It's a shame that Barcelona has to say goodbye to a great player like Pique. Has meant a lot to the club and has won everything nationally and internationally that there is to win. A kid of the club, I think he's going to have a side job at Barcelona because of his experience. Tonight will probably be his farewell game at home against Girona. He would deserve to be in the starting line-up for the whole game, but I think the coach will let him start on the bench and then play for the last 20 minutes. Without or with Pique it doesn't matter much for the result.

Atletico Madrid are currently performing very badly, just like Juventus. Barcelona was in a very strong group with Bayern Munich and Inter. Against Inter it was 50/50 who would go through. Atletico, Barcelona but also Juventus all have something to put right in the Europa League, but on Monday we will first see the draw to see who will play against whom. The number 3 of the Cl plays against the number 2 of the EL. There you can get really decent matches with high level opponents. I also don't see Barcelona beating PSV so easily with Xavi Simons for example.

Today I expect another big score from Manchester City at home against Fullham. They still have something to prove to the supporters after the somewhat disappointing last matches in the CL. Tomorrow we get Chelsea-Arsenal. I'm curious how good Arsenal is in this game, Chelsea is an opponent of size that you can also have a hard time against. Manchester United may also face a difficult away game against Aston Villa. Another great squatter is Tottenham Hotspur - Liverpool.

Looks like Bochum has a very good record against Dortmund. I didn't expect that at all. Dortmund is always a regular CL participant and has also always achieved a higher final ranking for a very long time. I think Bochum is always the underdog against Dortmund, but Dortmund has the bad luck that there is always 1 better team every year in the form of Bayern Munich. There's not much you can do about that. They were lucky in the CL that they were in an easy group and have continued. Haaland's loss does not seem to have been absorbed yet.

We should not draw any conclusions based on Napoli's defeat to Liverpool. Liverpool won that game 2-0, but things could have gone very differently. Napoli made it 0-1 but that was 1 cm offside. Otherwise Napoli would have won that match again. So I also think that that defeat was purely coincidental and that Napoli are still in excellent shape. The CL draw is also very important for Napoli on Monday. They haven't lost a single game in the league yet, but Atalanta is a tough opponent.

Verstappen has apparently broken all records that can be broken. Particularly handsome, if you look at how long he has only been driving in F1 now. I don't think there is a greater talent than him out there right now. Drivers like Leclerc are also extremely talented, but they don't come close to Verstappen. And that goes for everything else too. I think next year we will have a pretty boring championship like this again, if I have heard correctly Verstappen has won the race no less than 13 times this season. That's unimaginable, and we're not even at the end yet. I don't think this record will be equaled for the time being, or it must be that Verstappen will be able to personally drive that record out of the books next year. It's a shame we don't have Schumacher in F1 anymore, I would have liked to see how the battle would be with him and Verstappen.

Depends on what you like with gambling. If you really intend to stop permanently then you will have to accept the loss and burn all the ships behind you. Often people go on and have too much lost money in their heads, that's when the problems really start. It's hard not to think about that. That is why bank role management is important. Many people have said it many times before but I want to repeat it again: only play with money you can afford to lose and consider it play money. You should not gamble knowing that you will get rich quickly, because the only thing that will happen quickly is that you will go bankrupt.

Of all the remaining teams, Arsenal make the best impression. I just don't know if that's worth much. We now also have a number of teams from the Champions League that are also very reputable. What about teams like Barcelona, Juventus and Ajax? Arsenal would have a hard time with that. It seems to be an interesting tournament for the dropouts from the CL and this year it also seems to be much stronger than last year. It is especially disappointing for Barcelona that they have now been sentenced to play in the Europa League for the second year in a row after already being knocked out in the Champions League group stage. But, if Barcelona can win a prize it is in this tournament, the Champions League would be impossible to win.

In Iran there is also quite a lot to do about the participation of the national team in the tournament. There is even an organization that has sent an official letter to FIFA through a lawyer asking for the country to be excluded, because in that country also inhumane things happen according to their sources. But I think you can notice or criticize things in every country. it seems to me that FIFA will go along with this and of course would not exclude Iran from participating. Italy of course still wants to participate through this back door. Although you might just have to leave a group of 3 instead of adding another country so late.

What ever happened to Bayer Leverkusen? They always played European football and had a very solid team. At the moment they are not lucky, but the game also needs to be much better. Schalke is also a big name and big club, but in the year of its relegation has lost all the fame it has ever built up. In Germany there is also a lot of television money and sponsors with contracts, so you would say that there is enough money coming in at clubs. Perhaps Corona has also hit clubs like Leverkusen and Schalke hard. Dortmund will possibly have to attract a new striker in the winter, I don't think Maher will be the old one anymore and even then the question was whether he can handle the level in the German league.

The elimination of Juventus in Europe will also have consequences for the competition. And not just positively. I think this has been quite a mental blow to the team from Turin. I'm also surprised that no further steps are being taken to avert a nightmare season. It is quite clear that they will not become national champions, but it would be a disaster if they also did not qualify for the tournament itself. A few years ago they were still the big favorite to win the CL, but then lost to Ajax. The gap between Napoli and the number 2 is already 5 points. I wonder if Atalanta can keep this up, but would they be happy with a new 2nd place? They already did that a few years ago. Considering the budget and budget, a 2nd place is actually an exceptionally good result, but if you come in 2nd you would like to be 1st. If Napoli maintain this form, there is little chance for the rest of the teams.

