2021-22 UEFA Champions League

Not sure if this is serious hes been brilliant when fit

Him and Fabinho have started 18 games together won 17 &, drew 1

Thiago been great when fit

He’s a joy to watch. Great energy and vision.

Bayern lucky to get the draw tonight. They just don't look their usual self these last few weeks.

With Juve in a bit of a slump/rebuilding Serie A has lost it's only current super club. As a Serie A fan I am delighted as an even open league is way better than the 9 years of Juve as champions.

For a myriad of reasons Italy is not going to have 3 or 4 super clubs any time in the near future so I will take being crap in the CL if it means a good league.

The real damning indictment of football is all the other crap leagues propped up by 1 or 2 super clubs. Only the PL and until recently La Liga could really point to having a healthy league going all the way down to the EL teams.

Ya but look at how many PL teams are in the list of top favourites for the various European competitions.

CL really is England + a handful of clubs right now.

Yor correct in the main, but I'd question terming Juve a super club, at least in a European context.

In spite of being almost constant participants, only 2 European Cup wins, one of them won in the shadow of the horrible night in the Heysel which should never have been played. It's a poor return, huge underachievement imho.

*away games you mean as being unusual

Their previous 2 games before these were both at Anfield against different teams

There were shots taken inside the box and some very dangerous square balls played that were blocked by some very good last minute defending from Liverpool.

Shots on target is a nonsense way to judge a game. Teams can have 20 shots and lose to a team with 1 or even 0

You can have 20 or 50 ,if none are on target your not playing well.

Again we are talking very different kinds of super club.

Celtic are not a big club and have not been in a long time .We massively over inflate their importance in Ireland. I do agree Juve have under achieved massively historically given the amount of league success but recently they were on their absolute limit getting to recent finals and Ronaldo masked the fact that they cant compete financially with the richest clubs and they were also better before he came along.

It definitely looked like Inter were threatening, but they didn't back it up with clear cut chances.

From memory, they had that shot that hit the bar from a narrow angle in the 1st half (that shot had an XG of 0.06). Skirinar had a header from a corner just outside the 6 yard box too, and this was their highest rated chance on XG, which was 0.09. In the 2nd half, they had that cross they put in by Perisic that Martinez wasn't able to connect with. A chance alright there tbf, but he didn't make use of it. Dzeko did break through on goal too, and scored, but he was well offside and everyone knew it before he had even put the ball in the net.

That 15 minute period in which Inter dominated gives an almost false perception of how the overall game played out. Perception can be heavily affected by what commentators are saying, what result you want etc. I know it's a different competition and game, but at the weekend there was a narrative that Burnley were unlucky against Liverpool and had numerous clear cut chances etc. In reality, the majority of those chances were actually flagged offside at the time, or probably would have been by VAR if they had actually gone in.

To be fair, that 15 mins spell was very dominant by Inter and it certainly gave me a worry. It gave Klopp a worry too, as they made early changes in the 2nd half. Those subs changed the game IMO, backed up by Inter tiring after their big effort in this period. They needed to score, but didn't. They didn't test the keeper.

As for xT, these graphics show both the xT over the course of the game and also the cumulative xG. From the same model.

I was actually expecting a tougher game,

Liverpool had a bit of a leg sapping game away to Burnley in the rain & then the trip to the San Siro ,Not the easiest ogames ot have back to back,

Once Klopp made the 3 changes & freshened up the midfield it was game over, Liverpool to be far played much of the game in second gear,

Should be game over now but you never know

My initial reaction was "that's not fair" but I suppose if it hurts Russia's pocket, I'm in favour of it.

It should never have been given the final in the first place.

Uefa need to stop putting the final in poorly located cities.

No chance of Dublin hosting it, the Aviva is far too small.

Not enough hotel rooms in Dublin either.

We got the 2024 Europa League final via this 'goodwill'. Bilbao got the 2025 final for the same reason.

The Aviva has a slightly higher capacity than Porto's stadium which hosted the 2021 final.

Chelsea lead at the break but Lille have responded well to the goal. Thought Renato Sanches looked very good.

Vlahovic the one making a statement in the other game. First CL goal on his debut after 33 seconds.

Villareal equalise against Juve. I suppose Juve still favourites for the tie if it finishes like this but wouldn't be surprised if Villareal went through

Cool, was just pointing out that them pickin' a smaller stadium in 20/21 doesn't mean much, since it was a late forced switch and only for a small covid capacity. Very specific set of circumstances, so it's not a great reference to point towards in support of smaller stadiums hosting a CL final. You've to go back 18 years to find a final with a stadium capacity of under 60,000. And that one was still bigger than the Aviva.

Think we'd all agree that generally speaking, it's better that it goes to big stadiums that get more fans into it though. Be lovely to have a CL final in Dublin and all that of course, but for fans of the teams taking part, I'm sure they'd much rather an extra 10 or 20 thousand seats available to them. Europa Final is a cool one to have anyway.

It beggars belief how slow Harry Maguire is.

Haller is knocking them in for both teams! Benfica 1 - 2 Ajax now.