Some of these odds are really unfair to me. Because Verstappen has a really difficult job actually as he is starting from way back of the grid. But he is the most favoured driver to win the Belgian GP. I would rather seeing Sainz in his place as he is the most likely driver to win the race in normal conditions. Verstappen can reach podium in fact but it is hard to wait for more than that. He might need even safety cars to make it to top somehow. And he might need Ferrari's help by making bad decisions also. 

So I think Sainz's 3.10 odd is tempting to place a bet. Maybe even Hamilton could be given a chance at 13.00 but it seems really hard for him. Mercedes drivers weren't too impressive in qualifying session. However technically Hamilton is more advantageous than even Verstappen for now as he is starting at upper positions. 

It has been another interesting day in the EPL. Maybe most of us were confident about Liverpool to win today but their beginning to the season was creating question marks about their match. But they had just one of their most impressive matches in the recent times. A 9-0 victory should be enough for boosting their morale.  

The most interesting part of this match could be this:



It was like everyone performed great in this huge win except Salah. He had zero contribution to this incredible win by goals or assists. It must be a nightmare for the people who have chosen Salah in FPL. 

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Manchester City - Crystal Palace can be the weirdest match so far. Crystal Palace had 2 goal attempts in the first half and both of them ended by goals. But Manchester City got rid of this shock in the second half professionally. They gave zero chance to their opponent and crushed them by 4 goals. Haaland is the top scorer by 6 goals in the league after making a delightful hat-trick in this one.

Manchester City are really never giving up for two weeks even though they are getting behind by two goals. They are somehow managing to make a comeback. I think this effort deserves to be respected.

Considering the current teams in the group stage, I think that Villarreal and West Ham are the closest teams to become the champions.

Villarreal can even be the biggest favourite team. Their journey in the Champions League was incredible last season. We watched them eliminate top tier teams like Juventus and Bayern Munich and reach the semi final. Now they are in a really good shape too so not much thing changed about them. However it is up to how much they will care about this tournament as well. Because they can qualify for the Europa League by having a good season in the La Liga too. It isn't the toughest job for them. If the prize was joining the Champions League then I wouldn't doubt their performance here.

This is the best and worst races for the drivers during the season so far. DNFs aren't included by the way.

When we look at this statistics we can clearly see that Russell is really the "Mr Consistency".    Mercedes must be very satisfied with his performance even though they started the season with a very weak car. Even Hamilton couldn't do better than him at first. It is for sure that Russell is going to be Mercedes' main driver after Hamilton retires. Ricciardo is one of the most unsuccessful drivers of this season. We aren't going to see him at McLaren next season as it seems. While I was waiting for him to sign for Alpine some news related to Haas came out indeed. But with whom will he be replaced at Haas?

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There was a red flag out in FP3 after Leclerc had an accident by losing control. I hope there is no problem with the car right before qualifying.

I think that it might be nice to have a poll for the champion of this season here. 

Maybe the Liga Portugal doesn't attract the attention of most people as much as the biggest leagues like the EPL. But I love to follow the nice competition between Porto, Sporting and Benfica here. This league doesn't have so many qualified teams which is a minus for it. But at least the championship race is exciting.

There was a significant change in Benfica's performance from the 20/21 season to 21/22. Porto and Sporting left them way behind in the standings. The league has been under the dominance of Porto - Sporting duo for three seasons. However this season might be different. Considering the first three matches, I see a stronger Benfica while Sporting are struggling. Sporting had two difficult matches against Porto and Braga of course but they should still have done better than getting only one point in total.

I'd like to share my opinion about the groups of the teams in my country. I mean Fenerbahce and Trabzonspor.

Fenerbahce meet Dynamo Kyiv again after the unpleasant rendezvous in the Champions League. However I strongly believe that things will be different in this group. It was only the start of the season when Fenerbahce were eliminated by them. Now Jorge Jesus has brought the team to a better level. We are watching a team that are very productive about scoring lately. It's time to have revenge on Dynamo Kyiv also. Rennes are the toughest team to defeat for them but I think Fenerbahce can get four points from them at least. They can finish the group as the leader.

When it comes to Trabzonspor's group it is even easier. Monaco are the only team that can make difficulties for them. But they haven't started the season nicely in the Ligue 1 also. Trabzonspor should also be able to advance to next stage by finishing second in the worst case.