I think United might see it as a challenge to draw a team that drops out of the Champions League in the next round. United are hungry and want to play against big opponents in Europe to show what they can do. What also struck me is that Arsenal have only scored 7 goals in the group and are still well ahead. If you don't give much away in defense, you don't have to score many goals. Yet it seems to be a very different Arsenal than in the competition at first glance. It is actually impossible for PSV to become first in the group, Arsenal would then have to lose at their own field from Zurich, which is at the bottom. Qarabag missed the chance to make it to the next one as they got no further than a 1-1 draw against league-leader Freiburg.

Is the issue still ongoing regarding the situation in Ecuador? In the qualifying match, they had drafted a player who was not eligible to play, and this would be investigated. An appropriate punishment would then be devised on the basis of the investigation. Would FIFA go far to exclude the country from participating in the World Cup? I don't understand why they are only now coming up with this, that incident had already happened a long time ago, didn't it? Italy would then take the place of Ecuador, which is understandable in itself because they are reigning European Champions. If that is the case, we will have a nice group with the Netherlands, Senegal, Italy and Qatar. All 3 countries are not happy with that of course, since Italy is then the favorite to win the group. I think Ecuador will get a different punishment. Exclusion from participation would be very harsh intervention.

Quite a few goals have already been scored in a few matches. Madrid's big win at home 5-1 over Celtic should come as no surprise to anyone. Chelsea has now come to 2-1 and has therefore done its sporting duty to the other teams. AC Milan is also on the right side of the score, but 1-0 is a minimal lead and opponent Salzburg has enough with a draw to qualify for the next round. I don't dare to put my money on Milan yet, it's not all that convincing what they show. PSG seem to be getting better and better by the week and surely will be the top favorite to win the CL? I think they are also better than City at the moment.

Tottenham are currently in a difficult phase in the competition. It's not great and they have a hard time scraping together the dots. Arsenal and City seem to be the best teams at the moment, waiting for City to take the lead from Arsenal. I haven't seen all United matches, but the English media are full of praise for the team and the new coach, who apparently has built a good regime into the player group. If it really takes off, United could even be in it for the title, but I think the biggest problem will be that they aren't consistent enough. It's a shame about those 2 defeats the first 2 games of the season. If you had just won it, it would have looked very different.

Napol seems unbeatable at the moment. They also hold their own in the CL visiting Liverpool and it is still 0-0. Of course Napoli will also lose a match, but that is to be expected of course. I think the rest of the opponents are missing a lot more points, too bad for Inter and Juventus that they both started the season so lousy, because now you are constantly behind because of that loss of points. How is it possible that Napoli has become so good? They have made smart purchases in the last transfer window, and all purchases appear to be worth gold. You have to be lucky with that and they have it now. If you can keep the team together, you can become a champion.

Napoli seem easy to hold on to at Liverpool as it is still 0-0. Liverpool could in theory still be first, but then there would have to be goals. Rangers seem inglorious to leave the million-dollar ball because they are now behind against Ajax again and will therefore have 0 points after 6 matches. It doesn't look good for Tottenham hotspurs either, they are currently behind in Marseille and because of that position and the position in the other match, Tottenham is now eliminated from the Champions League and can prepare for the Europa League. Atletico Madrid have even finished 3rd in the group and are not even allowed to do a Europa League, a huge letdown.

Torino now leads 1-0 in the first half. Still plenty of time for AC Milan to recover, but it certainly won't be easy this way. Napoli is untenable at the moment. They also won everything in the CL, but I'm curious about the draw there how they will do that. They also have a whole series of hurdles to overcome in the competition. All matches against the top 10 in Italy are difficult. The last match against AS Roma was also minimally won. Inter Milan now also has a good run and is getting closer little by little. It was also expected that the team would play better again. I think it's a shame that Udinese couldn't maintain the high level of the first few games.

It is too soon to give an opinion about Ten Hag, but an interim assessment is possible. You can see that United have a certain vision in the game, pressure and attack in a certain way. He also got that concept at Ajax, and he now wants to implement it at United. You've got some great player material there, so in that regard it should work. Antony occasionally shows nice things, a bit playful perhaps for a player of 100 million. Still, he is a player who could be important for United. Nothing seems clear about the role of Ronaldo. He doesn't seem to appear in Ten hag's plans and will probably have to make do with a substitute. Does he still want it that way?

That is normally not for Real Madrid, to give away a 1-0 lead. By the way, it took a very long time before the 1-0 fell. And then Girona tied the score again 10 minutes before time via a penalty. But hey, that can match the best. Now Barcelona will again look at the score with a smile, as the difference has now become minimal again with the goal difference. I thought Real Madrid would easily win this match. It wasn't great in the Champions League either, but you could argue that with the fact that they were already qualified for the next round. That Atleitco Madrid match from this week was a crazy one yesterday.