The championship odds didn't surprise me much. Fenerbahce are playing really good under Jorge Jesus' system now. Their attacking strength has increased a lot recently and they are the most scoring team of the league at the same time. I'm just surprised about Besiktas' not being ahead of Galatasaray in terms of being more favourite. Maybe it is related to Galatasaray's latest transfers as they have most probably solved their striker problem and there are really some other nice signings as well. Depending on their performance the balances can change again of course.

I don't know if Galatasaray can win the title but they should be able to fight for it until the end this time. I'm especially waiting for seeing Icardi's effort. This season we can finally have that great title competition between the biggest teams of the league as it seems.

Last season was at least interesting man. Because the story of that season was incredible even though the ending wasn't fair for Hamilton. Verstappen led the season for a really long time but Hamilton caught up with him in the standings day by day. They even entered the final race on equal points which was incredibly exciting.

Now we just watch Verstappen dominate the whole season and there is nobody to stop him before the end of the season. Of course Leclerc still keeps his mathematical chance for the championship but let's just be realistic, shall we?    There is no way this is happening while he has a slower car compared to Verstappen's.

I'm still trying to figure out what is happening in the Champions League this season.  

Yesterday we had really unexpected results and today is not much different as well. Manchester City are 1-0 behind against Dortmund now which is the biggest surprise. Manchester City might seem dominant to you if you look at the statistics but the thing is that they are too ineffective today. They don't even have one shot on target in 70 minutes which is horrible. Bellingham is getting closer by every minute to make his team the winner here. I never thought of this possibility for this match and most people must be sharing the same opinion. While Dortmund are still struggling with defense issues I wonder how Manchester City can play this much poorly against them.

Juventus - Benfica is another surprise so far as Benfica are still in the lead by 2-1. I know that Juventus aren't very reliable in the Serie A these days but they care about the Champions League more normally. So this score is very interesting to me.

Matches in Group C are starting tomorrow:



These are the odds for the first three matches. The most interesting one is of course MOUZ - Heroic. Very interestingly MOUZ have a huge odd like 2.26 for the win. To be honest, I see them as a more reliable team than Heroic these days. Their ranking is much better than Heroic in the first place. Their recent form is also more solid. Considering the h2h matches MOUZ defeated them in IEM Cologne as well.

It's like everything is indicating a MOUZ win for this matchup. There must be a reason behind these odds but I still want to give a chance to MOUZ. I see that xertioN has been promoted to main roster to replace Bymas. Maybe this might be the reason behind. Apart from that, Astralis and ENCE shouldn't have any problem on defeating their opponents 2-0 both.

We all know well that Formula 1 management wouldn't think of making such move in the future.    Actually it is exactly like you said for Formula 2 now. As far as I know the cars are still equal there. However they aren't planning to do this for Formula 1. They leave the difficult job for the teams to compete with each other as strong as possible.

In the circumstances, it is too hard for some specific teams to get to the top any time. The only way for them might be that a rich person buys the team and makes a huge investment into the team to make it one of the bests. Even this doesn't have any guarantee because Racing Point had this scenario but couldn't become such powerful team later on. They were using Mercedes' old engine which was an obstacle for them.

There are only six races left in this season of F1.

Maybe Verstappen still hasn't guaranteed his championship mathematically but it would most probably happen after a few races the most. Because he is definitely unstoppable now as he has no competitor who can make difficulties for him in any race. Unless he has any issues with his car he should be able to win the remaining races as well. Ferrari's main focus should be not making any mistake on the remaining days. If they solve this problem maybe Binotto might not make much change in his crew. Otherwise Ferrari will need a big change to be competitive for the championship next season for real. As Mercedes will also be in a title rivalry most probably Ferrari will need to work even harder than now. Red Bull are already consistent so I don't have any doubt about them for next season as well.

