2012/13 UEFA Champions League: The Road to Wembley VII

[ShiftyPowers]

Loooong winter break in Ukraine though. And I really think those two teams are so similar and Dortmund just have the better players.

EDIT: Ukrainian winter break started December 2. The league resumes March 3. Their fixtures against Dortmund are February 13 in Donetsk (that is going to suck for the players) and March 5 in Dortmund. Shakhtar could struggle for fitness and continuity.

 

[Arnau]

Im not sure if a break before CL football is a good thing. Competitive rhythm is very important, Barça for example.is better playin every 3 days than playing 1 game per week.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

No, I don't think it is a good thing. I think Dortmund will be better because they will be playing football for a month before the first fixture instead of off for 3 months. For Shakhtar, these games are basically the equivalent of August pre-season in other leagues.

 

[Arnau]

Willian against Gotze and Isco vs James is exciting.

 

[Sir Calumn]

Weather means they dont really have a choice but to structure their season that way, you just would not be able to play at the stadiums of some of the midtable and bottom clubs in February in -25 celsius.

 

[4ndr3i]

I'm sure Lucescu will whip them into gear. The shitiest part is that the Shakhtar-Dortmund games are played at the same time as the Real-United ones. Fuck.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Weather means they dont really have a choice but to structure their season that way, you just would not be able to play at the stadiums of some of the midtable and bottom clubs in February in -25 celsius.

Well obviously, but it's still a factor.

 

[yoyo913]

EDIT: Ukrainian winter break started December 2. The league resumes March 3. Their fixtures against Dortmund are February 13 in Donetsk (that is going to suck for the players) and March 5 in Dortmund. Shakhtar could struggle for fitness and continuity.

That is terrible.

 

[Mus]

I don't even know what does BVB need to do anymore to get the respect they deserve.

Noone disrespected Dortmund, Shakhtar are being heavily underrated though

 

[Mus]

Following from Sir_Didier_Drogba this is mine,

Bayern
Barcelona
Real Madrid
Manchester United
Dortmund
Juventus
Shakhtar
PSG
Schalke
Porto
Malaga
Arsenal
Celtic
AC Milan
Valencia
Galatasary

 

[ShiftyPowers]

We aren't as good as Barca. I love this team and this is the best Bayern team I've ever seen, but we just aren't at that level. I'd put us firmly at #2 though.

 

[Mus]

I don't know, Barca haven't seemed at their best this season at all, maybe it's the change in style but something doesn't look right

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Fine, but they still have Messi, and they have still gotten better results than us.

 

[Mus]

Hmm maybe, it's so close though

 

[kp41]

Bayern failled to impress against top teams this season so far ...

defeat at home against Leverkusen, draw at home against Dortmund and Gladbach, draw against Nürnberg (Bavaria Derby match)

Plus they beat Valencia for group stage first place narrowly

they are 9 points ahead in League but you should consider all facts

 

[Mus]

I think more recent form and team quality would be a better indicator than matches a few months ago

 

[kp41]

Except Levercusen match, all of the results that I mentioned happened during last 4 weeks not few months ago.

As I said to Shifty in Bayern thread, they became a bit inconsistent ...

28 Oct, Bayern Munich 1-2 Bayer Leverkusen
17 Nov, 1. FC Nürnberg 1 - 1 Bayern Munich
20 Nov, Valencia CF 1 - 1 Bayern Munich
1 Dec, Bayern Munich 1-1 Borussia Dortmund
14 Dec, Bayern Munich 1-1 Borussia M’gladbach

 

[Mus]

The next CL game isn't this weekend

 

[kp41]

To their credit, they had really good results but to win champions league they need to defeat top teams.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Team has been dealing with a lot of injuries too. Gomez and Robben basically haven't played at all yet and Gustavo was injured for most of those games you posted. And Nurnberg isn't a top team. So are you just posting all of the games we couldn't win this year or what? Because the BATE loss was pretty bad. And Hannover and Schalke arguably are top teams in the Bundesliga and we hammered both of them. A lot of those other games we controlled, but couldn't win, which might have something to do with Gomez and Robben again; in the Valencia draw we only needed 1 point to qualify for the Knockout Round and also ensure that we had the tie breaker over Valencia. Valencia got a shock goal, but we responded after 5 minutes. We dominated Valencia in the first game I thought aside from their 90th minute goal against the run of play.