2021-22 UEFA Champions League Qualifying & Group Stage part 1

[Evilo]

2-0 and dominating performance.

 

[cgf]

2-0 and dominating performance.

How has Nübel been settling in?

 

[Evilo]

Awful until today.

 

[cgf]

Awful until today.

Hopefully this is the start of him getting settled then

 

[Evilo]

He hasn't had anything to do today but has played well with his feet.

 

[Evilo]

13 shots to 2 for Monaco at halftime.

 

[luiginb]

Monaco are bad, nowhere near CL quality, as no team employing players such as Martins would be. They're lucky that Shakhtar are worse today, but they're still in this game.

 

[Evilo]

Lol.
Monaco excellent. Ben Yedder has missed the 3rd goal 3 times now though. Hope it doesn't bite them in the ass.

 

[Evilo]

And Donetsk certainly not bad but Monaco's pressing has been incredible, especially in the 1st half.

 

[luiginb]

What has been excellent except for their pressing? I see a very limited technically team, very few ideas once they get the ball. A lot of their chances has been very weak shots into the stands. Fofana is a black hole offensively, Martins the same. And all this on a night when they're facing a team that's playing like their asleep in their boots.

 

[Evilo]

Donetsk score on their first shot.
So many chances missed.

 

[Evilo]

What has been excellent except for their pressing? I see a very limited technically team, very few ideas once they get the ball. A lot of their chances has been very weak shots into the stands. Fofana is a black hole offensively, Martins the same. And all this on a night when they're facing a team that's playing like their asleep in their boots.

If you see a limited technically team, there's nothing to argue.
Martin's was excellent lol.
Fofana doesn't contribute offensively because he's a 6 lol.

Incredible.

 

[Moncherry]

f*** UEFA for removing away goals.

 

[Chimaera]

Aaronson won’t be at Salzburg for long.

 

[Power Man]

I feel terrible for Monaco tbh

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

I feel terrible for Monaco tbh

They made a meal of it in classic fashion. No-one to blame but themselves.

 

[Power Man]

They made a meal of it in classic fashion. No-one to blame but themselves.

Yeah but that goal was cruel tho

 

[Mitch nylander]

Good for Sheriff for making champions league. Who woulda thought. They’ll get battered in the group stage, but nonetheless it’s very impressive they’ve managed to make it this far.

 

[Savi]

That's really disappointing from Dinamo Zagreb though. Didn't score a goal in 180 minutes against Sheriff.

 

[hatterson]

Good for Sheriff for making champions league. Who woulda thought. They’ll get battered in the group stage, but nonetheless it’s very impressive they’ve managed to make it this far.

Yea they’ll get smoked. But even making the group stage gets them like 8 years worth of normal income so it’ll be big for them.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Their entire squad has just 5 Moldovans - 1 of them a naturalized Brazilian who also happened to be the only "Moldovan" who started today. While the imports are more a rag tag bunch of mercenaries from all over than any collection of prime talent, a number of them have played for teams in France, Italy, Portugal and Greece. In other words, they aren't playing for a handshake and a lifetime supply of free burgers at Transnistria's finest fast food joint.

Clearly, there's some money here. I suspect they don't rely solely on Moldovan league TV rights income and ticket sales. If we consider that the club is owned by a rather shady conglomerate in a renegade unofficial state supported by and entirely dependent on Russia, a conglomerate some people have accused of being involved in laundering money for corrupt politicians...well let's just say it might not be exactly a "David vs Goliath" story. That's European football in the 21st century for you, even the underdogs often turn out to be just big fish bullies in a smaller pond.

 

[hatterson]

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Their entire squad has just 5 Moldovans - 1 of them a naturalized Brazilian who also happened to be the only "Moldovan" who started today. While the imports are more a rag tag bunch of mercenaries from all over than any collection of prime talent, a number of them have played for teams in France, Italy, Portugal and Greece. In other words, they aren't playing for a handshake and a lifetime supply of free burgers at Transnistria's finest fast food joint.

Clearly, there's some money here. I suspect they don't rely solely on Moldovan league TV rights income and ticket sales. If we consider that the club is owned by a rather shady conglomerate in a renegade unofficial state supported by and entirely dependent on Russia, a conglomerate some people have accused of being involved in laundering money for corrupt politicians...well let's just say it might not be exactly a "David vs Goliath" story. That's European football in the 21st century for you, even the underdogs often turn out to be just big fish bullies in a smaller pond.

They may have some foreign players, but their cumulative transfer spend (gross, not net) since 2015 is a whopping 920k euros. At a quick glance, literally everyone on their team is a loanee, arrived on a free, or has a transfer fee of "?" on transfermarkt which usually means it was roughly a bag of peanuts. Sure there might be some shady money around the club, but this is still well beyond their financial earnings before.

The minimum amount of money they will receive simply for making the group stage (15.64M euro) is roughly the same as the entire market value of everyone on their club combined and they'll get at least an extra 1.137M euro for coefficient and probably ~2M additional for TV rights. Obviously if they can manage any results the numbers go up from there.

Last time they were in the Europa league group stage (4 years ago) they got a *total* of 4.1m euro so this is 5 times their previous biggest windfall already.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

They may have some foreign players, but their cumulative transfer spend (gross, not net) since 2015 is a whopping 920k euros. At a quick glance, literally everyone on their team is a loanee, arrived on a free, or has a transfer fee of "?" on transfermarkt which usually means it was roughly a bag of peanuts. Sure there might be some shady money around the club, but this is still well beyond their financial earnings before.

The minimum amount of money they will receive simply for making the group stage (15.64M euro) is roughly the same as the entire market value of everyone on their club combined and they'll get at least an extra 1.137M euro for coefficient and probably ~2M additional for TV rights. Obviously if they can manage any results the numbers go up from there.

Last time they were in the Europa league group stage (4 years ago) they got a *total* of 4.1m euro so this is 5 times their previous biggest windfall already.

That is assuming that the figures they report are accurate, which I have some reservations about, given the circumstances surrounding the club. Naturally the UEFA figures on prize money and all that are accurate, but when it comes to payments to players and clubs..who knows. They supposedly spent $200 million on their stadium, so they're clearly not unfamiliar with handling large amounts of cash.

But of course making the CL is a financial boon in any event. I just feel like it's important to clarify that Sheriff doing well isn't exactly a victory for 'the little guy' and there shouldn't be an impression this is some village team pulling together or building off the back of a great youth program. This is football at its most mercenary really, just at a 'smaller' level given the size and wealth level of the country involved.

 

[cgf]

Wage bills can be more telling for how rich teams built around free-signings, loanees, and cheap-signings, actually are. No idea about sheriff in particular, but thinking about some of the corruptly-financed russian clubs that I do know about; the wealth being funneled into them shows a lot more in their wage bill than their transfer sheets.

 

[hatterson]

Wage bills can be more telling for how rich teams built around free-signings, loanees, and cheap-signings, actually are. No idea about sheriff in particular, but thinking about some of the corruptly-financed russian clubs that I do know about; the wealth being funneled into them shows a lot more in their wage bill than their transfer sheets.

I couldn't find anything on their wage bill beyond literally looking at football manager, which isn't exactly an A+ source.

That said, given the transfer values of their players based on a site like transfermarkt (which isn't amazing, but is good enough for this purpose), they're not exactly hiding world beaters and basically all of their players would be lucky to even make the bench for roughly 90% of the CL group stage teams.