$teauA;2452148 said:
Seville has all the qualities of a club that can win the whole thing. They have the experience of winning two straight knock-out tourneys with the UEFA Cup, they have the individual talents in Kanoute, Dani Alves, Luis Fabiano among others, they have a great home field with fantastic supporters. I could go on and on.
Real Madrid aren't contending for anything until their defense gets better. Some of the goals they allowed in the group stage were comical to say the least.
I can't see on what basis you can exclude AC Milan, after all they are the current champions of the competition and I'm sure NOT ONE of those teams in the draw want to meet them. It doesn't matter how old the roster is, they are the most experience team of the lot and when you have Kaka, Seedorf and Pippo you should always be favored to win the whole thing. About no team winning the tournament back to back, if you mean since it was rebranded as the Champions League then you are right but the last team to win the European Cup back to back was guess who? AC Milan in 89-90 and 90-91.
Your last paragraph is a joke. You base who you think will win based off bookies and who your favorite clubs are
?
And your last paragraph makes me smile.
I didn't based the prediction on whom i support, i just said "the once i support are actually the ones that the bookies put in front, aka MU and Barca". Like i said, i cannot recall a year, in which the team with the lowest coefficient after the group stage was a champion afterwards. (:/) I wish badly, that either MU or Barca wins, but i must admit the statistics speak against it..
Ok, Seville is decent and strong now, but like i said - they will need a lot to cover the semifinals success of a small team like Villareal, not to mention to win it. Yep, they won 2 UEFA Cup, but we all know the huge difference between those 2 competitions. Plus, you all can remember, that in some games in last year's UEFA Cup Seville were partially put forward with a "little help from my friends" (aka the referees), the games with Shahktar and Spurs to name a few. I like Seville, but you know, they are not the team to do it all over. Their only 2 significant european wins in last years were against Barcelona (European supercup) and Arsenal's reserves this year. All other games were not against opponents of the best quality (aka, MIlan, Inter, MU and type of teams). So, i would even doubt if Seville meets Arsenal again in the latter stages of CL they would win.. I guess they wouldn't...
Like you said, they have very solid squad, first year in CL now, stadium, fans, they will enroll and i wish them all the luck. But there's a small difference between real contender and someone who is going to turn soon into one.
Yep, you're right Milan won last time 2 years in a row, not CL, but EC.
Like i said, they're real huge team, but praxis shows that everyone is jumping strongly on the title holders.
I mean, if you're the team that won the competition last year, your chances of winning it again are .. less than if you weren't. It's just this way.
Plus, MIlan has no one new in comparison to last year. Kiddy like Pato or Ronaldo-my-granddad just won't do. They will go through to quarters, semis with a bit of luck, but i don't see so many teams that would waste their opportunities against MIlan the way Benfica did in the Luz game, for example...
Also, a team that has no newcomers and fresh blood gets predictable, and i think this is Milan's problem now.
I would throw the teams into following pots according to their chances:
Lowest chance of winning:
Fener, Schalke, Celtic, Olympiacos
Normal chance:
Porto, Roma, Lyonnais
Good chances:
Milan, Seville
Very good chances:
Pool, RM, Inter, Arsenal, Chelsea
Biggest chance, according to bookies (i won't say "according to me", since it would sound very selfish):
MU, Barca
Last but not least, what the numbers and statistics say is non sense, when not giving the word to the draw, and according to it's rules, Liverpool WILL draw someone in between Milan, Inter, Seville, RM, Barca, aka one very tough spanish or one very tough italian team... Interesting to see whether last year's final will repeat sooner this year..
