Latest posts of: Zackgeno96

I don't know if Xavi did a very good job or not. Standing 2nd is actually a normal result. People expect the national title for Barcelona again, that was also a few years ago. Real Madrid has been better and more successful on all fronts in recent years. In Europe, but also in the national competition. You don't just find players like Messi, Xavi and Iniesta together in a team. When they left you saw it slowly but surely collapse. Real Madrid have proved much more stable in the league in recent years.

It was perhaps to be expected that things would go wrong at PSG. Not that I think the national title is in danger, that is only interesting for the statistics. They play too easily in this team, and what you get is that they eventually stop taking some opponents seriously. Then you will automatically get these kinds of results. Messi only reported in Paris today, so he did not participate. And possibly a few other top players as well. Nice for the opponents, but it doesn't really have much value. The question is whether PSG really wants to play football in the remaining games of the current season.

No top matches in this league today. But a few nice games in which we will see the necessary goals, especially in the 2nd half. Tottneham Hotspur have had a bad series, they will have to win a bit more if they seriously want to claim a high final ranking in this season. So far it doesn't seem that way. It was a disappointing result for Arsenal that they could not beat Newcastle at home. Those may not seem like a one-hit wonder, because not many teams can pull a draw out of the fire in London. Just think that Newcastle is still too volatile at the moment for the entire season.

AC Milan has had a difficult victory, but they will not care much in Milan. Won is won. Incredible that Juventus still managed to win the game in the stoppage time of the game. They had luck on their side this time, but it wasn't really convincing at all. The topper Inter - Napoli is still 0-0, but we have only reached the end of the first half. So there can only be a few more goals to fall. But 0-0 also seems a realistic final result to me, since both teams do not want to lose. A draw for Napoli will feel like a win.

semi-finals have now started at the World Darts Championship. Smith to Clemens. Smith has the better of the game, but is also the current number 4 in the world rankings. Smith is currently leading 2-1 in sets, but I think they must have won 6 sets. So everything is still open. Clemens made the best impression of all the quarterfinals yesterday, but that's not much use if you lose now. I think Smith is going to win this game. You may not even be able to call van Gerwen's match a match. I think it will be a complete sweep, just like yesterday's match against Cris Dobey with no less than 5-0.

The competition will start again in Italy in exactly 2 days. Juventus have a nice opponent to open, out to Cremonese. There are more difficult opponents imaginable. I don't know how Napoli will come out of the winter break, if they have the form of the first half of the season then Inter Milan obviously has little chance. But that is not the case at the moment. Inter will feel supported by a large home crowd, which will certainly play a role in this phase of the competition. Inter Milan still believes in its title chances, but then this match will have to be won. Currently 11 points behind. With a win there are 8, but with a loss 14. That can no longer be made up.

A lousy performance from Liverpool. Losses at Brentford. What else can they use as an argument for the poor performance? Perhaps Klopp should take credit for himself and accept that the magic between him and Liverpool has worn off. He has also been a trainer there for a long time, something like 7 years or something? Exactly also the number of years he was a coach at Dortmund and then submitted his resignation. Time for fresh forces at Liverpool, a new coach and perhaps a slightly different composition on the field. They did get Gakpo, a promising talent but has never shown himself at the highest level. Perhaps they should go for security and stability rather than talent. Money won't be a problem for this team, will it?

Quote from: CLS63 on January 01, 2023, 07:42:48 PM

I don't know whether Messi would be eager to break such record now. He must still be under the influence of the World Cup title these days. It is his first World Cup title in his career in the end so it is very meaningful. I don't mean of course that he would play complacently for PSG from now on. But it's like he has completed the missing piece of the puzzle by this achievement.

He would just try to do his best for PSG to reach their Champions League title target and that's all.

Messi will certainly like to win the CL with PSG. There will be less pressure on Messi because of course he won the World Cup with Argentina. But the CL is slightly different. Draw against Bayern Munich is difficult, but if you get through it, the way is basically open to the title. With an open draw you can be seeded against anyone, so we could just as well see Man City - PSG in the next match. Since I expect few problems from Man City in their game against RB Leipzig. Today is January, so in a month we will start again with the CL.

Lewandowsky was not convincing in the home game against Espanyol. Atletico Madrid - Barcelona is quite a cracker actually, and Barcelona has to be careful not to lose, because then the gap to Real Madrid can be 3 points again. And to think that Barcelona had gone into the winter break with a lead of 2 points. It can change quickly, you can see this way. The lead of Barcelona and Madrid over the number 3 Real Sociedad is 9 points, which is a big gap. In any case, Barcelona has a decent defense this year, given the few goals they have conceded.

And Tottenham also started very badly in the first game after the winter break. And also in a home game. The laughing teams of this round are United and Arsenal, who both managed to win their games. But Chelsea also failed to win. Could this be related to the interim World Cup? It's starting to look like it though. Normally, we never actually see these kinds of results. Manchester United have played a game less than Newcastle. If they win that game, then United are suddenly in 3rd place and you actually have a pretty decent season so far. Can we say that Ten hag is well on track?

