The Premier League returned, and it was a rather straight-forward first weekend with Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool all getting 2-0 wins and Man Utd, Newcastle and Aston Villa all winning as well.
Focus this midweek returns to Europe, and we are at the Play-Off stage with the first entry of an English club.
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
All games 8pm on TNT/Amazon
Tonight:
Dinamo Zagreb vs Qarabag
Bodo/Glimt vs Red Star Belgrade
Lille vs Slavia Prague
Tomorrow
Young Boys vs Galatasaray
Midtjylland vs Slovan Bratislava
Malmo vs Sparta Prague
Dynamo Kyiv vs Red Bull Salzburg
Second legs are next week with the draw for the main league stage next Thursday. Liverpool and Man City are pot 1, Arsenal pot 2 and Villa pot 4 - although pots are pretty irrelevant as you get 2 from each one.
EUROPA LEAGUE
All games on Thursday, and Scottish club Heart of Midlothian start away to Viktoria Plzen in a tough looking tie. Irish side Shamrock Rovers go to Greece giants PAOK in the 1st leg. Some big teams at this stage including Ajax, who are at Jagiellonia Bialystok, Anderlecht who go to Dinamo Minsk, Besiktas against Lugano, Steaua Bucherest away to LASK.
Second legs next Thursday with the draw next Friday. Man Utd, Spurs and Rangers all find themselves in pot 1, but again that doesn't really matter.
CONFERENCE LEAGUE
24 games, with the biggest arguably Chelsea vs Servette at Stamford Bridge on Thursday. Scottish side Kilmarnock have a tough task at FC Copenhagen. St Patrick's Athletic have first leg home advantage against Istanbul Basaksehir, while Northern Irish side Larne go to Gibraltar to face Lincoln Red Imps. Welsh representatives The New Saints have Lithuanian opposition in Panevezts. Lens vs Panathinaikos looks a tasty tie after the Greeks suffered penalty shoot-out heartbreak in the Europa against Ajax. Real Betis face Kryvbas Kryvyi Rih, while Fiorentina have Puskas Akademia.
The 24 winners along with the 12 losers from the Europa play-offs will be in next Fridays draw.
The first CL league phase games are across 3 days from 17th-19th September, with the Europa the next week and the Conference sides having to wait until October to get their League campaign going.
European Play-Offs
posted on 20/8/24
I'm hoping for the following teams to progress
Dinamo Zagreb vs Qarabag ... Dinamo Zagreb
Bodo/Glimt vs Red Star Belgrade... Red Star
Lille vs Slavia Prague... Slavia
Tomorrow
Young Boys vs Galatasaray.... Galatasaray
Midtjylland vs Slovan Bratislava.... Slovan
Malmo vs Sparta Prague.... Sparta
Dynamo Kyiv vs Red Bull Salzburg... RB Salzburg
posted on 20/8/24
how are arsenal pot 2 and lfc pot 1? Pure rnaking points all of a sudden?
Do country title winners not exclusviely get pot 1 any more?
posted on 20/8/24
Nah, back to co-efficient ranking points now.
posted on 20/8/24
also pots are never irrelevant.
I think we get 2 form each pot so thats 8 games and the best 8 go to last 16 and the 9th to 24th placed teams get a last 32 game. (9th to16th get seeded in that)
We are playing 8 games to knock out 12 teams
LFC will play
Pot 1 opponent Home
Pot 1 oppnent 2 Away
POT 2 blah blah
reaistically its all about the luck of the draw regarding your opponents. you cannot meet an english side but you could meet two italians or two spanish (max 2 from each country
LFC could meet:
Bayern
Real
PSG
Inter
Dortmund
Leipzg
Barca
(mad theres 3 germans in pot 1)
then
Leverkusen
Atletico
Atlanta
Juve
Benfica
Brugges
Shaktar
AC milan
then
Feyenoord
Sporting
PSV
Celtic
+ paly off winers
then
Sparta prague
Monaco
Bonolgna
Girnon
Stuttgart
Sturn
Midtylland
Brestois
This really feels like a big long set of premium ties that nobodty wants to lose so they will be a lot of draw and a setof whipping boys at the bottom
all 10 pot 4 teams will do well to get more that 6 to 8 points.
you really want to be top 16 but i don't know what that will look like until the first gorup is over. "top half" of the table coulf be something like. 10 to 12 points I guess. (4 home wins or 3 wins and 3 draws out of 8)
posted on 20/8/24
The pots are irrelevant in that Aston Villa can get the same draw as Liverpool despite one being pot 4 and the other pot 1.
posted on 20/8/24
comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 4 hours, 16 minutes ago
The pots are irrelevant in that Aston Villa can get the same draw as Liverpool despite one being pot 4 and the other pot 1.
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Yeah it’s a strange one, a side in pot 4 can get a more favourable draw than a side in pot 1.
The Europa pots are crazy, Pot 4 looks vastly stronger than pot 3 and marginally stronger than pot 2.
posted on 20/8/24
It is going to be an interesting first season, has the potential to be great or awful.
posted on 22/8/24
TNS going through...played well in this match tbf