Main » 2008 » October » 3 » 3 October: CL MD2 and UC Round 1 has finished
3 October: CL MD2 and UC Round 1 has finished
23:02
So we have 40 more eliminated teams. Holland did great and kept all their 5 teams in UC. In the end it was mostly seede teams that qualified, or a top-10 team. If we leave those out we are left with a handfull of real surprises: Zagreb, Standard, Metalist, Lech and Zilina. 28 out of 40 are teams from the top 10. I wonder how this will be next year. Of course ther will be 48 teams, but what will we see. The new 20% rule sounds like more top-3 teams will be unseeded, especially in the new Europa League, which makes that last Q4 more unpredictable and maybe draw-dependend. We'll see next year.
For now I updated the country'09 and team'09 -predictions. Ther still will be interesting battles, but most seem already finished: 5th France-Russia. Russians seem to go dormant in November/December, that might cost them the 5th spot! 9/10th Portugal-Ukraine. With keeping Benfica, I think Portugal has advantage enough to keeep on their lead 15/16 Belgium-Denmark: Denmark has started losing fast after their winning streak at the beginning. Belgium seem recoverd from their Anderlecht loss (Oh what a score it could have been if Anderlecht was still in!!) 27: Poland has secured at least 1 spot in EL-Q3.
