I think you understimate Benfica too much. Yeah, LFC is big favorites, but I woludn't say that Benfica don't stand a chance. They already kicked out Ajax, which is very solid team this season. IMO, Bayern got easiest opponent. Villarreal is dark horse of tournament, they already eliminated Juventus quite unexpected, but I don't see chances for them against Bayern.

I can't be not happy about opponent that Barca got. Yeah, we had problems against Galatasaray, so, Eintracht won't be easy too. But it's not worth to expect easy opponents at this phase of tournament.
Leipzig - Atalanta sound interesting and not predictable. It wouldn't be bad pair even in Champions league. In West Ham - Lyon pair I see Hammers as slighlty favorites. And Braga - Rangers pair sounds least sexy from all, I expect Rangers to go through.

I saw many pitch invaders - some try to hug player or take selfie, some trying to promote something on their shirt, or running naked to get attention. But I never saw that pitch invader would tie himself to goal post as sign of protest, When I turned in game on TV and saw that's interruoted, I didn't even understood what's going on:
https://www.eurosport.com/football/premier-league/2021-2022/everton-v-newcastle-halted-by-a-protester-who-decided-to-tie-himself-to-a-goal-post-in-the-second-ha_sto8849000/story.shtml

Yeah, it seems that many backed Everton. Don't know why I predicted Newcastle win, during game I was sure that I had draw, so, when Everton scored I wasn't very happy . Anyway, not bad round for me, up to 19th place, season high for me so far.

New season finally starts tomorrow.Guys, do you feel gossebumps already? I haven't been so hyped for a long time.
I expected to see Hulkenber guest appearance during the season, but definitely not in the first race of season. Getting covid is bad news for Vettel, but I'm always happy to see Hulk racing.

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P.S. If someone is interested, you can join F1 Prediction Poll, entry fee is just 0.001 BTC. All details here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5389827.msg59534386#msg59534386

Probably not many watched LASK - Slavia game, I saw moments of it on simulcast and it was quite epic. Slavia were leading 2:1, they got red card, but managed to score another goal. In 2nd half LASK made score 2:3. On 58th minute Slavia got another red card and it let LASK to respond with 2 goals and win game 4:3. But Slavia goes to next round on aggregate scoe 5:7
Roma reached next round only after late goal of Abraham, which made aggregate score against Vitesse 2:1.
In general, no big upsets - I don't call AZ being eliminated by Bodo/Glimt as big surprise, considering how Bodo are playing thisseason. And it was difficult to expect such big PSV win.

Very interesting day in Europa league.
First, about Barca game. It wasn't wqorth to expect that it will be easy to win away, but when we conceded first, I started to worry a bit. Any way,  Barca made comeback and went to next round
West Ham - Sevilla, it's great game and it's sad that one of these teams will be eliminated. And Yarmolenko goal in extra time lead West Ham to next round. It was very emotional moment
Late Betis goal against Eintracht sent game to extra time and Eintracht managed to win after very late goal in extra time - that was quite big mistake of Betis goalkeeper.
Ranger lost to Crvena Zvezda 2:1, but after solid win in 1st leg, it's not big deal.
Why it's unbelieavable?

Usually I'm a bit sceptical about adding new local boards, but this time I fully support this request. Yes, you can say that Ukrainian local thread is inactive, but for most of them it was not a problem to post in Russian board. Now things had changed. And even if war will end soon, I doubt that Ukrainians and Russians will be able to talk together like nothing didn't happened.

Language barrier will stop them. Very few Russians known Ukrainian language, so they won't be able to post in Ukrainian board. There is no rule which would stop Ukrainians posting in Russian board, but I believe that not many would continue to do it after getting their own board, unless they don't know Ukrainian language.
BTW I remember there was request for Ukrainian board very long time before war.

I already saw such explanation in few russian telegram channels. How surprising...

I really don't see China getting involved in this war. Why they would need it. It's more likely that Belarus army will help them. Recently people heard explosions in few Belarus cities. Either it was attack from Ukraine or provocation from Russia.
And Russia can't send too much forces to Ukraine and leve other regions uncovered. And BTW, Ukraine is already making counter attacks.