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Galatasaray impressed me by a really high performance against Kasimpasa today. The result shouldn't mislead people because Galatasaray would have been able to win this match by a much bigger gap. Kerem Akturkoglu was the star of this match obviously. Especially his second goal was amazing. The first goal they conceded was Emin Bayram's fault but fans might tolerate it as he is a very young centre-back now. It was his second match with the team also. We didn't see Icardi in this match because Okan Buruk said that he wasn't ready yet. But Gomis was again there to score a goal.

Galatasaray's performance for this season is really promising. If new transfers show good performances they can be in the title race until the end.

Such a great ending for G2 in the group stage. They crushed Outsiders on Inferno by 16-2 first and finished the job on Ancient after OT. To be honest, I was expecting Outsiders to win one map. G2 continue to get solid wins right after destroying FaZe 2-0. They completed this stage with 5 wins just as Vitality did. New players have started to adapt to the team recently and it looks like the old G2 are back from now on. People are wondering if "FaZe era" has ended from now on. I don't know if there was any such era because Natus Vincere are as strong as them too.

FaZe made up for the G2 loss today by beating BIG 2-0. They are going to play an extra round before the quarter finals of course. I assume that most people were expecting FaZe to finish the group being the leader. They need to use the two-week break well for themselves if they want to win the tournament. This inconsistent team effort won't be enough for reaching even the finale as it seems.

Verstappen is too dominant now. I wouldn't be surprised even if he wins the rest of the races in this season.

Leclerc has already lost his chance for the championship if we look at this from a sensible aspect. He is still trying to be competitive of course but the car isn't letting him do better than this. At least there was some improvement in the Monza Grand Prix as he was faster than Russell and Hamilton both. But nothing has changed against Verstappen. It was really awkward to see Leclerc having a serious problem despite having fresh soft tyres after that important pit. If Verstappen is able to keep the gap at the same level with worse tyres then Ferrari are finished for this season.

Carlo Ancelotti is about to sign a new contract with Real Madrid soon.

Real Madrid have had an awesome run with Ancelotti so far. He is like continuing from where Zidane left. The championships in the La Liga and Champions League both must have been enough for the team to continue with Ancelotti for longer years. They have had a strong chemistry with him. Teams like Real Madrid always need winner managers like Ancelotti for having consistent seasons. Otherwise it is a really big risk to take. PSG and Chelsea have taken this risk though by their choices for this season. But I can't imagine Real Madrid bringing an inexperienced manager after Ancelotti.

The source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11199793/Real-Madrid-prepare-offer-Carlo-Ancelotti-new-deal-extend-contract-club.html

After a long time I have lost my lead in the pool and it feels really sad. If Sainz was able to overtake Russell and finish the race on podium then I was going to keep the lead. Anyway, congrats @vd309 for taking the lead from me by this week.



And congrats @LTU_btc for winning the yellow cap.  



I was really hopeful about Leclerc this time. I predicted him for the win in the pool. But he couldn't compete well against Verstappen I'm afraid. All the effort was in vain and Verstappen had a much bigger pace than him after a point. Safety car would have been a chance for Leclerc maybe but the race finished under it so this just helped Verstappen secure his win comfortably. I wish Sainz was able to use safety car as an advantage to keep my position in the pool.

Verstappen has Alonso right ahead of him by the way. This reminds me of Hamilton - Alonso rivalries in the past races.    However Verstappen has a way faster car than Hamilton now. So it would be too difficult for Alonso to keep him behind for a long time. I even expect Verstappen to gain some positions before turn 1 already. Leclerc has gained a significant power now indeed. While Verstappen is trying to climb the positions Leclerc will need to push to open the gap as much as possible. I expect Ferrari to start pushing from the beginning and build a tyre strategy upon that.

The pit crew will be eyed closely for sure. After their huge mistakes with Sainz in the previous race they have attracted the attention of most people. They can't afford doing this again in this GP as well.

