⚽UEFA Europa League Discussion Thread -- 2023/24 | Winner: Atalanta

[Majestic-milf]

It's a dream night for Brighton fans who are watching their team play European football in their grounds for the first time in the club history.
They are currently playing a 2 goal draw, but that will not deter the team or the fans from enjoying their night and making as much noise as possible.

The next agenda will be to become regular faces in European competitions and maybe look towards a Champions league spot in the coming years.

Edit; it's 3-2 against Brighton now, but the fans are still having a good time.

- Jay -

Two teams who are making their debut in champions league and Europa; that's Newcastle and Brighton have found it difficult to find their feet. Brighton made effort to score two goals which came from penalties and tried their best to hold their defense intact but AEK Athens seemed to be the stronger dominant side with a world of experience to booth.
 I'm just hoping this performance of theirs will not affect their weekend game against Bournemouth because Athens seemed to stretch them. Well, I'd say Robert de Zerbi's men tried their best in today's game, at least coming from a 2-1 loss to score in the second half for me is a better than average performance. Let's see how they'd perform in the return leg.

[Joca97]

West Ham was dominating first half with 15 goal attempts and six corners but they couldn't find the net because the defense of Backa was too strong but I feel they needed a wake up call from the away team to get up. After the goal came in from P. Stanic in the 48', that sort of bolstered their confidence to net in two goals in the space of four minutes to lead the game 2-1.
I'm excited for this show of confidence from the English teams as earlier, Liverpool came from behind to win LASK 3-1 and Brighton came from behind to draw.  

TSC was holding pretty well in the first half and scored in the second to take the lead but they just couldnt withstand the presure from West Ham and that own goal i think destroyed them pretty well. After that it was just an easy job for West Ham to win the match.

[Bananington]

West Ham was dominating first half with 15 goal attempts and six corners but they couldn't find the net because the defense of Backa was too strong but I feel they needed a wake up call from the away team to get up. After the goal came in from P. Stanic in the 48', that sort of bolstered their confidence to net in two goals in the space of four minutes to lead the game 2-1.  

A big day for the fans of West Ham, seeing their team play in one of Europe's biggest competition after so many years. With the way West Ham played, they deserved to win the game. The had more shots, more possession, more corner kicks than TSC Backa Topola did in the game. Liverpool seem to have become very comfortable with coming from behind to win games, they are one of the teams suspected that will win this competition, they have started well. Roma also starts well, with Lukaku scoring again.

[nelson4lov]

Liverpool have the chances of clinging the Europa title if I may judge by this game, I know it's yet too early to give such conclusion or judgement but then it's just a mere speculation from a personal side of view, I hope to see both team's perform better in subsequent games LASK particularly that's if the must see their self go a long way in the Europa league games.

Despite the fact that Liverpool is among the biggest teams (if not the biggest) of the 2023/2024 Europa league, it would be unwise to make conclusions that Liverpool would win the title. I know a lot of small teams can rise up to the occasion and stung Liverpool hard which is why I'll expect Kloop to take Europa outings very seriously this season as it's our primary to win something tangible this season. Judging from the way Lask performed without fear, I'm of the opinion that other smaller teams will do the same. Solid second half performance from the team but I have concerns about conceding goals first and fight our way back to equalize and win because it's not everyday we're going to be lucky. When up against much stronger opponents, they can catch Liverpool's high defensive line off-guard with a counter and add to their lead. It's not every day Liverpool will be lucky to do a comeback and win games better to prevent it from the get-go.

[Smartvirus]

It's a dream night for Brighton fans who are watching their team play European football in their grounds for the first time in the club history.
They are currently playing a 2 goal draw, but that will not deter the team or the fans from enjoying their night and making as much noise as possible.

The next agenda will be to become regular faces in European competitions and maybe look towards a Champions league spot in the coming years.

Edit; it's 3-2 against Brighton now, but the fans are still having a good time.