After having very positive results in the first weeks PSG are given a very low odd for the Monaco match like 1.05. Considering the first weeks Monaco were lacking their performance of the previous season. Actually they didn't have a very good start then too but they recovered after leaving the middle of the season behind. In this transfer window they have signed good players like Minamino, Embolo and Sarr. They might need some time to get better with their new transfers so I see this as a comfortable match for PSG. Their previous match here ended by a 2-0 win for PSG but this time it might even be a win by a bigger goal difference. Because Mbappe, Neymar and Messi all are playing very consistently these days.

Considering that PSG conceded 3 goals in their last 2 matches, both teams to score might be a good choice to bet on as well.

Galatasaray are having active days in the transfer market these days. They are reported to be still after Mauro Icardi. He hasn't played for PSG in the new season yet. He is just a substitute player for Mbappe now so PSG seem willing to sell him. The only problem might be related to finance for Galatasaray. Icardi's current wage at PSG is 9.6 million euros. Together with his transfer fee, he might cost Galatasaray too much as they have spent so much money already.

If they don't manage to finish this deal they will go for a domestic player who is Umut Bozok. He was the most scorer of the Super League by 20 goals last season. But he's never played for a big team yet. I have doubts about what he can do at Galatasaray as a result. One thing is certain that Galatasaray need to make the right transfer for this position because they are still relying on Gomis despite transferring Seferovic.

https://www.transfermarkt.com.tr/galatasarayda-transfer-gundemi-s%C4%B1cak-icardi-bozok/view/news/410166

I think that it was a logical risk to take for Verstappen. Because he is already 80 points ahead of Leclerc in the championship race while there are 9 races left. We watched Verstappen even winning the race despite starting from the 10th position in the last race. Even if he doesn't win he can reach podium at least.

By this news I'm more confident about a Leclerc win here but I still don't trust Ferrari's strategies.    They sometimes are doing a really good job like they did in the Austria GP but they screw things up most of the time. I expect them to make some substantial changes in their crew at the end of the season otherwise next season wouldn't be very different for Ferrari.

Maybe it is time for a revenge for Barcelona against Bayern Munich.    I would like to remind you that Barcelona got really embarrassing results against them in the past. But there is a brand new Barcelona under Xavi's management at the moment. Maybe they don't have a Messi anymore but Xavi has made a big progress about applying a strong system to the team. Having Lewandowski by their side also can be a big advantage for them. Lewandowski wasn't very happy about his last days at Bayern Munich before coming here. So maybe he can use this as a motivation to score against them in both group matches.

Maybe it isn't as tough as Group C but I think that Group H is also a quite challenging one. It shouldn't be forgotten that Benfica are always assertive in the Champions League group stage.

NaVi coach B1AD3 is pointing out that headtr1ck is still not ready to play at top tier level. It was his first time with the main team so I find it normal. s1mple is still not here so they had to find a replacement for him temporarily. s1mple is expected to play for his team Saturday. But I must admit that NaVi still did a great job by finishing their group as the winner in the absence of s1mple. The loss against Complexity scared me first but they recovered quickly later.

I think that this is a good proof showing how strong NaVi are able to play even when they play without their best player.

https://www.hltv.org/news/34445/b1ad3-i-think-headtr1ck-is-not-ready-to-play-versus-tier-one-comfortably-enough

Trabzonspor had a very unlucky rematch last night and were eliminated after that. They had so many goal opportunities during the whole match but they couldn't take advantage of even one of them. Their clearest chance was with Denswil in the second half but the goalkeeper saved his header right in front of the goal line. Cornelius also had some crucial chances to score but he couldn't. FC Copenhagen were playing like they were okay for a 0-0 result. They had some spaces in Trabzonspor defense in the first half but they wasted those chances generously.

Having no team in the Champions League has made things even worse for Turkey's coefficient. Now they will hope for the remaining teams in the other European tournaments to be successful.

It was emotional for me to see two Turkish teams making it to the Minor. Eternal Fire isn't a big surprise because they already have a great roster to beat all of the opponents in the qualifier stage. However Sangal's success was way better than I expected. After seeing Entropiq against them I just thought that Sangal would leave their chance to the next qualifier. Entropiq are a way stronger team but Sangal played really bravely and this carried them to the Minor.

But I still think that the Minor can be very difficult for Sangal. Even seeing only Eternal Fire in the Major without big problems would be enough for me.

