⚽UEFA Europa League Discussion Thread -- 2021/22 Winners: Eintracht Frankfurt!

[mv1986]

After seeing the teams who went to knockout stage i'm sure automatically Barcelona will became the favourite to get the trophy in this competition but Europe league sometimes unpredictable for big teams and some of big teams have failed to be the champion in the past however i was wondering that if Xavi failure to get Europe league trophy this season whether he will be sacked or not

The change of coach of barcelona from koeman to xavi has not had a significant impact on barcelona current performance, I think with the current conditions it will be very difficult for xavi to fix the problems that exist in barcelona, ​​the transfer market later is the only way for xavi to improve their squad by bringing in new players, but of course fans shouldn't expect much more to see barcelona buying star players, because at this time their financial condition is in trouble, i think xavi will work long enough for barcelona because barcelona management have no other choice but to keep Xavi, if Xavi is fired, of course they will have to spend a lot of money to compensate for the dismissal, so like it or not, they have to keep Xavi no matter what results Barcelona get later.

The problem is the quality of the players. Yes there are still players like Pique or Alba, but they are not the same players as they used to be 7 years ago. Xavi's squad is relatively weak compared to Real Madrid right now and they lack confidence. There is no Messi anymore who can decide a game by himself. I have no idea where this will be going to end for them. Could be bad.

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[KTChampions]

The clubs that still do not know if they will continue in the Europa League, as they have to pass the play-off, are:

_______________ Seeded Rangers Real Sociedad Napoli Olympiacos Lazio Braga Betis Dinamo Zagreb

_______________ Unseeded Leipzig Porto Dortmund Sheriff Barcelona Atalanta Sevilla Zenit

Which clubs are most likely to pass?

Obviously Sevilla will win the europa league, which means it must go through the play-offs 
It will be interesting to look at the pairs that will be obtained after the draw, at the moment the “unseeded” teams look stronger than the seeded ones. What will happen in the play-offs between third places and second places from the Conference League, I'm even afraid to imagine 

[maju69]

After seeing the teams who went to knockout stage i'm sure automatically Barcelona will became the favourite to get the trophy in this competition but Europe league sometimes unpredictable for big teams and some of big teams have failed to be the champion in the past however i was wondering that if Xavi failure to get Europe league trophy this season whether he will be sacked or not

The change of coach of barcelona from koeman to xavi has not had a significant impact on barcelona current performance, I think with the current conditions it will be very difficult for xavi to fix the problems that exist in barcelona, ​​the transfer market later is the only way for xavi to improve their squad by bringing in new players, but of course fans shouldn't expect much more to see barcelona buying star players, because at this time their financial condition is in trouble, i think xavi will work long enough for barcelona because barcelona management have no other choice but to keep Xavi, if Xavi is fired, of course they will have to spend a lot of money to compensate for the dismissal, so like it or not, they have to keep Xavi no matter what results Barcelona get later.

The problem is the quality of the players. Yes there are still players like Pique or Alba, but they are not the same players as they used to be 7 years ago. Xavi's squad is relatively weak compared to Real Madrid right now and they lack confidence. There is no Messi anymore who can decide a game by himself. I have no idea where this will be going to end for them. Could be bad.

in terms of performance and squad depth they are far behind now, even I feel this will apply for this season and next season.
Barcelona is now like a team in pain and helplessness.
Their current players don't seem to have a good fighting spirit and indeed this is exacerbated by their finances which are increasingly getting out of control.

[baeva]

I in surprised that it is not yet discussed here. According to several media reports, the cancelled match between Tottenham and Stade Rennes will not be repeated. The match was originally postponed due to several Tottenham players falling ill with Corona. And now the two clubs can not agree on a new date for the match. This would have eliminated Tottenham from the Euro Conference League. I find a fierce decision!

Lol, and  could not replace the players or hold the match with a different lineup, just to play the last match. To cancel it is extremely stupid, as well as to disqualify a team from the tournament, in the end to award a technical defeat, anyhow better than to remove from the tournament. Why such circumstances can affect so much? The team has nothing to do with it, there's a pandemic in the world.