G2 are literally incredible in the recent times. After seeing them destroying FaZe 16-7 on Dust2 I watched the second map which was Nuke. This was the most successful map for FaZe while it was totally opposite for G2. As a result I was expecting a clear answer from FaZe to equalize the BO3. However G2 made a spectacular effort here. Their performance on CT side was mesmerizing. I was still hoping to see FaZe making a comeback by playing CT side better than them. However they were making simple mistakes. I don't remember how many eco or half-buy rounds G2 got against them. Even the last round was exactly like that.  broky was really impressive on Nuke but it was still not enough for a win of course.

There was something wrong with FaZe's focusing on the series here which led them to lose by 2-0 surprisingly.

Of course there isn't any very special thing about Graham Potter. He doesn't have any impressive achievement in his career in the end. But I just want to be patient to see how good impact he will make in the team. The Salzburg match is only a few days away from us. Considering that they lost to Dinamo Zagreb this is a tougher match for them. We will see how strong the team will be able to play. Aubameyang came here for Tuchel maybe but he is a very professional striker. He would abide by Potter's system well also. If they win this match then this might be a green light to their upcoming Premier League matches as well.

It is still the beginning of the season so Chelsea can make up for their bad results so far in time. Potter just needs to find the right game plan for the team to improve the morale also.

PSG could have lost points today if Slimani didn't miss that penalty. Donnarumma was the savior of the team by that great save. PSG had so many goal opportunities in this match. Messi wasted a big chance for example as his shot bounced off the goal post. If the red card wasn't cancelled due to detecting an offside before then maybe we could have watched a much more different match. 1-0 win isn't satisfying for a team like PSG but they got three points in the end. However it is still early for PSG to care less about the Ligue 1. I know that most of their focus is on the Champions League from now on. But this shouldn't affect their productivity badly in this league.

The last look of the grid has been shared finally. They were having problems on determining in which position Verstappen was going to start. It changed between 4th and 7th position but finally it was decided. I don't know why there was a hesitation about this too. Because Verstappen finished qualifying in 2nd position and he was going to start in 7th position as a result considering the 5-place grid penalty.

Russell has a really huge advantage here. He is starting right behind Leclerc. I wonder if he can have a better traction at the beginning of the race to overtake Leclerc. But to be honest Leclerc seems really fast this weekend. Even if he makes a mistake at the beginning it wouldn't take him much time to get his place back. It looks like there will be a lovely competition between Leclerc and Verstappen tomorrow. 

I believe that it is still quite early to predict the final look of Group A.

Liverpool are of course in a bad condition and the Napoli match has made things even worse. No matter defensive or offensive performance, they are in a pretty poor shape. However Liverpool had this kind of problems in the past as well. There was a season they had a bad form for some time but they found a way out of the situation later on. This is another similar scenario. Big teams sometimes have this kind of out-of-form times but the most important thing is to get rid of it as quick as possible. I believe in Klopp to fix the issues on a large scale. They still have five more matches in the group and they can still finish it being even the leader if they gather themselves up on time.

Klopp should focus on boosting Salah's morale as well. He is very important for the team. Since Mane left he has been too ineffective. I'd like to remind you of the Bournemouth match for example. Even though they scored 9 goals he had 0 contribution to the team. Every big team have a star player and Salah is the one here. If he is bad the team are the same also.

These are the top transfers in the summer so far. Even though Haaland seems like the cheapest transfer among them he is the player who has made the biggest impact so far as well. His contribution to Manchester City has been very impressive already at the beginning of the season. He is compared with Nunez of course but for now there is no meaning in comparing these two. Because Nunez still doesn't play an effective game for Liverpool. If he can't even take Firmino's place in the starting eleven then there is no need for any comparison I believe.

Antony is another very interesting transfer as Manchester United will have spent 100 million euros in total with bonuses. He has a big responsibility to show a solid performance as people are following him closely. Manchester United like to spend an insane amount of money for a player. If Antony doesn't satisfy the expectations this season then they will be in a big loss (in terms of not only money I mean).

Chelsea spent this much money for a defender while they had bigger needs. Fofana is a good defender but I don't know if he will be really worth paying this amount later on. They could have used this money for a big transfer to solve their scoring issues for example. They have signed Aubameyang but I'm not sure if this will be enough.