I'm still questioning the decision about benching xfl0ud. But things are going well for now. I hope imoRR stops taking meaningless risks completely in time. He did this so many times in the past and this was really hurting the team. I know that he likes this style in FPL but he should be very disciplined as for team matches. This is the only way of beating top tier teams in tournaments.

Actually I didn't mean to put it that way. The second paragraph is independent from the first one but it might be my mistake to cause it to be understood like that. 

Italy's problem wasn't related to injuries of course. They had many draws in the group stage and I felt like that was a bad sign for the next stages of the World Cup as well. However I would never expect North Macedonia to punish them like that in the play-off stage already. Maybe it was luck because Italy did whatever they could in that match.

On the other hand, I also agree with you about Italy's future. They would come back stronger in the next World Cup. Because normally Italy have a great pool full of talented players. Maybe it was about the team chemistry after some new young players joined.

Nuri Sahin definitely helped Antalyaspor improve their vision of football. He played for very big teams like Dortmund, Real Madrid and Liverpool in his football career. But he mainly played in Germany of course. He is very familiar with the most preferred game plan of the biggest European teams as a result. Antalyaspor are very lucky to have him as a result. If they had a Turkish manager who didn't work for any European team before, their current playing style would be very boring as we are used to see it in many teams in the Super League already.

Maybe Antalyaspor don't have a squad that can fight for the title yet but they at least have the potential to reach there. The thing they only lack is money. Let's say a billionaire decided to buy them then they would really be unstoppable in this league.

The weather report of Spa for the weekend is like this now:



Actually it was showing Sunday also as rainy before but it has changed. Honestly a rainy race in Spa would turn into a nightmare for most of the drivers. Because this is one of the most difficult tracks under rain in my opinion. Hamilton likes rainy races a lot as you know but his car would still stay weak against Verstappen and Leclerc's as long as we don't see those two having problems.

I'm expecting a very competitive race between Verstappen and Leclerc. Verstappen is the last winner of this race and he'd like to retain this achievement. However his job will be really difficult against Leclerc. It depends on the choices Ferrari will make as well. Because for example their calls about tyres literally finished Leclerc's race early previously. I hope not to see this kind of scandalous incidents recurring here also.

I still can't understand how a team that were expected to reach the finale could be eliminated by North Macedonia in the play-off round. I know that it has been a long time since it happened but it's hard to absorb.

Injuries can play a big role for the competing teams in this World Cup. Because the tournament is like in the middle of the season. Players are going to play so many matches before the World Cup starts and this clearly increases the probability of injuries. For example, Pogba is still suffering from a meniscal injury but he is thankfully expected to return on September 12. But he is still injury-prone and this is a big risk for the France midfield.

The biggest favourites might lose some of their important players like this as a result of a tight schedule. And this would upset the balances. Therefore I believe that it is still early to make sure of the success rate of any team now.

Sivasspor'un aldığı sonuç gerçekten üzücü ancak Malmö gibi oldukça tecrübeli bir takıma karşı çok fazla şansları olmadığını düşünüyordum. Belki arada inanılmaz bir oyuncu kalitesi farkı yok ama tecrübe büyük fark yaratıyor. Ligimizde iyi bir başarı yakalamayı başarabilen Anadolu takımları Avrupa arenasında tecrübesiz olduğundan fazlasıyla bocalayabiliyor. Sivasspor da yüksek ihtimal bu turdan turnuvaya veda edecektir.

Fenerbahçe 4-2'lik üstünlüğünü sürdürüyor ve eğer maç böyle biterse haftayı lider olarak kapayacaklar. Aslında bence de Adana Demirspor çok iyi bir kadro kurmuş. Çok yetenekli oyunculara sahipler ve 3-0'dan skoru 3-2'ye getirmeyi de başardılar. Ama çıkan o kırmızı kart onlar için maçın dönüm noktası oldu. Belki de Fenerbahçe'den puan koparabilirlerdi bugün. Yine de bu performans ile alkışı hak ettiler bence.

Roma's performance deserved a win by a bigger goal gap honestly but they won by 1-0 only. However a win is a win of course. It looks like Juventus might not even get that kind of a win against Sampdoria now. Rabiot's goal was disallowed and it is still 0-0 in the last minutes. They don't have many goal attempts also. I mean it is not too different than the Sassuolo match. The difference is that Juventus can't finish up the chances with goals this time.