- Jay -

With this performance Brighton had against the AEK, they aren’t going nowhere with this sort of performance. Everything from AEK was spectacular but, you can’t say the same for Brighton. There defense wasn’t okay, you could find them living single players within the box, creating a next to impossible miss for the AEK players. Look at the first goal from E. Sidine, he was given enough space to express himself and he graciously directed the ball right to the far corner and hit result for his team. Same situation was created in the third goal for AEK but, Brighton could only follow up from the penalty situation of Joao Pedro who was very clever to create contact and executed the kicks perfectly.
Even with his both goals, Brighton still managed to lose. That was very unexpected for me. They had the home fans behind them through the whole game and after each come back, they immediately lose there lead as soon as they got them.

[youdacapt]

West Ham United 3-1 TSC Backa Topola
Brighton 2-3 AEK Athens
LASK 1-3 Liverpool

A good European nights for the English premier league sides in the Europa league; strangely all 3 teams all struggled in the first half in what was their first European match of the season. Also, all English sides came back from behind to win except Brighton, who crashed to a 3-2 home defeat to Athens.

Liverpool came back from a goal down to win in Lask; with goals from Diaz and Salah;

while West Ham turn the match in their favor thanks to a Ward Prowse second half master stroke which resulted in 2 assists for the talisman; kudus also gets his first European goal for West Ham.

Perhaps Brighton felt bigger after defeating Manchester United over the weekend; they came back from 2 goals down before conceding a late winner to E. Ponce; the bigger problem is that Brighton could not score from open play and relied on 2 penalty kicks; can they survive Europa league ?

[red4slash]

It's a dream night for Brighton fans who are watching their team play European football in their grounds for the first time in the club history.
They are currently playing a 2 goal draw, but that will not deter the team or the fans from enjoying their night and making as much noise as possible.

The next agenda will be to become regular faces in European competitions and maybe look towards a Champions league spot in the coming years.

Edit; it's 3-2 against Brighton now, but the fans are still having a good time.

- Jay -

With this performance Brighton had against the AEK, they aren’t going nowhere with this sort of performance. Everything from AEK was spectacular but, you can’t say the same for Brighton. There defense wasn’t okay, you could find them living single players within the box, creating a next to impossible miss for the AEK players. Look at the first goal from E. Sidine, he was given enough space to express himself and he graciously directed the ball right to the far corner and hit result for his team. Same situation was created in the third goal for AEK but, Brighton could only follow up from the penalty situation of Joao Pedro who was very clever to create contact and executed the kicks perfectly.
Even with his both goals, Brighton still managed to lose. That was very unexpected for me. They had the home fans behind them through the whole game and after each come back, they immediately lose there lead as soon as they got them.

AEK was really a surprise in my opinion because in terms of quality even though Brighton is a club that can be called a dark horse in the EPL but in terms of strength and competition I think they are actually much better but indeed in this match AEK played very well and I did not expect them to win in this first match.
Solid defence and very targeted quick counter-attacks made Brighton have to lose a match that they controlled because they were too focused on their full attack. AEK on the other hand are good at seizing the moment and they prefer to wait rather than match Brighton's play.

[Sexylizzy2813]

I think it is official that Liverpool loves coming from behind and winning any team they play against and it doesn't matter if it's in the league or outside the EPL.
I really love the new style of play even with them having some good players on the bench they still have it in mind that they have to win. Klopp should take advantage of this Liverpool team as they are now and he should forget the players the club have lost due to the transfers coming from the Saudi side.
Little by little Liverpool are getting better everyday and I feel they're going to be a huge threat for other clubs in the EUROPA LEAGUE.

Even though their current performance is good in the EPL competition and a good start for Liverpool in the Europa League but saying they can win a match with any team is still unpredictable.
Currently the performance is in a positive trend and indeed the great hope of returning to the competition is clearly there, it's just that we also can't confidently say every victory in this case because precisely with too much confidence can make them fall as before.
But for the Europa League their chances of qualifying in the group phase are very large and in this match we become more aware that the coach's experience is important where Liverpool are still quite good even though they rotate because Klopp has a mature scheme to maximise the peers.

I think that's a strategy for Liverpool or should I say that's how they want other teams to see them as they're still regrouping but to me they're not and they're even getting stronger by the day. Should in case the team fall behind in terms of performance I believe it should be on the face of Klopp and you'd hear him looking for a way to defend his team's poor performance, but now we hear nothing because they're on the right track.
Every big side do have the chances to qualify in such situations but let the team fail to qualify then you'd know that they all look out for their current form if they're doing well, so for Liverpool they're doing better than we expected (since they lost those players), is just a good thing for Liverpool.

