Champions League 2014/15

What shambles might that be? If anything in the interim the CL has become less unpredictable than before...

Semi-finalists
2008-09: Man Utd, Barça, Arsenal, Chelsea
2009-10: Bayern, Barça, Internazionale, Lyon
2010-11: Man Utd, Barça, R.Madrid, Schalke

2011-12: Bayern, Barça, R.Madrid, Chelsea
2012-13: Bayern, Barça, R.Madrid, Dortmund
2013-14: Bayern, Atlético, R.Madrid, Chelsea
There's more quality teams now and even more trying to break into that elite class.
 
Ah that really sucks, wanted Athletic Club to make the Champions League :(

Maybe they still will
 
Okay, but I still don't see how that in itself makes the mentioned period any sort of "shambles"...
Lyon and Shalke in the semi finals with very average sides. Our team in 10/11 making it to the finals. Van Gaals Bayern side making it to the final, just shambolic really...Nowadays having a substandard team is more likely to lead to embarrassment than getting far in the competition.
 
I would've liked to see both Napoli and Athletic in the CL instead of the likes of Zenit who now probably have another free-pass despite being absolute crap (still can't believe how they made the knock-out stage last season, winning only 1 of 6 games and with a -4 GD :lol:). Last year's Standard would stand a chance, but they've seen too many important departures (esp. great prospects Batshuayi to Marseille and Ezekiel to Qatar ffs what a waste), to be fair they already far exceeded anyone's expectations here in Belgium by beating Panathinaikos -- esp. when their play didn't really merit it.

Hope Athletic can reach the group stage, they really deserve it for their great work in the past few seasons. Just hope they won't be another Villarreal/R.Sociedad who both completely underperformed in GS lately. At least teams like Sevilla and Valencia would only bottle it after the group stage.

Yes! What they do only with regional players is crazy. Cant wait for the CL season. The stories, the drama oh yes!
 
Lyon and Shalke in the semi finals with very average sides. Our team in 10/11 making it to the finals. Van Gaals Bayern side making it to the final, just shambolic really...Nowadays having a substandard team is more likely to lead to embarrassment than getting far in the competition.

So how do you explain some of the results in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 semi-finals? Bayern 7-0 Barça (on agg.) and Bayern 0-5 R.Madrid (on agg.)? Does that also fit the definition of "embarrasment"? Or maybe these teams were just substandard?

I'm not saying that the sides you mentioned were world-beaters, but they were hardly "substandard". Schalke 10/11 beat Valencia and thrashed holding champs Inter (who in turn had eliminated Bayern) 7-3 on agg. Lyon 09/10 defeated Real Madrid in the R16. Van Gaal's Bayern? You mean the one that still won a league/cup double and had a majority of the same key players as the current Bayern side? 2010-11 Utd also winning the league title that season, by like 9 pts, and not losing a single game until the Final?
 
UEFA are a joke, a player who didnt play in the 3 matches he was suspended yet came on for 3 mins in the second leg and the team is kicked out, what a joke. :wenger: The team probably thought that if he's not eligible, we won't put him in the match squad which anyone would think. Hope they overturn this on appeal. No way Celtic deserve to go through after that.

Yet racist behaviour by fans and you only get a fine. :rolleyes:
 
UEFA are a joke, a player who didnt play in the 3 matches he was suspended yet came on for 3 mins in the second leg and the team is kicked out, what a joke. :wenger: The team probably thought that if he's not eligible, we won't put him in the match squad which anyone would think. Hope they overturn this on appeal. No way Celtic deserve to go through after that.

Yet racist behaviour by fans and you only get a fine. :rolleyes:

Don't tell it like that here. Rules are rules apparently and Polish cheats deservedly got thrown out.
 
Wow, crazy news about Celtic. As I read it Legia weren't thrown out, the game was awarded 3-0 to Celtic, hence they went through 4-4 on away goals (first leg ending 4-1).
 
Also UEFA say they care about football and they want to go with the spirit of the game. They definitely did in this case, basically throwing a team that has just won 6-1 on the pitch out of competition because paperwork was wrong. :lol:

As I said, where does it stop? Paperwork seems more important than football here, if this became a normal occurance then you cannot even celebrate winning the game after it finishes - you have to rule for UEFA that your paperwork is all right and only then you can issue the statement that you have won so fans can cheer.

Utterly ridiculous decision. They don't particularly like Legia at UEFA though, last year they closed half of Legia stadium for Steaua return leg because of some flares several weeks before - convenient time to remind themselves of this. This time they have gone full mental though.
 
Celtic being re-instated is the biggest fecking piss take ever, UEFA are a fecking joke, so for playing a guy for 3 fecking minutes when you are 6-1 up already, you get handed a 3-0 loss which is perfect to send your opponents through? feck off.