[blackened515]

Group H was really interesting on the last week. Dinamo Zagreb had to win if they wanted to secure their position. And their match was really difficult due to playing an away match against West Ham. But West Ham rotated the squad a little which made D. Zagreb's job a little easier. D. Zagreb managed to beat them by 1-0 and ended at the 2nd place. And in the other match of the group, Rapid Vienna got a huge away win against Genk by 1-0 and this helped them qualify for the Europa Conference League.

West Ham is leading the Group H and have a total of 13 points. So, losing the game did not affect them. And it seems West Ham didn't take the game that serious. While Dinamo Zagreb really played awesomely. They scored 3 minutes into the match, and played more defensively, which prevented West Ham from scoring. While Rapid Vienna performance in the Europe League was terrible, but the 3 points they achieved against Genk helped them to secure a space in the Europa Conference League. The Group H was indeed very interesting.

[Distraction]

As there is a new system in the Europa League now, I wonder what kind of draws we will be witnessing. Because the third teams of the Champions League groups are going to have draws against the second teams of the Europa League groups in last 32 stage. And the leaders of the groups of this tournament are going to advance directly to last 16 stage. And I wonder how far Barcelona will be able to go in this tournament. It's going to be really awkward to see them here in the first place. 

[bekti3]

Very interesting overview, but I think it really depends on the matchups in the end. There are some very strong teams among the unseeded with Dortmund, Barcelona and Atalanta, and at the same time Napoli and Lazio are the strongest among the seeded I would say. Let's hope we won't have a clash between Dortmund and Napoli. Rather keep that for the final!

this is the most difficult thing to predict and hopefully there are no big teams clashing here.
I want to see them in the next phase to make the Europa League stage more exciting.
but now i hope atalanta and dortmund can achieve something better because with their team performance it would be a shame if they had to be thrown out and couldn't do more than now

[kayiboyu]

The thing that has made me sad the most is witnessing Leicester's being eliminated from the UEFA Europa League. At least, they are going to continue their journey in the UEFA Europa Conference League but they deserved to continue here too. They fought back against Napoli really well in their last game but they couldn't prevent the 3-2 loss. And the result in the Legia - S. Moscow game was their end.

I wasn't surprised about the Napoli Vs Leicester result. Napoli is currently a great team, they have a strong squad. While Leicester performance this season have been quite poor both in the Premier League and Europe League. Although, Leicester really tried their best in the match, they struggled to end the first half with 2-2 draw. And I literally thought they will probably score more goals in the second half, but unfortunately Leicester couldn't score. Nevertheless, Elmas secured his second goal, which led to Napoli winning the game.

But maybe Leicester would care about the Europa Conference League from now on. It is a new tournament in the end even though its quality is the lowest among all the European tournaments. But I guess none of the participant teams would say no to becoming the first champions of a new tournament like this. There are some really strong teams in the next round and I wonder if they will have a draw against each other earlier.

[Daniel91]

Group H was really interesting on the last week. Dinamo Zagreb had to win if they wanted to secure their position. And their match was really difficult due to playing an away match against West Ham. But West Ham rotated the squad a little which made D. Zagreb's job a little easier. D. Zagreb managed to beat them by 1-0 and ended at the 2nd place. And in the other match of the group, Rapid Vienna got a huge away win against Genk by 1-0 and this helped them qualify for the Europa Conference League.

West Ham is leading the Group H and have a total of 13 points. So, losing the game did not affect them. And it seems West Ham didn't take the game that serious. While Dinamo Zagreb really played awesomely. They scored 3 minutes into the match, and played more defensively, which prevented West Ham from scoring. While Rapid Vienna performance in the Europe League was terrible, but the 3 points they achieved against Genk helped them to secure a space in the Europa Conference League. The Group H was indeed very interesting.

I wouldn’t say West Ham didn’t take this game seriously.
Just look at the schedule of competitions in December in the English league and you will immediately understand why the coach of West Ham decided to rest his best players in this unimportant game.
In fact, this served the coach as a good test of how good and ready his young players are and I think they played a good game against older and more experienced Dinamo players.
Let's be realistic, if West Ham had played with the strongest team, Dinamo would not have had a chance.