[BitcoinHunt3r]

West Ham United 3-1 TSC Backa Topola
Brighton 2-3 AEK Athens
LASK 1-3 Liverpool

A good European nights for the English premier league sides in the Europa league; strangely all 3 teams all struggled in the first half in what was their first European match of the season. Also, all English sides came back from behind to win except Brighton, who crashed to a 3-2 home defeat to Athens.

Liverpool came back from a goal down to win in Lask; with goals from Diaz and Salah;

while West Ham turn the match in their favor thanks to a Ward Prowse second half master stroke which resulted in 2 assists for the talisman; kudus also gets his first European goal for West Ham.

Perhaps Brighton felt bigger after defeating Manchester United over the weekend; they came back from 2 goals down before conceding a late winner to E. Ponce; the bigger problem is that Brighton could not score from open play and relied on 2 penalty kicks; can they survive Europa league ?

Yeah an interesting match from a Premier League club, they answered my doubts when I doubted them in the first leg. Liverpool and West Ham certainly have a big chance to qualify but Brighton is a bit of a doubt because their 3 opponents are strong teams and are always there in European competitions, if they can't take advantage of playing at home then what about when playing away? without a doubt I predict Brighton will come out in the group stage and leaving only Liverpool and West Ham.

[Strongkored]

Brighton's results were quite surprising because they are usually quite strong when playing at the Falmer Stadium (American Express Stadium). 76% possession of the ball but Brighton was only able to score a goal from a penalty because a penalty rewards and AEK, who had very little possession of the ball, managed to maximize the opportunities they had, maybe Brighton were nervous? because this is his first appearance in the European league.
Only Brighton had bad results, two other teams from the English Premier League managed to win and the score was quite convincing and Liverpool will be the strongest team in this tournament unless Sevilla drops into this competition because they failed in the UCL, and looking at the Brighton group, it seems like their chances of qualifying for the group are very small, especially with this defeat

[HajiBagi]

after this tuesday and wednesday the cl season has started with the 1st matchday, today starts with the below listed pairings, also the starting shot for this year's europa league season.
among others the big favorite fc liverpool plays away at the austrian representative lask linz and the top match of tonight is in my eyes the match ajax vs. marseille



edit: @buwaytress please change the title of the thread and remove the word 'Qualifiers'

The Europa League this season will be challenging because I see many strong teams there, including Liverpool, Bayer Leverkusen, and Brighton. These teams are very strong teams, and I think they can perform well in the league. Brighton was defeated yesterday, but that doesn't mean they can't succeed again. But the two clubs I am most confident will perform well in this league are Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen. Both teams are doing well in the leagues in which they compete, and I believe it will be very difficult to beat either of these two teams.

Liverpool is the type of team that, when performing in the champion league, focuses on the champion league more than any other league, so now that they are not playing in the champion league, I believe they will concentrate on this Europa league. Liverpool is not competing in any other league besides the premier league and the Europa league, and I believe that will make them feel comfortable to perform well.

[fzkto]

Liverpool have the chances of clinging the Europa title if I may judge by this game, I know it's yet too early to give such conclusion or judgement but then it's just a mere speculation from a personal side of view, I hope to see both team's perform better in subsequent games LASK particularly that's if the must see their self go a long way in the Europa league games.

Despite the fact that Liverpool is among the biggest teams (if not the biggest) of the 2023/2024 Europa league, it would be unwise to make conclusions that Liverpool would win the title. I know a lot of small teams can rise up to the occasion and stung Liverpool hard which is why I'll expect Kloop to take Europa outings very seriously this season as it's our primary to win something tangible this season. Judging from the way Lask performed without fear, I'm of the opinion that other smaller teams will do the same. Solid second half performance from the team but I have concerns about conceding goals first and fight our way back to equalize and win because it's not everyday we're going to be lucky. When up against much stronger opponents, they can catch Liverpool's high defensive line off-guard with a counter and add to their lead. It's not every day Liverpool will be lucky to do a comeback and win games better to prevent it from the get-go.