Damn, what Villarreal did is something amazing. Winning against Juventus away 3:0 is something what doesn't happens often. And they didn't even had many chances for almost whole game. In 2nd half Juve didn't managed to make anything dangerous. Definitely biggest surprise so far.
Another Chelsea win against Lille. Lille scored first, but in 2nd half they were so dull and Chelsea achieved well deserved win.

I'm definitely in. I tried to make free prediction pool for F1 just for fun, but it didn't gained interest. It would be nice to get at least 10 participants.

Yeah, unless he get disqualified for something or have time penalty given by stewards.

Yeah, in recent days there is lot of reports about people leaving their jobs in state owned media. But numbers isn't significant and none of them aren't big names in Russia.
About Ovsyannikova, I would be very surprised if she will end just 30k rubles fine.
BTW, there is conspiracy theory that whole this story is fake and it was scripted by Channel One:
https://mobile.twitter.com/mara_ampora/status/1503525518125240320

Ajax loss was big disappointment for me, I wanted to see them going far this season. And yesterday they didn't played bad actually, they dominated game.
Yeah, very attractive odds for Juve today, though, Villarreal is tricky team.
Chelsea is almost in, but I still will bet on their win. 2:0 is not 100% secure result, I expect Chelsea to try finish everything tonight.

Wow, Benfica, just wow. It was difficult to see this coming. Ajax dominated game, Benfica had very few chances and one goal was enough for them. I'm disappointed about elimination of Ajax. This season they had such good them and I expected to see them going far.
MU 0-1 Atletico. It was Atletico at it's finest. We saw Atletico playing their typical football, what doesn't works for them that often in recent seasons in big games.

Not just oil. Europe seriously depends on Russian gas, probably more seriously than oil. Some countries like Bulgaria for example get way above 90% of their gas from Russia. Germany shutdown Nord Stream 2 project, but Nord Stream 1 is working at full power. EU is such big hypocrites, imposing all these sanctions against Russia and at the same time continue to buy gas from them. Gas, which is one of main sources of income for them. And, no, it's not indirect funding of war. It's nothing more than direct funding of war.

It would be interesting to know how many times in these 12 years Real played on Monday lol. I guess not that many.
And thanks for bringing good old memories from that unforgetable El Clasico .

And who would have thought that it will be City .

I already wanted to check weather forecast for upcoming race, but forgot that we're in Bahrain . Anyway, seems that it won't be that hot, 24-26°C during Saturday and Sunday. So, maybe teams won't have problems with overheating brakes.

Yeah, option "never get it" is the best one. But probably it's only matter of time when most us will get covid. From all my friends, colleagues, family, there is very few left who still didn't had covid.

That's serious stuff. And she isn't random stranger, she worked in Channel One as news editor for long years already. And she also made video on Facebook, explaining her position:
https://mobile.twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1503455183115886601?
She worked in propaganda machine for long time, but it's very brave decision to make such appearance, knowing that you may get in jail for long years after it.

Yeah, I posted that video somewhere yesterday. It summarizes current state of Russia very well.

I think it's unlikely that Ricciardo won't recover until the new season, though it would be interesting to see Piastri. It's a bit shity situation to get Covid and miss tests with completely new car, but still, it's probably better than getting Covid during the season and miss race because of it.

I'm prety sure that Russian soldiers know how surrender, plenty of them already did it. It's one of few chances for them to stay alive. Either they will be killed by Ukrainians sooner or later, or if they will try to go back, they will by killed by chechen troops who are sent there to destroy deserters.
P.S. part about freezing ttiny putin gave me laugh, that was good one .

Well, people in Donbass were living in peace until Putin didn't came here back in 2014. But I'm not sure why I still waste my time responding to your shitposts.

Well, they don't stop to reach new levels - now they arrested women who hold paper where it's literally written ''two words''. And that's not the end, few moments later they also arrested women who support war in Ukraine, but was in wrong place, wrong time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2TSqepIuJQ

Yeah, there is no war, just ''special military operation''...