Jonathan David

[Gian-Luca]

14 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

That penalty call against Atlético is a scandal. There's nothing there. How is that possible with VAR?

Yeah, I can’t even figure out what the basis of the call was, never mind what the call was. Trip? Handball? Someone called Benjamin Andre a bad name?

[Obinna]

[Shway]

2 hours ago, Obinna said:

Lille now up to 15th in the UCL table after 3 games. A lot of games left, but right now they are in a seeded knockout spot. 

Edit: Here's a visual of the table, which is beginning to take shape. 

I don't know how people feel about this format, but I like it a lot. 

Every team is playing to win, and not resting on the reverse home fixture.

1 and done. 

[Obinna]

Just now, Shway said:

I don't know how people feel about this format, but I like it a lot. 

Every team is playing to win, and not resting on the reverse home fixture.

1 and done. 

I was skeptical at first but figured I would like it after a few matchdays and that's exactly what has happened. 

[Corazon]

I’m been hesitant on the format and the disparity of the schedules is still a bit frustrating.  But over 8 games I’m sure the best teams will rise to the top.  The format has grown on me a bit as well.

[InglewoodJack]

I do really like the format, but I will wait until this round ends to judge. My one concern is that they probably need to figure a way out to have some of those bottom teams play games they can be competitive in. Teams #33 and below have collectively scored 4 goals and allowed in… 45. Love seeing smaller clubs playing in champions league and maybe someone rattles off a win, but with match congestion, I don’t know if it makes sense for teams to fly to places like Belgrade or a Bratislava to basically pick up 3 free points.

[Shway]

17 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

I do really like the format, but I will wait until this round ends to judge. My one concern is that they probably need to figure a way out to have some of those bottom teams play games they can be competitive in. Teams #33 and below have collectively scored 4 goals and allowed in… 45. Love seeing smaller clubs playing in champions league and maybe someone rattles off a win, but with match congestion, I don’t know if it makes sense for teams to fly to places like Belgrade or a Bratislava to basically pick up 3 free points.

Why?...they did before, so why stop now?
They've all earned the right to be there. Plus not too long ago, Sherrif Tiraspol(¿) went to Madrid and won. I know 2M(4M total) did wonders for their revenue. 

[InglewoodJack]

12 minutes ago, Shway said:

Why?...they did before, so why stop now?
They've all earned the right to be there. Plus not too long ago, Sherrif Tiraspol(¿) went to Madrid and won. I know 2M(4M total) did wonders for their revenue. 

I’m not saying they shouldn’t be there, just think there should be some sort of mechanism that requires these bottom feeders to have to play each other a few times so every team can have a chance to play a few competitive games. Graz for example, their weakest opponent is Brugge, and they’re likely going to lose every game remaining as they’re all against good clubs. Do something like 2 of your matches should be against clubs with similar club coefficients or something. 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

15 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

I’m not saying they shouldn’t be there, just think there should be some sort of mechanism that requires these bottom feeders to have to play each other a few times so every team can have a chance to play a few competitive games. Graz for example, their weakest opponent is Brugge, and they’re likely going to lose every game remaining as they’re all against good clubs. Do something like 2 of your matches should be against clubs with similar club coefficients or something. 

Maybe I am misunderstanding.

That's what the draw pots are for, no?

 

Sturm Graz (co-efficient - 14.500) drew two Pot 4 opponents like everyone else. - Girona (17.897) and -  the worst ranked team in the competition - Brest (13.366).

[TOcanadafan]

1 minute ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

Maybe I am misunderstanding.

That's what the draw pots are for, no?

 

Sturm Graz (co-efficient - 14.500) drew two Pot 4 opponents like everyone else. - Girona (17.897) and -  the worst ranked team in the competition - Brest (13.366).

Yes, this format actually helps the lower ranked Pot 4 teams as previously they would have had only games against teams who came from Pots 1,2&3.  
And in the same way, makes it more difficult for those who are Top seeds.

[Shway]

To be honest....this new format has made me think more about.........The Super League.

