Just watched the game. (Ok, sorry. Obviously it was not existential.) Saved it forever immediately. (Notwithstanding.) vamos Madrid!
UCL is just always Madrid!
ManC lucky, lucky to score 2, which is so poor. The all midfielders defense is not awesome, and the Gvardiol - Haaland goal was legit amazing, but Real dominated for at least 70 min and had so many good shots. They will need to hold on for home leg but the ball handling is incredible wo center backs. They are almost perfectly press resistant with this squad. Ok you will have to play defense once in a while and the midfielders aren’t quite as good … but handling the ManC press is also taking away what has been a huge weapon. The loss of the defense — it takes but it also gives.
I know f all about MLS rosters, but I can’t imagine he isn’t the best player on the roster day 1 if he signs. Would think the forwards would take a giant step forward just with the extra chances assuming his hamstrings and quads, that are held together by silly string and pipe cleaners at this point, can hold up.
ManU in the worst form in decades, missing out on the CL next year and the $90 million that comes with it while also giving Spurs their first trophy since George Bush Jr. was in office? You hate to see it.
I wonder what Spurs do with Ange now? Bet he’s still gone, CL’s a big carrot to lure in a manager in with. While I pretty much loathe all things Tottenham, happy for Son getting some hardware for his time there.
I know its how these things work, and part of the phenomenon is driven by the fact that Tottenham sort of make the tactical decision down the stretch to forgeo competition in the EPL to chase the Europa title (which obviously paid off), but it kind of sucks that the team sitting 17th on the 20 team table is going to make the CL over 2 of Newcastle, Villa, Nottingham Forest, and Chelsea, who were actually good teams this year.
Way more interesting to see Nottingham in there first appearance there (may not actually be true, maybe they made it in the time of King Richard the Lionheart or something), in their third season up in the Prem
Everyone is losing their mind about this but … I kind of get it? It’s just the Gold Cup. I don’t think running guys into the ground this summer is the right move.
I know it’s how it’s built, and the winner of the Europa League generally doesn’t spend the league season sucking wind from a tailpipe so I’m not asking for structural change to address a rare occurrence, but it just stinks that actually good teams don’t qualify, but Tottenham got to beat Bodo-Glimt (less than 1/10th their payroll) Eintracht Frankfurt (less than 1/3rd their payroll), and AZ (less than 1/10th their payroll) to get there. Again, not asking for reform, but the Europa league, even in late rounds, massively lacks parity (Glimt would be outspent by half of League 2) so you end up with it contested by two massive clubs who just objectively spent the entire season f*cking a duck.
Like, we can talk about MC being disappointing, but they were still actually an objectively good team. ManU and Tottenham were terrible when forced to play anyone approximating their resources.
Eh, I think if you looked back at past Europa League winners, most wouldn’t be in a great spot in their domestic league table.
This is especially true with the new format where UCL teams don’t fall back into the UEL.
So I think it’ll happen more. But the idea is that the EL winner wouldn’t qualify otherwise so they get a spot.
It would be like if the NIT winner got an auto bid to the NCAA Tournament the next year (which would be amazing)… they are probably not always going to be great.
The point of the EL winner getting a spot is to make the EL matter… because otherwise that would have been an awful match between two horrible teams. Instead, it is fun!
(Also, the extra spot that the EPL gets in the UCL this year is in part because of the English teams advancing so far in the UEL, FWIW.)