I don't understand why, but Liverpool didn't have their main squad of players in this match. Lask was able to score a goal for that reason alone. I guess Kloop thought it would be an easy game, but later he had to make a lot of changes to correct the losing situation. Fortunately Liverpool were able to confirm their status as favourites in the second half, but the game turned out to be a bit risky.

[nelson4lov]

~Snipped

Despite the fact that Liverpool is among the biggest teams (if not the biggest) of the 2023/2024 Europa league, it would be unwise to make conclusions that Liverpool would win the title. I know a lot of small teams can rise up to the occasion and stung Liverpool hard which is why I'll expect Kloop to take Europa outings very seriously this season as it's our primary to win something tangible this season. Judging from the way Lask performed without fear, I'm of the opinion that other smaller teams will do the same. Solid second half performance from the team but I have concerns about conceding goals first and fight our way back to equalize and win because it's not everyday we're going to be lucky. When up against much stronger opponents, they can catch Liverpool's high defensive line off-guard with a counter and add to their lead. It's not every day Liverpool will be lucky to do a comeback and win games better to prevent it from the get-go.

I don't understand why, but Liverpool didn't have their main squad of players in this match. Lask was able to score a goal for that reason alone. I guess Kloop thought it would be an easy game, but later he had to make a lot of changes to correct the losing situation. Fortunately Liverpool were able to confirm their status as favourites in the second half, but the game turned out to be a bit risky.

I understood Klopp's choices. Liverpool currently have a ton of talents available for celebration and a lot of them have featured for little to no time in the premier league this season. Nunez for example have been coming on for Liverpool from the bench - Gakpo is selected ahead of him in a premier league match day. The Europa league is a superb option to field a B-team in order to give others the opportunity to shine. That was why Kelleher was selected ahead of  Allison and Bajcetic was selected ahead of Gomez for the right back position.

Europa is an opportunity for Klopp to field players that get little to no playing time in the premier league.

[boltz]

AEK Athens is giving me vibes from early 2000's when this team really shined in Europe and had great performances in UCL but in Europa League as well and yesterday , I've saw AEK playing top football , having chances , scoring 3 goals and got 3 important points against Brighton , a team who is for the first time in an European competition.

[borovichok]

Brighton's results were quite surprising because they are usually quite strong when playing at the Falmer Stadium (American Express Stadium). 76% possession of the ball but Brighton was only able to score a goal from a penalty because a penalty rewards and AEK, who had very little possession of the ball, managed to maximize the opportunities they had, maybe Brighton were nervous? because this is his first appearance in the European league.
Only Brighton had bad results, two other teams from the English Premier League managed to win and the score was quite convincing and Liverpool will be the strongest team in this tournament unless Sevilla drops into this competition because they failed in the UCL, and looking at the Brighton group, it seems like their chances of qualifying for the group are very small, especially with this defeat

The seagulls dominated the game fulltime but they actually didn't grabbed three points, having a lesser results against average side. Moreover they have hope of qualifying, playing Olympique Marseille next, definitely it would be challenging for EPL side. Brighton recorded a dissapointing results against AEK Athens. Roberto De Zerbi side apply all the necessary pressures they could but denied access to winning game because the visitors didn't provide any means rather blocked every area on the pitch, with a tremendous defensive strategy.  

[UchihaSarada]

I understood Klopp's choices. Liverpool currently have a ton of talents available for celebration and a lot of them have featured for little to no time in the premier league this season.

With many talented players, Klopp has to choose players and allow them to play as they all deserve chances to play. If they don't have opportunities for playing, some players feel disappointed will find other ways, leaving the club. It is not what Klopp want to see and if it happens, Liverpool will have weaker and less deep squad.

Nunez for example have been coming on for Liverpool from the bench - Gakpo is selected ahead of him in a premier league match day. The Europa league is a superb option to field a B-team in order to give others the opportunity to shine. That was why Kelleher was selected ahead of  Allison and Bajcetic was selected ahead of Gomez for the right back position.

Nunez improves a lot with his second season for Liverpool and he is important for them in Premier League that is higher prioritized than Europa League. Klopp has to reserve and protect feet of star players for most important target.

Europa is an opportunity for Klopp to field players that get little to no playing time in the premier league.

It is a smaller competition than Champions League but winning it is cool. Kloppa and Liverpool will make choice when time comes but will they win Europa League but not Premier League? It is still a successful season for them so they don't under value importance of Europa League.

