Showing posts with label Europa League. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Europa League. Show all posts

Thursday, 26 August 2010

Lech PoznaƄ 0-0 Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk

A goalless home draw was enough to see Lech through to the group stage of the Europa league. Some fans on twitter were complaining that Lech would need a goal on the night but their 4-5-1 held strong for the ninety minutes and whilst this was not the prettiest of games, Lech fans will not care in the slightest!

After a 1-0 win for the Polish champions away in Ukraine last week they only needed a draw to go through whereas their opposition required a win of some sort. Clearly Dnipro were determined to score early and pushed from the off but were time and again frustrated by some vitally important defensive interventions which forced the away side to shoot from range. These shots were either well wide of the mark or straight at Buric in the Lech goal.

After the initial salvo, Lech themselves were given space to get forward and did so on a number of occasions. It seemed that the Ukrainians could only stop the Polish side by fouling them as the team picked up three yellow cards in the space of eight minutes.

The second half though saw a return to Dnipro being on top but lacking the final shot on target. They proved to be the biggest threat to the Lech goal in the air but even then couldn't muster that single goal as the Poles team continued to defend in numbers and watched the clock slowly tick closer to 90 minutes.

Lech may be happy to say that a win is a win no matter how it is achieved but the truth is that if the club do not want to be humiliated in the group stages they will have to play a lot better. Juventus and the like will not waste chances!

The Europa League Continues...

Well this is mainly just to apologise for the lack of blogging in the last couple of days. Busy time all round.

Looking forward to the Europa League tonight and there could even be an upset or two in store as we go into the second leg.

In the mean time enjoy this piece of schadenfreude as German SkySports reporter Jessica Kastrop previews Stuttgart vs Mainz:

Friday, 23 July 2010

Welcome to the Site



First of all thank you very much for visiting.

For too long football blogs have been heavily focussed on one country or even one club and it is often hard to see the wood for the trees. This is my effort to look at football from a European perspective. Obviously this will include the international European Championship qualifiers that are coming up, the Champions League and the Europa League. At times I also plan to delve into one particular team to see how their tactics are faring in their respective league.

All that remains to be said is that I hope you enjoy the blog and the first proper post will be up soon!

(P.S. The name is based on the fact that I play on goal if you hadn't already guessed that. From time to time I will look at the performances of individual goalies as well.)