Champions League 2010-2011

[jamcocteau]

Maybe Ko can makes this an official thread.

Anyway, just read in a Scottish newspaper that in Third Qualifying round we could be facing either Celtic, PAOK, Young Boys, Gent and one other either Braga or 2nd teamin Roumania. If we manage to keep team together then we have chance of beating any of these teams.

If we win this game then it does appear that we will be seeded in the Play-Off Round thus avoiding Spurs, Sevilla, Zenit St Petersburg and Werder Bremen

Here is couple of links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80 ... ons_League

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uef ... l2010.html

[Kowalczyk]

Ajax will be a seeded team in both the 3rd and 4th preliminary rounds of the Champions League.

In the third qualifiying round our opponent will be one of the following:

Celtic FC (Scotland)
FC Unirea Urcizeni (Romania)
PAOK Saloniki (Greece)
AA Ghent (Belgium)
BSC Young Boys (Switzerland)

Draw on July 16.

If we make it through the third round, our opponents in the play-off (or fourth) round could be:

Sampdoria* (Italy)
AJ Auxerre* (France)
Fenerbahçe (Turkey)
Dinamo Kiev (Ukraine)
Sporting Braga (Portugal)

(Sampdoria and Auxerre to enter the competition in the 4th round; the other three will have to survive the 3rd round first).

Playing dates:

3rd qual. round, 1st leg: 27/28 July 2010
3rd qual. round, 2nd leg: 3/4 August 2010

4th qual. round (a.k.a. the play-offs), 1st leg: 17/18 August 2010
4th qual. round (a.k.a. the play-pffs), 2nd leg: 24/25 August 2010

K.

[aveslacker]

That 3rd round fixture looks winnable, even if we get Celtic. The fourth round will be trickier but I think we can do it if we get past the 3rd round.

[Blind3]

FYI, FWIW, CL Draw for the Champions League qualifying phase(taken from www.fcbarcelona.cat)

At midday on Monday the draw was held for the first and second qualifying rounds of the Champions league 2010-11 at the UEFA headquarters in Switzerland.

The big guns of European club football will not make their appearance until September but throughout the summer some 54 teams will be fighting it out for the ten places allocated to them in the main draw on 26th August in Monaco.

First phase

The first qualifying phase involves the league champions of Montenegro, Malta, Andorra and San Marino.

The first leg will be played on 29th or 30th June and the second leg on 6th or 7th July. The draw was as follows:

SP Tre Fiori (SMR) v FK Rudar Pljevlja (MNE)

FC Santa Coloma (AND) v Birkirkara FC (MLT)

Second phase

The second qualifying phase matches will be played on 13th and 14th July and 20th and 21st July.

The draw was as follows:

Group 1

SK Liepäjas Metalurgs v AC Sparta Praha
FK Aktobe v FC Olimpi Rustavi
FC Levadia Tallinn v Debreceni
FK Partizan v FC Pyunik
FC Inter Baki v Lech Poznan

Group 2

NK Dinamo Zagreb v FC Koper
PFC Litex Lovech v Winners of match 1
Winners of match 2 v MSK Zilina
FC Sheriff v KS Dinamo Tirana
Hapoel Tel-Aviv v FK Zeljeznicar
AC Omonia v FK Renova

Group 3

FC Salzburg v HB Torshavn
Bohemian FC v The New Saints FC
FC BATE Borisov v FH Hafnarfjordur
AIK Solna v AS Jeunesse Esch
Linfield FC v Rosenborg BK
FK Ekranas v HJK Helsinki

Third round and play-off The winners of the second qualifying round will go into the hat for a third round draw on 16th July, which will include some of the bigger clubs with the lowest UEFA coefficient. The final qualifying phase draw will be held on 6th August.

[Kowalczyk]

Fuck the World Cup, don't wanna talk about it.

Draw for the Champions League qualifiers is on Friday.

We get one of the following: Celtic FC (Scotland), FC Unirea Urcizeni (Romania), PAOK Saloniki (Greece), AA Ghent (Belgium) or BSC Young Boys (Switzerland).

K.

[Monkey Tonk]

Do we know who will show up for Ajax? After recent events south of the equator.

Van der Wiel? Suarez? Is this going to be mostly last year's team, or another start from scratch?

[Orange14]

Do we know who will show up for Ajax? After recent events south of the equator.

Van der Wiel? Suarez? Is this going to be mostly last year's team, or another start from scratch?

I don't think we will know for a couple of more weeks. There has been a lot of transfer activity already and we know about a number of big clubs in financial difficulty. I suspect that we are not in as much danger of losing players (unless we sell at below market price) as say a year ago.

