UEFA Champions League 2014/15

As promised, a discussion thread for the Champions League. It's starting at September 16th, so tuesday in 2 weeks.

A little info:

My own guess is that the final will/should be Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich. Seem to be the strongest 2 teams right now and the previous 2 winners. Madrid purchased James Rodriquez and Toni Kroos which makes them obviously stronger than they already were. Bayern purchases Xabi Alonso from Real Madrid and Benatia from Roma. It's looking like Robben is continuing his world cup form. So that's my reasoning.

The groups are:

GROUP A:
Atletico Madrid
Juventus
Olympiacos
Malmo FF

GROUP B:
Real Madrid
Basel
Liverpool
Ludogorets Razgrad

GROUP C:
Benfica
Zenit St Petersburg
Bayer Leverkusen
Monaco

GROUP D:
Arsenal
Borussia Dortmund
Galatasaray
Anderlecht

GROUP E:
Bayern Munich
Manchester City
CSKA Moscow
AS Roma

GROUP F:
Barcelona
Paris Saint-Germain
Ajax
APOEL

GROUP G:
Chelsea
Schalke 04
Sporting Portugal
Maribor

GROUP H
Porto
Shakhtar Donetsk
Athletic Bilbao
BATE Borisov

First matches are:

Tuesday September 16th:
Liverpool - Ludogorets Razgrad
Benfica - Zenit
Juventus - Malmo FF
Real Madrid - Basel
Monaco - Bayer Leverkusen
Borussia Dortmund - Arsenal
Olympiacos - Atletico Madrid
Galatasaray - Anderlecht

Wednesday September 17th:
Chelsea - Schalke 04
Porto - BATE Borisov
AS Roma - CSKA Moscow
Bayern Munich - Manchester City
Barcelona - APOEL
Ajax - Paris Saint-Germain
Maribor - Sporting Portugal
Athletic Bilbao - Shakhtar Donetsk

I think during this summer Real made too many bad transfers to be as good as last year. Bayern is going to win.

Happy to see Maribor in CL after 15 years. I think they can get the 3rd place.

Cool, bato thanks for starting this thread. I almost forgot that we talked about making one a few weeks back.

Nesta wrote:I think during this summer Real made too many bad transfers to be as good as last year. Bayern is going to win.

Happy to see Maribor in CL after 15 years. I think they can get the 3rd place.

Idk man. Those ''bad transfers'' won't really effect the first team. Unless you're talking about players leaving, but i can't think of any but Xabi Alonso maybe. The only thing that can break up Real Madrid is too many players feeling they should be the star. That might clash.

Another team that might get really far is Chelsea. With Torres gone and Diego Costa in, they finally have someone to actually finish their chances.

Grats on Maribor reaching the CL. I was actually happy when they scored the winning goal against Celtic :p

@Mv, i don't forget much 

I was watching TV and I saw the arsenal game. I only saw a couple of min. I think those are the playoffs right?

If it was against Besiktas, then yes. Arsenal just barely made it through..

@Nesta, i completely forgot about Di Maria leaving Madrid. Yeah that will have a big impact, but still they are one of the top favorites.

Yeah it was against them.

If you've seen Argentina-Germany then you know what a difference Di Maria made. Selling Xabi, Di Maria and Özil were really stupid moves. They had such an awesome midfield before.

I hope Torres starts playing like in the Liverpool times now.

I don't think Madrid misses Ozil much if you look at how he does at Arsenal. But Di Maria is one of the best players in the world. Could have made a difference in the world cup final if he played.

I am very curious how Torres is gonna do for Milan. No high hopes for him, but who knows. Maybe a change of country is what he needs.

Özil can't play well for arsenal, because they don't have any strikers that could turn his passes into goals.

Nesta wrote:Özil can't play well for arsenal, because they don't have any strikers that could turn his passes into goals.

Arsenal has Giroud, Sanogo and Campbell. They aren't world class, but all 3 can easily turn world class passes into goals. They've all shown it. Ozil just doesn't perform and keeps proving the fact that he flops in big matches.

I wonder how it would've been if they still had RVP.

I've wondered that too. I talked to Ovyda about that a while ago, he said the team wouldn't be build around RVP anymore and he won't perform. He might be right. Lately he's been very disappointing at Netherlands too. I think that's due to the injury's he had.

Also, scrap Giroud, it's Welbeck who's gonna play in attack now for Arsenal. I'm really curious. He has done some good stuff, wonder if he can make it happen.

So far so good for Real Madrid. 5-1. Benzema's goal was well deserved IMO.

Today was crazy.. Roma 5-1 against Moscow, Porto 6-0 against Borisov. Ajax getting a point against PSG, deserved. Almost even took the win. Amazing free kicks from Schone.
Yesterday, like you said Madrid so far so good. Juve won (). Ludogorets, IMO, deserved a point against Liverpool although i didn't see the whole match. Balotelli scored. Arsenal were SHIT. Dortmund were their usual selves i think. Deserved win for them. Anderlecht nearly shocked Galatasaray and Gala were very very lucky. Aaaaand Maribor got a point

Today I only saw the barca game. But I did see the live stats while watching the game. It was crazy indeed.

They are doing a switch channel on dutch tv this season. Showing one match mainly but switching to other matches when something happens. I watched that with Ajax as main match. Was fun to see them switch to Roma like 3 times for a goal in the first 20 min. And then to Porto 6 times.

I wish they did that here. I've been watching the games on fox sports networks but I only have 3 channels. I don't even know how many channels they have. I wish I could watch all the games but I really can't.

I have 1 game on normal tv, there are 3 paid channels, i have Fox Sports Eredivisie, they only show the dutch league. 1 is free for me for unknown reasons (probably a mistake by my provider) they have 6 channels to show CL matches, 5 live matches and that switch thing.

We also have Fox Sports international, which i don't have. I really want it though.

Yeah it sucks man. I will do with what I have. Btw the games start back up Monday?

Does anyone know when the games are starting back up? I haven't been able to see a single game in like a week.

CL is this week. Bato did you see Maribors goal?

Ah sorry man, i didn't check this thread for a while. Yesterday were 8 matches and today will be 8 matches. The CL always takes a 1 week break in between match rounds. So this week they will play and in 2 weeks they will play again.

http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/index.html

If you scroll down on that site, on the left is the playing schedule for the group stage.

@Nesta, i probably did, but i can't remember it from 2 weeks ago. They got a draw again this week. Doing rather well so far. A dutch analyst even said they have a pretty decent team.

Totti scored against City after City tweeted ''good luck to Roma and Totti, Totti has never scored on english ground, has he????'' Fucking trolls got Totti's foot stuck up their asses. He equalised, giving Roma an away point, sinking City in a shit position and Totti now owns the record for oldest goalscorer in the CL. Very well done Francesco

Tonight Atletico - Juve.. I'm so damn nervous, we can take them if we have a good day, but damn i don't know what to expect at all. Please Tevez be in good form like you've been from the start of the season.

Saw my team play today. Chicharito needs to step it up. So many opportunities and he missed them all.