[mv1986]

Group H was really interesting on the last week. Dinamo Zagreb had to win if they wanted to secure their position. And their match was really difficult due to playing an away match against West Ham. But West Ham rotated the squad a little which made D. Zagreb's job a little easier. D. Zagreb managed to beat them by 1-0 and ended at the 2nd place. And in the other match of the group, Rapid Vienna got a huge away win against Genk by 1-0 and this helped them qualify for the Europa Conference League.

West Ham is leading the Group H and have a total of 13 points. So, losing the game did not affect them. And it seems West Ham didn't take the game that serious. While Dinamo Zagreb really played awesomely. They scored 3 minutes into the match, and played more defensively, which prevented West Ham from scoring. While Rapid Vienna performance in the Europe League was terrible, but the 3 points they achieved against Genk helped them to secure a space in the Europa Conference League. The Group H was indeed very interesting.

I wouldn’t say West Ham didn’t take this game seriously.
Just look at the schedule of competitions in December in the English league and you will immediately understand why the coach of West Ham decided to rest his best players in this unimportant game.
In fact, this served the coach as a good test of how good and ready his young players are and I think they played a good game against older and more experienced Dinamo players.
Let's be realistic, if West Ham had played with the strongest team, Dinamo would not have had a chance.

I would agree here for sure. The English clubs really have a much tougher schedule than any other league in Europe. That's also why Jürgen Klopp frequently goes nuts when his players have to play two games in under 45 hours, sometimes even away games. I think that is too much and they have to control for the loads the players have to physically bear.

[baeva]

I would agree here for sure. The English clubs really have a much tougher schedule than any other league in Europe. That's also why Jürgen Klopp frequently goes nuts when his players have to play two games in under 45 hours, sometimes even away games. I think that is too much and they have to control for the loads the players have to physically bear.

On that basis, the English league looks flawlessly interesting, and by the way I personally do not see how it affects the players, even with such a schedule they play well, but you can only say so if you do not know the inner workings so to speak, as they have everything in reality I do not know. I think Klopp is not the only one expressing dissatisfaction

[mv1986]

I would agree here for sure. The English clubs really have a much tougher schedule than any other league in Europe. That's also why Jürgen Klopp frequently goes nuts when his players have to play two games in under 45 hours, sometimes even away games. I think that is too much and they have to control for the loads the players have to physically bear.

On that basis, the English league looks flawlessly interesting, and by the way I personally do not see how it affects the players, even with such a schedule they play well, but you can only say so if you do not know the inner workings so to speak, as they have everything in reality I do not know. I think Klopp is not the only one expressing dissatisfaction

I would say that players who play three to four times within 7 - 8 days are more prone to injuries than players who play only two times over the same timespan. Generally I agree with you that they shouldn't be complaining too much, but I see the disadvantage when you compete on the absolute highest level with Manchester City and Chelsea and your own team has an even tougher schedule than them with more rest, I think it does come potentially with negative effects.

[jostorres]

I would say that players who play three to four times within 7 - 8 days are more prone to injuries than players who play only two times over the same timespan. Generally I agree with you that they shouldn't be complaining too much, but I see the disadvantage when you compete on the absolute highest level with Manchester City and Chelsea and your own team has an even tougher schedule than them with more rest, I think it does come potentially with negative effects.

Few years back about this tough schedule we have very long talks, but The FA never think about this because they have some very good funds with this schedule, so it's all going on but still few things possible about these teams can use rotate policy or having some good number of players they can join different competitions with separate group of players many opportunities are possible as clubs have good budget and many youth players as well.

But, injuries still big issue for many as we watch Suddenly Liverpool having serious trouble in all season due to injuries with some good number of players and right now still we have few teams suffering with this all because they have not enough backup for giving good results.

[diyetisman]

There are a Turkish team, Galatasaray, in the next stage of the Europa League also and I wonder what they will be able to do as of this round. It's been a long time since I saw a Turkish team advancing from the group stage. Fenerbahce couldn't make it as they had a really inadequate performance in their group. And they are gonna continue their adventure in the Europa Conference League now.

[mv1986]

I would say that players who play three to four times within 7 - 8 days are more prone to injuries than players who play only two times over the same timespan. Generally I agree with you that they shouldn't be complaining too much, but I see the disadvantage when you compete on the absolute highest level with Manchester City and Chelsea and your own team has an even tougher schedule than them with more rest, I think it does come potentially with negative effects.

