Fenerbahçe were really bad today unlike my expectations from them. Their biggest chance in the whole match was King's great shot which hit the upper goal post. If it ended up with a goal then maybe the result would have been much more different than this. Crespo got really meaningless yellow cards. He should have stayed more concentrated on his game. After the red card Trabzonspor started to find big spaces in Fenerbahçe midfield and benefited from them by scoring 2 goals.

They literally handed over the lead to Galatasaray. I assume Galatasaray wouldn't make any mistake in a comfortable match against Istanbulspor.

We are only two days away from the first matches to start finally.

Leicester vs Newcastle seems like a competitive match to me. Newcastle are favoured by bookmakers @2.22. However this odd shows that they are also thinking that their job won't be easy at all. Because we don't have the same Leicester at the beginning of the season. They had really serious issues in defense at first. There was no problem with scoring goals but the weaknesses in defense dragged them down too much. But for many weeks, they have got really positive results by improving their defending as well. I think Newcastle should make as big effort as possible if they want to win this.

Heroic are currently at the top of world ranking by leaving Outsiders behind now. This is really interesting I think. Because I don't see any reason for them to get ahead of Outsiders now. Outsiders are still the last Major champions and Heroic didn't do anything extraordinary after that success. Even in the Blast Premier World Final, Heroic and Outsiders both were bad.

Heroic are even ahead by around 100 points. This is according to hltv ranking of course. However Heroic are in the first position in the ESL ranking as well. Liquid come right after them and we see Outsiders later. ESL take their own tournaments into consideration of course while determining the positions.

I think Galatasaray have a pretty difficult matchup ahead of them. Because they haven't been able to get positive results against Alanyaspor for some time. They couldn't get a win in their last three head-to-head matches. They were really close to getting it the last time but they couldn't keep their 2-0 advantage after being shown a red card.

Turkish Cup has been full of surprises as well. We can understand this easily from the finale of the previous season, Kayserispor vs Sivasspor. Therefore I think Galatasaray shouldn't underestimate their opponent even a little despite their good form these days. They will need to stay stronger in defense this time.

Lakers are still a very unreliable team these days. They started a really solid form first but now they are back to where they started. Westbrook and Davis both were absent in their last two games though which must be one of the biggest reasons of those losses. Lebron is trying to do his best as usual but he can't carry the team by himself in the end.

Him and Westbrook both have had an injury but they are about to return. Davis is expected be out until February 2. Davis' absence will surely be felt. Because his recent performance has been impressive. I still remember how fascinating he was against Wizards with 55 points and 17 rebounds.  

Exactly, yeah. It is related to Rashford's current situation.

Unless one of the trio of Mbappe, Messi and Neymar leaves the team at the end of the season, there is no way it is being a good move for Rashford to go to PSG next summer. Because it is obvious that he will have to be a member of the substitutes there. While this trio play an amazing game it is too difficult for Rashford to get the chance to play in the starting eleven in the place of one of them. Let's say Rashford decided to get used to playing in a different position but it is still meaningless for him to waste his time like that.

https://www.hltv.org/news/35294/nip-set-sights-on-headtr1ck-report

I have read the news (on the link above) about a possible transfer of headtr1ck to NIP later on.

headtr1ck seems to be a skillful player as a member of Natus Vincere Junior team indeed. There was a short time period that he played as a stand-in for s1mple in the past. And his performance was quite positive for the team according to the match stats back then. His general effort has also been very impressive - 1.27 rating. I think this would be a great investment for NIP if Natus Vincere let him go there. I watched him playing beside m0nesy on a Twitch stream recently and I can say that his playing style is really nice.

Sevilla - PSV is another tough matchup in this round of the tournament.

Sevilla are known by a very successful team in the Europa League. They have 4 titles in last 10 seasons here. This is quite impressive and maybe scary for PSV. However the problem is that Sevilla are having a really bad season now. They are under the danger of relegating from the La Liga. Because their performance has been bad in not only the Champions League but also the La Liga. I don't think they would focus on the Europa League more at this point. They have no choice other than focusing on the La Liga matches to save themselves from the relegation zone. This might be an opportunity for PSV to take advantage of.

I wonder if the duel between Messi and Mbappe in the World Cup could be seen as a factor for Mbappe to leave the team earlier than the expectations. However I still don't expect such thing to happen in the near future. There are still rumours like PSG will let Mbappe go next summer etc. but I don't believe any of those.

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Diego Simeone seems very determined to sell Joao Felix. Simeone doesn't look like contented with Felix's performance at all now. Maybe it is because of Simeone's being stubborn about using the same strategies every year. But Felix has nothing to do in this situation.

I really don't know how they can get their strength back in such a short time. I know that they have been working on their car but I don't think they have made that much improvement yet. Because they have newly replaced Binotto with Vasseur. They will need some time for him to start applying the plans in his mind with his crew.

Ferrari still have quite much time until the launch of their new season car. I don't know if they would show anything about the power of the car. Maybe we would barely be able to see it by the beginning of testing sessions. They need to give the best car they can to Leclerc and Sainz this time.

This is es3tag's statistics in 2022. He has been really ineffective for the team in general. This was because of showing a very inconsistent performance for a long time. There was an improvement in his performance in the recent times actually but it didn't last very long either.