It was intended to play in parallel with domestic leagues. 😁

[SthMelbRed]

3 hours ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

Maybe I am misunderstanding.

That's what the draw pots are for, no?

 

Sturm Graz (co-efficient - 14.500) drew two Pot 4 opponents like everyone else. - Girona (17.897) and -  the worst ranked team in the competition - Brest (13.366).

The fact that a few 'nobody' teams finished top 4 in Big 5 leagues last season makes things a bit tougher this year. Ordinarily, all of the English, Spanish, Italian, German, and French teams would be in the top pots. Not the case this year. So, Brest and Villa were in Pot 4, but are much better than what you'd expect from Pot 4 teams. 

When I say 'nobody' teams, I'm only saying that they have no recent Champions League pedigree. Had Man Utd, Chelsea, or Spurs had Villa's spot in the CL this year, they'd have been in Pot 2, even though Villa are currently a better team.

[Pasta88]

9 hours ago, Shway said:

I don't know how people feel about this format, but I like it a lot. 

Every team is playing to win, and not resting on the reverse home fixture.

1 and done. 

It’s ironic to post this in the David match thread after Lille started a bunch of bench players to prioritize the derby match against Lens on the weekend. Inter has also played bench players 2/3 matches so far.

That being said, I do like the new format so far.

[Sal333]

14 hours ago, BrennanFan said:

We are so lucky to have him.  Deadly finisher.  

Is he our best player now?

He has been for a while now. Well, he is in my books.

[narduch]

11 hours ago, InglewoodJack said:

I do really like the format, but I will wait until this round ends to judge. My one concern is that they probably need to figure a way out to have some of those bottom teams play games they can be competitive in. Teams #33 and below have collectively scored 4 goals and allowed in… 45. Love seeing smaller clubs playing in champions league and maybe someone rattles off a win, but with match congestion, I don’t know if it makes sense for teams to fly to places like Belgrade or a Bratislava to basically pick up 3 free points.

Personally not a fan. It has the same issue as MLS regular season or Leagues Cup group stage. Simply too many damn games for a single competition.

Currently there are 5 teams sitting on 0 points after 3 games. When we get to round 6 and on there will be tons of meaningless games (at both ends of the table). Same issue MLS has when 9 of 15 teams make the playoffs. In this tournament 24 of 36 teams make the knock-outs. 

But what the hell do I know? If it was up to me only league Champions would be in this event and it would still be straight knock-out competition.

[Kent]

13 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

That penalty call against Atlético is a scandal. There's nothing there. How is that possible with VAR?

It's almost as if VAR isn't able to provide the perfection that people think it should. I haven't seen the play in question, but VAR should only be used for black and white calls in my opinion, because soccer rules are full of grey areas that VAR can't definitively make the correct call on.

[ahmedou]

David made me proud to be Canadian! David made you proud to be Canadian! David made us proud to be Canadian!

Thank you to be here David!

[ahmedou]

I'm watching the Champions League 🇪🇺 only for Jonathan David 🇨🇦
 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

8 hours ago, SthMelbRed said:

The fact that a few 'nobody' teams finished top 4 in Big 5 leagues last season makes things a bit tougher this year. Ordinarily, all of the English, Spanish, Italian, German, and French teams would be in the top pots. Not the case this year. So, Brest and Villa were in Pot 4, but are much better than what you'd expect from Pot 4 teams. 

When I say 'nobody' teams, I'm only saying that they have no recent Champions League pedigree. Had Man Utd, Chelsea, or Spurs had Villa's spot in the CL this year, they'd have been in Pot 2, even though Villa are currently a better team.

Partially agree, this year might be a little more prevalent.

But I can't agree it's really new.

In every system we have had that -  rightly - considers a number of years, like the coefficient one does, a team on the rise or going through a purple patch is going to look or feel a little off.  There will always be outliers in any data system.

Last year you had Newcastle, Real Sociedad, Union Berlin, and Lens from top 5 leagues in pot 4.  I don't think Brest is head and shoulders better than any of those.

