Last games of the season all kicked off at 3pm... except
Man United V Bournemouth game abandoned after suspicious package found.
Man United V Bournemouth game abandoned after suspicious package found.
The European Football Season 15/16
- Thread starter hux
- Start date
This is good stuff - Leicester City Celebrations
Aggregate is simply cumulative goals -- goals added together. In a cup-tie over two legs. whoever scores the most wins. If they're tied, it goes to extra time or penalty kicks.
It only gets complicated if away goals are counted as the tiebreaker. If BOTH teams score the same amount of away goals, and the aggregate score is tied, then you go to extra time and penalty kicks.
Say that Man City and Real Madrid are playing in the Champions League Semifinals.
Man City 1-3 Real Madrid
Real Madrid 0-2 Man City
.....Score is tied 3-3 on aggregate, But Real Madrid advances because they score the most away goals.
Man City 1-1 Real Madrid
Real Madrid 1-1 Man City
.....Score is tied 2-2 on aggregate, and away goals are even. Game goes to extra time to determine who advances.
The away goals rule has been in place since the 1960's I believe, and some people want it to be abolished (Arsene Wenger, for instance). But I don't think it will because it adds an extra layer of drama to the proceedings.
Luckily I got out of Leicester before it all started. The trains coming in were rammed, my train home was almost empty
wish it was like that every day! Looks like they had a heck of a party. The park where that image is from looks really clean today, think they had litter pickers on call v early this morning.I'll still debating whether to stick a fiver on them going down next season, which is a bit mean but I do think Europe will have a really detrimental impact on them.
As well as this team played this year, fighting until the end of every game, and you think they might go down next year? Seriously? I agree that extra European games will put a strain on the squad, as does Ranieri, which is why he's targeting a top-10 finish. But this team is made of stern stuff. Character and resilience and steel. It's amazing to me that after all they've achieved this season, people STILL underestimate them.
Over the last calendar year, they are something like 19 points ahead of the nearest team to them on the form table. Do you really think a team like that will get relegated next year? Sheesh.
Over the last calendar year, they are something like 19 points ahead of the nearest team to them on the form table. Do you really think a team like that will get relegated next year? Sheesh.
Their success came as part of a perfect storm of factors. It was a fluke. I don't expect them to go down next season but I do strongly doubt that they'll be anywhere near the title. I suspect they'll finish 7th or 8th.
The season after that... they might very well go down.
The season after that... they might very well go down.
Honestly no, but it wouldn't completely surprise me either. There's historical precedent for teams that over achieve and get into Europe doing terribly the following year, and that's clubs who make it into the UEFA Cup/Europa leagues, never mind the champions league. As Hux says Leicester's performance this season has been a perfect storm, the big clubs have all been poor, Leicester have been lucky with injuries and suspensions because they don't have a big squad and yes they've shown steel and resilience no doubting that and I wouldn't want to take anything away from them, but, again as Hux says, at the moment this season was a fluke, and plenty of teams are resilient and still get beaten by superior opposition.
I think Ranieri has his head screwed on right and he understands next season will be tough. They will have more games and, whatever Ranieri and a lot of fans think, there will be greater expectation from fans, pundits and the media next year. It'll be interesting to see if they lose players this summer, and also what their recruitment policy is like (hopefully they won't go mad like Hull did a few seasons ago and bulk the squad out too much). You have to accept that a lot of players have played above and beyond their abilities this year as well, take Vardy; 24 league goals this season, which is the same amount he scored in the last three seasons combined (and two of those seasons were in the championship.
A perfect storm saw them get the title, and a perfect storm could see them struggle and it will be interesting to see how they react is they get injuries, or lose three games on the bounce, or if Vardy goes through a goalless stretch. I really do think a lot rests on the ins and outs this summer.
So I wouldn't bet my house on relegation (I think between 7th and 10th is more likely) but if I could get silly odds on them going down I'm tempted to put a fiver on it.
You could say that a perfect storm of factors led to their title win, but I don't like the term "fluke." You can't fluke sustained good form over 38 games (or 47 games, in reality). You just can't. Because they are not in control of what teams do around them. All they can do is focus on THEIR work, and they did.
Only 2 teams in the league scored more goals. Only one had better goal differential. They had the most wins and the fewest losses. Their players worked and did their jobs all over the park, and in the second-half of the season, they racked up the clean sheets. This all suggests a team that is VERY GOOD at playing football. Now, I don't think they'll win the title next year either, and I think a top-10 would be a realistic target. But to say that this year was a fluke is just inaccurate. You can fluke a cup run, a few games. Not an entire season.
In any other year, 81 points is guaranteed Champions League....3rd place at least. For a team that escaped relegation the year before, that's a huge achievement. And that's down to good form, not luck or chance.
Only 2 teams in the league scored more goals. Only one had better goal differential. They had the most wins and the fewest losses. Their players worked and did their jobs all over the park, and in the second-half of the season, they racked up the clean sheets. This all suggests a team that is VERY GOOD at playing football. Now, I don't think they'll win the title next year either, and I think a top-10 would be a realistic target. But to say that this year was a fluke is just inaccurate. You can fluke a cup run, a few games. Not an entire season.
In any other year, 81 points is guaranteed Champions League....3rd place at least. For a team that escaped relegation the year before, that's a huge achievement. And that's down to good form, not luck or chance.
Oh I agree, best team over the course of the season, the table does not lie. Scored goals and ground out clean sheets when they had to. And yeah fluke is a misleading term, although like most teams I think they got their fair share of luck, but what they had was spirit and momentum and once they were rolling they became increasingly difficult to stop (Villa on the other hand had the complete opposite.) and whilst it's churlish to suggest that when you're on a roll you're luckier than usual, I think it is fair to say that successful teams make their own luck.
That said if Jose hadn't imploded at Chelsea, if City hadn't laboured on with a perfectly decent manager who was unfortunately a dead man walking, if Man Utd weren't making bizarre transfer decisions and struggling with their own manager, if Spurs had started the season better, if Arsenal er...weren't Arsenal...well things may have been different.
But you could say that every season I guess to a greater or lesser extent
Whatever the reasons it's a wonderful thing for football, long overdue, I just think it'll be a long time before anything like it happens again.
But never say never, this time next year Leicester might be on the verge of winning the Champions league, West Ham might have just won the premier league and Man Utd might have just been relegated...
That said if Jose hadn't imploded at Chelsea, if City hadn't laboured on with a perfectly decent manager who was unfortunately a dead man walking, if Man Utd weren't making bizarre transfer decisions and struggling with their own manager, if Spurs had started the season better, if Arsenal er...weren't Arsenal...well things may have been different.
But you could say that every season I guess to a greater or lesser extent
Whatever the reasons it's a wonderful thing for football, long overdue, I just think it'll be a long time before anything like it happens again.
But never say never, this time next year Leicester might be on the verge of winning the Champions league, West Ham might have just won the premier league and Man Utd might have just been relegated...
If your best players are fit and firing all season long; your average players raise their game, you have no serious injuries, you're still high from a strong finish to the previous season and the other teams haven't got your number yet... plus the teams who usually compete at the very top all have abysmal seasons, then yeah, you can definitely fluke it.
A perfect storm.
Next season will tell us how good they really are.
