Updates of last weekends domestic league results are in. There are starting leagues to be finished. More and more places are scured. More and more blue in the CL and EL participation list.
Fair PLay spots are known: Norway, Sweden and England get an extra spot. It looks like Lille, champion of a not so small country will get into pot 4 of the CL. Together with Dortmund and Napoli. I think it will be a good CL next season, with some interesting groups :)
I enjoyed my holiday in Spain, on the Costa del Sol, where they were more worried about Malag ahaving to win over Hercules as the Barca-Real match. Well not really. Cafe's were completely full during the matches. Unfortunately(?) most of them were tourists (what would you expect in a tourist region :) ).
So I did manage to follow a bit of the ties, though my major intentions were not football.
Now it's back to that. I updated al league information.
It's decision time, clearly. In England, ManUtd can't really lose the title anymore, after winnign from Chelski. Arsenal dropped completely out and now must even fear for having to play Q4. In Italy Napoli also dropped out and in France Lyon took away the fight for Lille by winning over Marseille. Holland is extremely exciting, with a match next weekend between Twente and Ajax. Winner will take the title, and if PSV manages to win (though not easy), loser get only EL spot. Big money at stake there! Tur
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Hi All. New update available. Sorry I can't react on your remarks of last couple of days. I'll be going on vacation tomorrow (in 5 hours) and will be back in 2 weeks.
Sorry for any mistakes and no updates during this exciting time of the year...
I have made an updated version for team- and countryranking'12. For this I have Fulham as FairPlay participant, so no Liverpool in Europe next season.
Looking at the graph, England is going down, missing Liverpool of course, but still maintaining first position. France is doing well, going back to Portugal. Italy is not going well, playing with low coefficient teams like Napoli, Lazio, Udinese. Belgium passed Denmark for 12th and Scotland made it back in top-15, which they left in March.
All latest domestic league updates are included. With the draw of Real, Arsenal and the loss of Leverkusen, Napoli, the top-4 champions seem to get clear. On the other hand we got Lille drawing, making it France interesting. Porto is champion, Shakthar can't escape it. Romania and Holland make it very interesting. Romania still has 7 round to go, but in Holland 3 teams are within 1 point, and with 3 matches to go! And with on the final day Ajax-Twente. If it doesn't decide the championship, it will decide who will get the CLQ3-qualificationspot. And then to remember that they meet a week earlier already in the cupfinal.
In Turkey we have Trabzonspor trying to keep Fenerbahece from the title, in Greece the Play-Offs wil begin, in Switzerland Basel is choking and letting Zurich get closer and in Belgiium the play-offs have started and because of some interesting results all is open again, Standard, who only qualified on the last Md for the play-offs is now within 2 points
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I have updated the prediction for the team- and countryranking'11 after the quarterfinals. Almost all teams who won in the first leg also won the second leg. In the end there were only a few matches that gor really exciting. You could say Chelsea was hopefull for 1 minute. PSV made it unexpectedly exciting till the 45th minute. And Dynamo Kiev kept their hopes up till the last minute, though I think it was based on score, not relly on their play.
Now up to the semi finals. Will Real Madrid find a way to beat the unbeatable Barca? And will Schalke surprise again. Man United have been tricked before by an unexpected team - Porto, though more lesser teams came far at that time still.
Domestic league matches of last weekend are included. Lyon got into the top-3 again, while Bayern dropped out of it. I'm afraid this could continue till the end. Lille lost in France. Does it mean that the title race is open again? In Holland it starts to look ridiculous. Twente and PSV dropped (unnecesary) points letting Ajax get into sight of a CL spot again. In Belgium too things go unexpected. The 2 teams that were cruising in the league, Genk and Anderlecht, now suddenly have problems, Standard and Club are catching up quickly now in the Play-Offs!
First this weeks CL and EL quarterfinals returns. 6 out of 8 matches seem already decided. Main quastions will be if ManUtd and Braga can finish it at home after their good result away. In the other matches I don't expect any team to come back from a 3 or 4 goals difference.....
While we had yesterda already 2 first leg quarterfinalsof CL, the domestic leagues are also getting closer to the end. It's starting to be clear which team will make it into next years CL and which teams not. The Spurs are too far away from spot 4 to make a chance, and since yesterdays 4-0, I'm afraid we won't see this joyfull team in the CL again next year. A loss for the CL, I would say.
The Non-champion qualifiers are filled with CL-regulars and big names: Chelsea, Bayern, Benfica, PSV, Villarreal, Dynamo Kiev, Panathinaikos, Fenerbahce, Anderlecht, Rubin. And Udinese and Rennes could also still be replaced by AS Roma and Lyon. Was this Platini's idea when he created this?
Porto is already champion and now will concentrate on the EL. They need to collect 5 more points AND stay ahead of Shakhtar to pass AC Milan and get 9th in teamranking, which will guarantee a pot-1 positin next year:Liverpool is out, and Bayern and Chelsea may ease th
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Based on predicted team and country ranking and participants I have a predicted country- and teamranking for 2012. We see France is looking to have another bad year, Portugal another good one!