Marseille the year before that.

AC Milan and Wolfsburg in 21/22

Marseille, Renne, and Gladbach in 20/21.

Not unheard of.

(Unless your great year actually wins you a top league, like say Leicester or Lille, and your co-efficient doesn't matter.)

[narduch]

4 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

Partially agree, this year might be a little more prevalent.

But I can't agree it's really new.

In every system we have had that -  rightly - considers a number of years, like the coefficient one does, a team on the rise or going through a purple patch is going to look or feel a little off.  There will always be outliers in any data system.

Last year you had Newcastle, Real Sociedad, Union Berlin, and Lens from top 5 leagues in pot 4.  I don't think Brest is head and shoulders better than any of those.

Marseille the year before that.

AC Milan and Wolfsburg in 21/22

Marseille, Renne, and Gladbach in 20/21.

Not unheard of.

(Unless your great year actually wins you a top league, like say Leicester or Lille, and your co-efficient doesn't matter.)

In the previous iteration of this tournament, Champions from the top 6 or so leagues were put in Pot 1 regardless of their coefficients.

Besides that the entire point of seeding and having a coefficient system is to make it easier for teams that are traditional powers. Generally it helps them stay in tournaments longer

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

13 minutes ago, narduch said:

In the previous iteration of this tournament, Champions from the top 6 or so leagues were put in Pot 1 regardless of their coefficients.

That's what I was refering to in my last paragraph, with Lille and Leicester (the 2 that came straight to mind.)

But again teams from the top 5 league still made it into Pot 4 every year in this co-effiecient cycle. 

Also remembering there are more teams now in this system and every pot has 1 more team,  so the chances of anything happening is slightly more. 

Like a lot of stat stuff we could use to evaluate this change, (like whether there are more blowouts) it needs more data in my opinion.

17 minutes ago, narduch said:

Besides that the entire point of seeding and having a coefficient system is to make it easier for teams that are traditional powers. Generally it helps them stay in tournaments longer

Whether we that think that is completely fair or not, there is a merit element to it. 

I would like to keep the domestic cups free from seeding for the romance of it (looking at you Carabao Cup) but this is how it has been for a while in Europe. 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

2 hours ago, Kent said:

It's almost as if VAR isn't able to provide the perfection that people think it should. I haven't seen the play in question, but VAR should only be used for black and white calls in my opinion, because soccer rules are full of grey areas that VAR can't definitively make the correct call on.

If VAR wasn't used it in this case, it would have been a penalty. 

And one of the criticisms is that the ref did not go to the monitor. 

Edited 12 hours ago by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[Kent]

22 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

If VAR wasn't used it in this case, it would have been a penalty. 

And one of the criticisms is that the ref did not go to the monitor. 

That doesn't weaken my anti-VAR stance at all. I think it's more frustrating for fans when they don't agree with calls when VAR exists. Either you have something like this case where you can't understand why he wouldn't review it, or the officials are looking at the same thing as you and coming to a different conclusion from you. In my opinion, both of those are more frustrating than an old fashioned blown call, where you don't know what kind of angle the ref had, it happens fast in real time, etc. It's easier to give the benefit of the doubt when there is no VAR (at least for me).

[InglewoodJack]

13 hours ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

Maybe I am misunderstanding.

That's what the draw pots are for, no?

 

Sturm Graz (co-efficient - 14.500) drew two Pot 4 opponents like everyone else. - Girona (17.897) and -  the worst ranked team in the competition - Brest (13.366).

I guess I want… more of that? I don’t know, it’s not a major complaint, just think it’s silly to have all these scheduled losses, but I do want to see these smaller clubs get a shot. I guess at the end of the day if you are Graz or Zagreb or whoever, you play for the fee and for the small chance that you pull off incredible upsets.

[El Diego]

Rewatching the penalty, Gimenez (far side of the penalty area) clapping and yelling at David during his run up, going so far as cupping his hands to try and make himself louder. Such loser behaviour, should have been a caution.