[Weawant]

Bayern Leverkusen molested Hacken to a 4-0 defeat in their first Europa league game few days back, I didn't expect any less from Leverkusen as they stood a better chance over Hacken in that game both from the first half to the end of the game Leverkusen owned the game, I was impressed with their performance as anything less would sound disappointing to me.

Hacken didn't give Leverkusen a tough time winning the game, they sure made it easy for Leverkusen, although they tried their best as some level of pressure could be seen from them at the later minutes of the first half but then Leverkusen still gained control and brought the pressure down. They almost got a penalty but VAR check confirmed it wasn't.

Leverkusen's last and forth goal came in 20 minutes to the end of the second half which sealed the victory for the German side as against Hacken, Leverkusen have this game as their sixth unbeaten game this season both in the bundesliga and Europa league. Boniface had a further goal ruled out for offside after which he showed some good performance in the game

[tbct_mt2]

Brighton's results were quite surprising because they are usually quite strong when playing at the Falmer Stadium (American Express Stadium). 76% possession of the ball but Brighton was only able to score a goal from a penalty because a penalty rewards and AEK, who had very little possession of the ball, managed to maximize the opportunities they had, maybe Brighton were nervous? because this is his first appearance in the European league.

Brighton still played well in Premier League but they did not bring this form to Europa League. I understand it as many of their players are not familiar with Europa League.I It's very difference feeling and experience when you move from a national league to Europa League. It's harder to play in Europe as they have less knowledge about the opponent and mistakes in Europe can be punished straightly, not like in domestic league.

Not only AEK but other clubs in Europa League can beat Brighton if they make mistakes in any match. In cup format like Europa League, it is different than Premier League, two or three bad matches, then you go home and wait for another chance next seasons.

I don't understand why, but Liverpool didn't have their main squad of players in this match. Lask was able to score a goal for that reason alone. I guess Kloop thought it would be an easy game, but later he had to make a lot of changes to correct the losing situation. Fortunately Liverpool were able to confirm their status as favourites in the second half, but the game turned out to be a bit risky.

Liverpool do not need to keep their clean sheet and get a draw. They did their job well by winning the match even the goalkeeper got one conceded goal. The final result is how many point you get from a match is more important than how many goals you score in that match.

The result against LASK is good in result too as you can call it as a big win for Liverpool, not too big but not a minimal win.

[zaim7413]

Liverpool have the chances of clinging the Europa title if I may judge by this game, I know it's yet too early to give such conclusion or judgement but then it's just a mere speculation from a personal side of view, I hope to see both team's perform better in subsequent games LASK particularly that's if the must see their self go a long way in the Europa league games.

It is too early to assume that Liverpool will win the Europa League after winning in the first match. This is just the beginning, Liverpool still have many matches to go through to reach the final. There is no doubt that Liverpool is one of the big teams playing in this competition, but you must not forget the outcast team from the Champions League who sits in third place in the Group stage. The teams from the UCL who were thrown into the UEL will try to give their best performance to pay for their failure in the UCL. This season Liverpool has experienced improvement compared to last season, Klopp must maintain Liverpool appearance so that it is always consistent in order to achieve success after going through a bad period in the last few seasons.

[ndutndut]

TSC was holding pretty well in the first half and scored in the second to take the lead but they just couldnt withstand the presure from West Ham and that own goal i think destroyed them pretty well. After that it was just an easy job for West Ham to win the match.

Indeed, TSC's defense in the first half was quite good. However, Westham did not give up at all, as seen from the attacks carried out by Westham. At the start of the second half they conceded one goal, this made them motivated to attack so there was an own goal from a TSC player, that was the start of Westham's comeback to make a comeback.

In that match I really enjoyed the performance shown by players like Kudus, Mavropanos and Thilo Kehrer in that match which was truly extraordinary. Mavropanos looked very calm in defense and looked dangerous with aerial balls. Overall Westham's defense is also good. Even though Thilo Kehrer received a yellow card, he managed to make a tackle and tried to defend Westham's back line. Positive results for Westham with an extraordinary game, I am sure that with a game like this, if they continue to be consistent in five more matches, they will come out as group A winners.