-3 but let's see. Even though none of the teams had a target to achieve they still made us watch an unforgettable match. 

Bayern Munich are desperately trying to make their striker signing at the earliest opportunity but it's quite late for this season I'm afraid. Because they should have done this pre-season to be fully ready. They were just too stubborn about not going for any player and denied all the rumours linking them with Harry Kane.

There is no way they are signing Kane in January. They'd better forget about it and make their plans according to that. Whatever amount they offer I don't think Tottenham would be okay about selling him in the middle of the season. It'd be a huge problem for them while they are doing this much wonderful in the EPL.

Tomorrow playoffs stage is starting with these matches.

fnatic are in a recovery phase now and they are still having bad results against below tier 1 teams recently. They lost to Sangal around a week ago in a tournament for example. They have a nice potential actually by finishing the group stage above NaVi in ESL Pro League. Liquid had a serious difficulty against Cloud9 the last time and they owe YEKINDAR a lot for qualifying from the group. If we see a similar team performance then fnatic might take advantage of it. I'll try my luck and bet on fnatic @2.21.

There isn't much to talk about FaZe - Complexity matchup. Complexity had an astonishing run indeed but this is the end of the road for them. FaZe should end them without making big mistakes. 2-0 win might be preferred @1.43 but it carries some risks at the same time. FaZe might lose one map maybe. Their win @1.11 can be added to a betslip to increase the total odd a little.

This is the thing I'm afraid of the most.

If Verstappen continues to dominate F1 for long years seasons will start to become boring again. Verstappen is so close to increasing his title streak to two seasons now. I have hopes about next season though. Because it depends on how much Ferrari and Mercedes develop themselves to be a serious competitor for Red Bull. Maybe we can see McLaren or Alpine doing much better than this too but it is still difficult for them to join the title race as there is a big gap to close up.

Even if Verstappen wins that season also, at least I hope to see a big competition for the championship between two or maybe even three drivers. These drivers would be Verstappen, Leclerc and Hamilton I guess. Hamilton wants the 8th title to own the record only himself so I don't think he would let Russell get past him when they both have fast cars.

I also don't believe that Liquid deserved to qualify from this group after seeing their team performance. If it weren't for YEKINDAR's insane effort there was really no way they were winning against the unbeaten team of the group. After all that effort I would have liked to see Eternal Fire instead in the playoffs. But they were also punished for their poor performance at the beginning. When their playoff ticket started to be in danger they barely started to perform better.

I hope they have learned their lesson from this journey because they have RMR starting in a very short time period. Considering their group they should be able to enter top 8 easily. Top 4 is too difficult for them so even if they qualify for the Challengers Stage it would still be good for them. They qualified for this stage in the previous RMR also but couldn't make it to next phase. This time they might achieve this success depending on their effort with their new players.