Few years back about this tough schedule we have very long talks, but The FA never think about this because they have some very good funds with this schedule, so it's all going on but still few things possible about these teams can use rotate policy or having some good number of players they can join different competitions with separate group of players many opportunities are possible as clubs have good budget and many youth players as well.

But, injuries still big issue for many as we watch Suddenly Liverpool having serious trouble in all season due to injuries with some good number of players and right now still we have few teams suffering with this all because they have not enough backup for giving good results.

Yes but one of the consequences is that Tottenham can't find a time window to make an appointment for the game against Renne. The English weeks, the Boxing Day and all that leads to Tottenham now losing out internationally because they couldn't play one game because of Covid. Their schedule is so packed that there is not the slightest chance for a game to be rescheduled.

[joker_josue]

There are a Turkish team, Galatasaray, in the next stage of the Europa League also and I wonder what they will be able to do as of this round. It's been a long time since I saw a Turkish team advancing from the group stage. Fenerbahce couldn't make it as they had a really inadequate performance in their group. And they are gonna continue their adventure in the Europa Conference League now.

Well Galatasaray has a good record in European competition, although the last few years have not been very successful. But it could be that this year they can even go far in the competition.

Obviously Sevilla will win the europa league, which means it must go through the play-offs 
It will be interesting to look at the pairs that will be obtained after the draw, at the moment the “unseeded” teams look stronger than the seeded ones. What will happen in the play-offs between third places and second places from the Conference League, I'm even afraid to imagine 

Indeed, Sevilla has completely dominated this competition. But this year things are not going so well. Even so, he is always the main candidate.

[KingsDen]

Look at the teams that are coming from champions league ; Barcelona, Leipzig, Porto, Dortmund, Atalanta, Sevilla, all these teams are at least one level better than the europa cup teams. West Ham could be the only one that can sustain if they do not draw a very great team, otherwise I feel like this is going to turn into UCL 2.0 and teams from UCL will end up winning the title without giving much chance to others.

I think Barcelona demoting to the Europa League we promote the league very well and makes it more competitive, people we like to watch teams in the Europa League especially the Barca fans.is not going to be easy because they are strong teams there too ( Napoli, Leicester city, and West ham United.)so interesting fixtures are still to come.

Barcelona demoting to Europa is not promoting anything. As it stands now, some Barcelona fans are even tired of watching the club. Me for instance, I don't like Thursday matches, even when my club Manchester United went to Europa, I hardly watch their matches.
It is true that big teams or CL teams are now in Europa.
It is nice to also know that those big teams are sick for now, I don't expect any wonders from them.

[Hidrofor]

The draw I wonder the most today is going to be Barcelona's. I don't remember whether they have ever joined the Europa League so far. I guess that it is happening for the first time. And I wonder whether they will give a big importance to this tournament. In the end, this has a lower quality than the Champions League. We will wait and see their performance as of the coming round.

[blue Snow]

The draw I wonder the most today is going to be Barcelona's. I don't remember whether they have ever joined the Europa League so far. I guess that it is happening for the first time.

Barcelona has joined the season of 2000-2001, that called the Uefa cup. same as now, they landed on 3rd place from the Champions League, and They lost versus Liverpool in the semifinal where was that time Liverpool get the title by winning versus Alaves in the final. Pep Guardiola as the captain and Barcelona still have a dream team squad like Rivaldo, Frank de Boer, Patrick Kluivert, and Marc Overmars. But, I still doubt they will go to the semi-finals with the current squad right now.

[MK-74]

There are a Turkish team, Galatasaray, in the next stage of the Europa League also and I wonder what they will be able to do as of this round. It's been a long time since I saw a Turkish team advancing from the group stage. Fenerbahce couldn't make it as they had a really inadequate performance in their group. And they are gonna continue their adventure in the Europa Conference League now.

Well Galatasaray has a good record in European competition, although the last few years have not been very successful. But it could be that this year they can even go far in the competition.

Galatasaray plays different football in the Europa League, it doesn't play like that in the Super League, you can see it if you watch it. But right now, nobody cares about it because the most important thing for us is the Europa League.