Legia should appeal if they can. UEFA have just made themselves look like massively corrupt/biased morons now.

would this have happened the other way around you have to wonder? if it had been Celtic 6-1 up would they have been given a loss that is perfect to send them out? you have to think not given they are a team with a bigger reputation than Legia...
 
So how do you explain some of the results in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 semi-finals? Bayern 7-0 Barça (on agg.) and Bayern 0-5 R.Madrid (on agg.)? Does that also fit the definition of "embarrasment"? Or maybe these teams were just substandard?

I'm not saying that the sides you mentioned were world-beaters, but they were hardly "substandard". Schalke 10/11 beat Valencia and thrashed holding champs Inter (who in turn had eliminated Bayern) 7-3 on agg. Lyon 09/10 defeated Real Madrid in the R16. Van Gaal's Bayern? You mean the one that still won a league/cup double and had a majority of the same key players as the current Bayern side? 2010-11 Utd also winning the league title that season, by like 9 pts, and not losing a single game until the Final?
Come on mate we can all see the quality has gone up a notch, even in those games that you mention.
Shalke got torn apart in the semis by a less than vintage united. Beating an inter that was on the wane after mou left doesn't change that.
Lyon got lucky Higuain left his shooting boots at home in that match.
Van Gaal's Bayern only made it past us due to the red card after we had controlled the vast majority of the tie with our star player playing at 50% or not playing at all. There's a big difference in the level of Van Gaal's Bayern and Jupp's one, the latter was easily better. They had Altintop and Olic starting the cl final for crying out loud. They didnt have a recognisable left back in the squad and an ageing van bommel was still a key member of the team. Some of those key players are still there but are surrounded by more quality. its like the difference between the 07/08 Barca team to the 08/09.
 
Celtic being re-instated is the biggest fecking piss take ever, UEFA are a fecking joke, so for playing a guy for 3 fecking minutes when you are 6-1 up already, you get handed a 3-0 loss which is perfect to send your opponents through? feck off.

Legia should appeal if they can. UEFA have just made themselves look like massively corrupt/biased morons now.

would this have happened the other way around you have to wonder? if it had been Celtic 6-1 up would they have been given a loss that is perfect to send them out? you have to think not given they are a team with a bigger reputation than Legia...

They cannot be put back into competition. They're playing Aktobe of Kazakhstan in EL instead.

Obviously it wouldn't happen if it were the other way around.

This was the best performance by a Polish team in Europe since 2003 (Wisła Kraków v Parma & Schalke, then Lazio). Now it's all void because we are apparently a bunch of cheaters for fielding Bereszyński for 3 minutes and not completing paperwork.
 
@Sarni any way Leiga could appeal?

They could take it to Lausanne CAS and have a small chance of winning there apparently but they'd only get some money from UEFA in that scenario. Other than that no, this is final decision by UEFA. Additionally Bereszyński has to serve a 4-match ban instead of 3 matches.
 
Really hope Bilbao manage to get into the group stages, lovely team to watch. Much rather have them in the CL than Napoli.
 
It's kind of ridiculous booting them out for this tbh.

UEFA should have a way of screening this small technical errors beforehand. Yeah, Legia made a mistake but this is ridiculous.

It's unbelievable. Don't think it would ever happen to a major club. And they beat Celtic comprehensively. Madness.
 
It's unbelievable. Don't think it would ever happen to a major club. And they beat Celtic comprehensively. Madness.

You'd like to think a major club would not field a banned payer. Legia fans should point their anger at whatever muppet didn't do their job properly. A 3-0 default loss is the norm for this type of thing.

Celtic are shameless dicks if they complained about this though. They got properly pumped by Legia and will probably get pumped by Maritimo.
 
You'd like to think a major club would not field a banned payer. Legia fans should point their anger at whatever muppet didn't do their job properly. A 3-0 default loss is the norm for this type of thing.

Celtic are shameless dicks if they complained about this though. They got properly pumped by Legia and will probably get pumped by Maritimo.

Cunning, if not a tad overzealous? On the other hand, playing an opponent that isn't even involved in European competition this season would be quite a novel way to get through the tie, as I'm sure they'll invoke some obscure UEFA ruling which grants an automatic forfeit in their favour in such cases.
 
Anyone watching Napoli vs Athletic Club? It's starting now on SS5.
 
Hope that Arsenal trash those cnuts for those idiotic photos with knives. Nothing winds me up more than a bunch of pussies trying to act tough.
 
Close again from Ba.

Would love if Besiktas did a job here. Be pretty funny if Sanchez ended up with no Champions League football.