Post by staggerstag on Aug 15, 2017 18:38:32 GMT
Unsure about this one, but I'm fancying goals from both sides.
Hoffenheim: Baumann; Blcakcic, Vogt, Hübner; Kaderabek, Rupp, Demirbay, St Zuber; Kramaric, Gnabry; Wagner
Subs: Kobel, Nordtveit, Toljan, Amiri, Uth, Szalal, Geiger
Liverpool: Mignolet; Alexander-Arnold, Lovren, Matip, Moreno; Henderson, Can, Wijnaldum: Mané, Firmino, Salah
Subs: Karius, Klavan, Gomez, Milner, Grujic, Solanke, Origi
Referee: B Kuipers (Ned)
Hoffenheim 2/1
Liverpool 6/4
Draw 23/20
(BET365)
Preamble by Paul Doyle :
Hoffenheim: Baumann; Blcakcic, Vogt, Hübner; Kaderabek, Rupp, Demirbay, St Zuber; Kramaric, Gnabry; Wagner
Subs: Kobel, Nordtveit, Toljan, Amiri, Uth, Szalal, Geiger
Liverpool: Mignolet; Alexander-Arnold, Lovren, Matip, Moreno; Henderson, Can, Wijnaldum: Mané, Firmino, Salah
Subs: Karius, Klavan, Gomez, Milner, Grujic, Solanke, Origi
Referee: B Kuipers (Ned)
Hoffenheim 2/1
Liverpool 6/4
Draw 23/20
(BET365)
Preamble by Paul Doyle :
Hello and welcome to the future. Today’s match against a decent Hoffenheim side could go a long way towards determining the mood around Liverpool for the season ahead. Get a good result and Jürgen Klopp’s men can congratulate themselves on keeping cool amid adversity, be confident of marching into the group stages of the Champions League and probably increase their appeal to transfer targets; but flunk this exam and Liverpool will not merely face a very difficult second leg but risk being engulfed by another wave of frustration from fans aghast at the persistence of obvious problems. They’re such a tease, this Liverpool side! They have the ability to put this tie to bed today but also the capacity to drive their fans potty. There’s really no telling how things will go today.
Just a couple of weeks ago, of course, everything was going swimmingly for Liverpool in Germany. There they were, thrashing Bayern Munich in the Allianz Arena, 2-0 up and dancing a merry jig. But then Daniel Sturridge simultaneously scored a superb goal and stepped on a metaphorical rake and the whole club was hit by unwanted reminders of every one of their vulnerabilities: Sturridge himself immediately pulled up lame; Adam Lallana injured his thigh; Barcelona tried to claim droit du seigneur on Phillipe Coutinho; new Chinese owners strengthened Southampton’s grip on Virgil van Dijk; and Georginio Wijnaldum’s head shrunk into his neck just as he was about to clear a corner at Watford. And now here Liverpool are, back in Germany. Will they break the cycle? Or will the cycle break them? That’s what we’re here to find out.
Meanwhile, in anticipation of heated discussions about the shortcomings of various professional footballers, let us first all consider our own inadequacies: who amongst us, for example, can honestly say we spent our late-20s guiding a club into the Champions League for the first team in its history? I did it once with Bohemians FC but that was in a computer game and only after I rebooted several times. Julian Nagelsmann did it for real, as Marcus Christenson explains in the article below. The man’s young enough to be Klopp’s son and yet he’s made himself a peer of his compatriot and has earned an opportunity to get the better of him today.
Just a couple of weeks ago, of course, everything was going swimmingly for Liverpool in Germany. There they were, thrashing Bayern Munich in the Allianz Arena, 2-0 up and dancing a merry jig. But then Daniel Sturridge simultaneously scored a superb goal and stepped on a metaphorical rake and the whole club was hit by unwanted reminders of every one of their vulnerabilities: Sturridge himself immediately pulled up lame; Adam Lallana injured his thigh; Barcelona tried to claim droit du seigneur on Phillipe Coutinho; new Chinese owners strengthened Southampton’s grip on Virgil van Dijk; and Georginio Wijnaldum’s head shrunk into his neck just as he was about to clear a corner at Watford. And now here Liverpool are, back in Germany. Will they break the cycle? Or will the cycle break them? That’s what we’re here to find out.
Meanwhile, in anticipation of heated discussions about the shortcomings of various professional footballers, let us first all consider our own inadequacies: who amongst us, for example, can honestly say we spent our late-20s guiding a club into the Champions League for the first team in its history? I did it once with Bohemians FC but that was in a computer game and only after I rebooted several times. Julian Nagelsmann did it for real, as Marcus Christenson explains in the article below. The man’s young enough to be Klopp’s son and yet he’s made himself a peer of his compatriot and has earned an opportunity to get the better of him today.