[Purple Cow's Ghost]

Of the teams listed, the only club I wouldn't want to be drawn against is AA Ghent - that's the sort of club that Ajax lose to. Anyone else shouldn't be a problem.

Celtic would be ideal, they are crap at the moment.

[souras84]

We got PAOK salonika... It is a very defensive team, which had the best defence in Europe last year. Hopefully there will be no upsets here. I hate them already in Greece and wont be able to stand their faces if they make the big suprise.... Ewwww

[Kowalczyk]

PAOK Saloniki.

A very, very tricky draw indeed. Probably my 'least favourite' draw. Maximum 'banana skin alert'.

We have had no pre-season campaign with the internationals. We will almost certainly be without Suárez, Pantelic, Rommedahl and Van der Wiel (how many of last season's goals did they score between them?).

Beware, Ajax. Beware. 10,000% focus and work ethic, please.

K.

[souras84]

No shit!!! No Suarez, VDV?????? Oh no!! I hope we stay focused and everything is gonna be allright! They are very dangerous

[Orange14]

Lodeiro is also out injured from the WC campaign and I've not seen anything about a time line for his return. We are probably going to have to go with the squad that is currently training. I don't think Suarez will transfer at this point but he's probably on a well needed vacation. What is de Zeeuw's status? I assume he won't be with the team either. This will be a tough draw coming so early (I really hope Jol doesn't leave as that could further disrupt things).

[Rooie]

Suarez and the Dutch internationals will return coming wednesday. Short break so it remains to be seen how they will perform (physically/mentally), but no other choice for Ajax.

[Orange14]

Suarez and the Dutch internationals will return coming wednesday. Short break so it remains to be seen how they will perform (physically/mentally), but no other choice for Ajax.

Thanks. I think also that anyone who will go on transfer cannot play in the match as they would not be eligible for their new team in the CL, correct?

[Rooie]

Rules have changed. If a player plays for Ajax in the CL-playoffs and Ajax reaches the main tournament, the player in question can't play for another club in CL anymore. If Ajax doesn't reach the main tournament, the player in question is still eligible to play for another club in the CL. To summarize, a player can play in CL no matter what.

[souras84]

lets reach the group stage and then anything can happen. I just want to get through the cursed playoff stage

[Orange14]

Rules have changed. If a player plays for Ajax in the CL-playoffs and Ajax reaches the main tournament, the player in question can't play for another club in CL anymore. If Ajax doesn't reach the main tournament, the player in question is still eligible to play for another club in the CL. To summarize, a player can play in CL no matter what.

Thanks. Given that the matches are early in the transfer period, we could play all the internationals and not worry about their value (unless they were injured).

[Venezuelan Ajacied]

To be quite honest i believe we are the underdog in this match.....we are going to need some luck to get through.

[acab]

PAOK lost 1-3 their last friendly in Germany against... cska (the pigs) sofia. Ok, i know it's only a freindly game, and so, and so, but c'mon, paok are crap. Nothing special. Beatable team even for the mediocre bulgarian club. Pfu

[Rooie]

To be quite honest i believe we are the underdog in this match.....we are going to need some luck to get through.

Underdog!!? We've underachieved for a couple of years, but PAOK isn't anything special (losing to Heerenveen last season...). Of course it's possible that we fail, but underdog no.

[Kowalczyk]

To be quite honest i believe we are the underdog in this match...

That is, of course, nonsense. Not a single person that follows football will look at it that way.

I wouldn't be surprised if we fuck it up, that's a different story. But underdogs? No.

K.

[SPL]

Ko said that if we lose to PAOK we wont be in the Europa Cup but if we lose in the 4th qualifying round is that still the case?

[Rooie]

Ko said that if we lose to PAOK we wont be in the Europa Cup but if we lose in the 4th qualifying round is that still the case?

If we lose in the 3rd qualifying round we end up the EL-playoffs, if we lose in the 4th qualifying round we end up in the Group Stage of the EL.

[Alexander999]

I am not worried about the PAOK ties at all, I just finished watching some highlights of todays friendly against Nuremburg 1-1 draw and the Greek squad was lucky to get a late equalizer.

They can't even string together 3 passes it was really great to see.
Also they have a new coach which is trying a new tactic and they are not even close to the defensive squad that the Portuguese coach Santos built last term.

Lads I am very very confident , these will be two comfortable matches

Cheers

[Amol]

PAOK were really worried for Ajax and the turmoil we went through in the last week. So they fired their coach to make sure that we'll be on an even footing -

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... MLRBUUwQMQ