Barcelona and Real Madrid are level again. Still a big disappointment for Barcelona. They are still in first place, but not winning at home against fellow townsman Espanyol is of course a bad start to the 2nd half of the competition. Too fast to judge. Real Madrid also won their game very late by 2 goals in the last 10 minutes. It has also shown how important Benzema was to Real Madrid. His absence the last 2 months had quite an effect on the team. Villareal won 2-1 against Valencia today, which is also having a mediocre season.

After this round, the bookmakers are slowly starting to believe that not Manchester City, but Arsenal could become the champion of this season. And that while it's only just January 1st. A 7 point lead is also quite a lot. And then you also have to assume that Manchester City would reduce the gap with Arsenal. It could also fall the other way. I certainly don't see Newcastle United finishing in 3rd place. They have already booked a disappointing result today, more will probably follow.

It's all around Ronaldo. It also seemed to be somewhat in line with expectations, but he has definitely opted for an evening hour in the sandbank. He will also have to deal with playing in front of empty stadiums. He has therefore clearly opted for the big money, sporting ambitions are apparently no longer there. You still have the Arab/African Champions League. Maybe he wants to win it again with a team. There were also few teams that had the financial means to pay Ronaldo, referring to the salary he asks for. I would have preferred to see him at a European top club. Isn't it suddenly very different for his family to settle there in an Eastern environment.

We had some fun matches yesterday. Today they can celebrate old and new in peace. Van gerwen made the most impression so far. The dream final would be Price - van gerwen. I honestly don't see which other players are capable of winning the final either. Michael Smith can be a tough hurdle, but he certainly isn't throwing his best year of his career. And also got away very well against Schindler. That is the only person who could beat Price and van Gerwen. Tomorrow in the afternoon 2 games will be played and then we will continue with 2 evening games in the evening. My tournament winner is van Gerwen.

Costly loss of points for Manchester City, and that at home against Everton, certainly not a star team. Haaland still showed the right way by giving Manchester City the lead halfway through the first half, but they did not score more goals. Arsenal is the smiling third, they are now 0-2 ahead at half time and with a win they are no less than 7 points ahead of Manchester City. Of course, many more games, but 7 points is quite a gap. What also disappointed me is that Newcastle United did not manage to beat Leeds at home. Liverpool did not convince yesterday either. The winner United is getting closer to third place in this way, but that was not an easy victory either.

Disappointing start to Barcelona. It seemed to be played pretty quickly when Barcelona came 1-0 after 7 minutes, but the 2nd goal failed to materialize. Barcelona had a handful of opportunities to score a goal but failed to do so. They were better, but opponent Espanyol scored 1-1 and that was it. Barcelona are still at the top, but only on goal difference. Interesting to know that today the first goal was conceded in their own stadium Nou Camp. It is also striking how few goals Barcelona have conceded in this competition. Still a certain degree of stability.

Diego Simeone has been the coach of Atletico Madrid forever. He has achieved great performances with Atletico over the years, but in recent years the machine has faltered a bit. Wouldn't it be time for a change to let Atletico play football differently? A nice detail is that his son plays football in Serie A. I don't know which club, but he probably wasn't good enough for Atletico. You don't see that often, players and coach together in a team. Let alone that a son of a trainer also plays football at the highest level. If Atletico continues to play like they did last year, I don't see them achieving any spectacular results.

You can come up with any strategy you want. Keep in mind that every strategy in the gambling world has been tried for a long time. You can of course be successful with a certain strategy, but there is no guarantee and it is usually a matter of time before you lose too much. You also need a backup plan or some bank roll management. Few players can stick to that. I know that Betting exchanges have also tested a lot with correct scores to lay.

Liverpool are behind at home against Leicester City after about half an hour of play. Still, it seems that Liverpool are still in the mediocre form they were in before the winter break. But let's not judge too quickly, a lot can happen in 60 minutes. It can remain 0-1, but Liverpool could also just win 3-1. We saw a similar situation at arsenal last week, who also went into halftime with a 0-1 deficit and eventually won easily 3-1. But not a great start, at least for Liverpool, and it's not good for confidence either.

Quote from: emrecemsan on December 29, 2022, 08:51:37 PM

I'm curious about what Inter will do as well. They were pretty nice in the group stage. Most people were expecting to see Barcelona pushing them out of the Champions League but the opposite happened. It was quite unexpected for me as well to tell the truth. They got four points in total from Barcelona which was a really good effort. Now they are going to face Porto in last 16 stage. On paper, Inter are the favourite team to advance of course. However bookmakers don't see them as a big favourite either - Inter to advance has a 1.76 odd while it is 1.96 for Porto.

But I believe in Inter to do this. I really appreciate their attacking performance this season. Maybe they have had defensive issues so far in general however they have mostly been very good at scoring. Porto are another productive team maybe but Inter should be able to eliminate them anyway by a small margin.

In any case, Inter still has a relatively favorable draw. Group stage was not easy, they were with Bayern Munich and Barcelona. If you are at Bayern Munich, then the 2nd place is the maximum possible. They were very lucky in both games against Barcelona, but that is part of football. And Inter is not a team that can win the CL, but on a good day of their own and a lesser day of the opponent, they can still provide a stunt. There are a few teams that are just too good in the CL. If you have a favorable draw, you can easily get into the semi-finals. The 2010 Inter were unbeatable when they won the CL.