If NIP want to be one of the top tier teams by staying in top 10 then they should take the needed steps for the good of the team. It is the right call to bench es3tag and I wonder with whom they will be filling his place. The most striking AWPers have a strong bond with their teams these days. They might need to go for a talented young AWPer instead of signing a player who is already a star.

I don't think there will be such thing happening either in January or next summer. Mbappe has newly extended his contract with PSG and he wouldn't give up on a contract like this very quickly as well. Besides he still has much work to do here. He is targeting the Champions League title with PSG for now. He doesn't seem to be willing to talk about transfer rumours these days.

He is very comfortable at PSG at the same time. The team is just worshipping him now. They are giving whatever he wants and listening to his advices all the time. As Mbappe has a power like this he wouldn't give up on that easily for now. Because if Real Madrid sign him he wouldn't be like the owner of the team that's for sure.

It would be very funny if Mbappe wanted to kick Messi from PSG just because of losing that tough rivalry in the World Cup. 

Joking aside, I agree that the supporters will be welcoming both of these players happily. Mbappe's performance was already very important for his country so he will definitely be welcomed warmly. He showed an amazing performance in the finale by making a hat-trick despite the bad effort of the team in general. Messi's effort is also important for PSG actually. He will be very motivated and have full concentration on his next targets from now on. This can help PSG even more about making it to the Champions League title and complete the missing piece of the puzzle.

I wonder what would have happened if Barcelona had Messi since the beginning of the season. Let's say that he adapted to Xavi's game plan. Would he still be able to play a big role in Barcelona's advancing to last 16 stage? Or would they still fail in doing so?

To be honest, it feels like even Messi wouldn't be able to save the team by taking responsibility. Because I think it was all due to the wrong strategies prepared by Xavi. The main reason of all the big matches they lost must be Xavi's wrong preferences. Barcelona had such a promising squad actually but they couldn't make it.

@Balmain  m0nesy is improving his game really fast. I think he really deserved the MVP prize in the Blast Premier World Final tournament. He has a really bright future and it makes me exciting that he plays this strong at his current age. I believe he has a bigger potential than s1mple. m0nesy can be the best AWPer if he goes on like this.



This is the list of top players in 2022.

It's amazing to see XANTARES in the 2nd position. I would like to point out a great detail there as well. He has played so many more maps than the others but he still keeps his KDA rate at a wonderful level. I think he deserves to be at the top if we compare the efficiency according to the number of maps played.

PSG are preparing to extend Messi's contract. Especially after his World Cup performance it must have made a big impact on their decision. Messi was already playing great for PSG as well of course. But winning the World Cup will surely increase his motivation level for the rest of the season. They need Messi to fight more seriously for the Champions League title.

Messi has always been leaving the door open for Barcelona though. But as there isn't any official offer made by them, there is no reason for Messi to reject or stall PSG. He would play for PSG at least for one more season and after that maybe he might prefer to leave.

I think Turkey have a really good potential to have a successful run in the EURO 2024. They could have joined the World Cup as well actually if Burak Yilmaz didn't miss that penalty. They just made things more difficult more themselves later on. But they can learn their lesson from this and get better until the EURO 2024 qualifiers.

Armenia and Latvia are normally not big threats for Turkey. There is a significant quality difference among the squads. Wales are a bigger threat maybe but they didn't impress me much in the World Cup to be honest. They were below the expectations. Croatia are going to be the toughest opponent for Turkey undoubtedly. The results between these two teams can play a big role in determining the leader of the group.

The closest attention getting tournament on CS: GO is IEM Katowice Play-In. However there is still more than one month to go for it to start.

The teams joining the tournament directly are Heroic, Outsiders, G2, Liquid, FaZe, Natus Vincere, MOUZ and Vitality. The last eight teams are going to be decided by Play-In matches. We are talking about a tournament whose prize pool is 1 million dollars. IEMs are already among the most important tournaments of course. We have just left Blast Premier behind and we saw some weaknesses in some big teams as well. This tournament can be considered as another chance to rise for them. They have pretty much time to get prepared well but let's see. Natus Vincere or FaZe should be able to reach the finale this time.

There is less than a week for the big match, Trabzonspor vs Fenerbahçe.

I'm of course feeling hopeful about my team, Fenerbahçe. They have done a great work so far thanks to Jorge Jesus. He has adapted to the Turkish Super League very quickly indeed and has established a strong bond with Fenerbahçe players. They have been able to keep this league and the Europa League balanced so far. Trabzonspor are like the opposite now. After being the champions it is like they have started to play more complacently. Fenerbahçe don't have a good history against them in this stadium recently maybe but I still expect them to return strong to the league by a win. The final result might be a close one.

Ferrari are claiming that they are back in their old strength again now. They are saying that they have the fastest car on the grid once again. I have heard about another thing also like they had to cut the power of the engine by a significant percent and this held them back from fighting with Red Bull at the same level.

Maybe they are saying the truth about winning their real power back now. We saw an example of it at the beginning of this season in the end. They were very promising. The only thing they need to do this time is to keep consistency. They need to work with better workers to have a season with minimum amount of problems. If we see them having durability issues again it would be a really big disappointment.