UEFA Champions League 2018-2019 qualifiers

Just checked their last 6 games.. 3 league and 3 friendlies and have only
scored one goal with just the one win.
SO hopefully when we get past the borg
AEK should be no match.

 

Left wing club my *. Their owner is a Greek oligarch. The AEK ultras are happy to sweep numerous ethical and controversial issues under the carpet cause he is investing big money to the club. If that's left wing then I'm a neoliberal.

Personally speaking, I support Ergotelis (a tiny team from the island of Crete). Haven't followed the Greek Super League since the 2014-15 season (the last time Ergotelis was in the top division). Unfortunately, I really don't know how good AEK is at the moment. What I do know is that Greek football is corrupt from top to bottom. I have zero interest in watching a corrupt league (much less given that my favourite team isn't playing in it).

Reading a few comments on the internet, most AEK fans are cautiously optimistic. They wanted to avoid Salzburg and Celtic, but they are confident that AEK will go through. For what it's worth, they seem to be more confident than you guys are (based on what I read here).

Anyway, it's a happy day for me cause Celtic is coming to my home city! No way I'm gonna miss this! It's gonna be the first time I'll watch a Celtic game live from the stands! Third qualifying round can't come soon enough (hopefully we 'll go through Rosenborg first).

Mon the Hoops!

 

AEK are of course one of the giants of Greek football. Should be a lot more powerful than they are but they are still finishing their recovery from being demoted a few years ago due to bankruptcy. They are now owned by a shady man nicknamed 'Tiger' who is worth over 4 billion and was a previous president who sold AEK to those scrap merchants ENIC - remember them..? He is building them a brand new stadium (a beauty even I must admit) as I type this on their hallowed site at Nea Filadelfeia on the site of their old stadium - the Nikos Goumas..

They sold much of the backbone of their team this summer even though they dont need the money.. I suspect the owner is trying to increase the value of the club by showing a very strong fiscal year with huge earnings. AEK is floated on the stock market in London I believe or about to be. Tiger can't be seen to be putting money into AEK first hand (conflict of interests) because he owns OPAP - which he insidiously bought from the Greek Government. OPAP is the largest gambling company in Europe.

 

AEK is the biggest left wing club in Greece. I am Greek. Everyone knows this. Original 21 - their main fan club is far left in fact. Many anarcho-communists and Antifa in their number. That is why everyone laughs at them. They have giant 'refugees welcome' banners at lots of games as well as massive antifa slogans dotted all over their terraces. They all vote Syriza/ KKE (leftist and far leftist parties) on reflex but it is the Syriza council which worked 24/7 to block their essential new stadium being built at Nea Filadelfeia. Olympiacos is a right wing club. Panathinaikos 50/50. Aris is left (Che Guevera banners all over the place etc). PAOK centre left. Asteras Tripoli (about to play Hibs) is right wing.

 

Just the Scottish mentality mate, we could have Barca's squad and still not fancy ourselves as favourites.

I think a lot of us are quietly confident though. Team is looking as sharp and focused as we've seen them for a while.

 

Reading some more about AEK, it seems like they've significantly weakened their team over the past month or so. Plus, their league season starts after ours so (if we beat Rosenborg!) we should be sharper than them.

Still though, one tie at a time. Confident about our tie with Rosenborg, but these games are rarely easy.

 

So they're The AEK now eh?

 

LOL - The artist formerly known as AEK,,,

Seriously though - not sure what they did - I know Tiger bought them for 1 euro though.. Iraklis have had to alter their name grouping a few times after each relegation - interestingly Iraklis have never been relegated due to being in the relegation zone - only ever because of debts each time..

 

I think people also forget when we got legia who we thought were a relatively decent draw at the time, they pumped us and then we got back in to the play off on a technicality and got Maribor who were best draw for us and we still bottled it. We’ve maybe been a bit unlucky with the draw this year but we’ve been lucky other years.

 

Ridiculous that we have to play a team of this calibre and it's not even at the playoff stage yet. It's becoming an uphill battle to get in to the champions league for teams like us

 

i've just remembered this draw and went straight to wiki and my initial reaction without looking further is for * sake!!

On second thoughts, maybe it isn't as bad as that, IF WE QUALIFY!!

Bate, Zagreb, Sheriff, Malmo, Red Star....they're were no gimmees in there!!

Somebody tell me this is a decent draw, SHOULD WE QUALIFY!!

 

It was always going to be hard considering is it no only 6 team outside the auto qualifiers who actually qualify now.

 

8 - 4 from the Champions Route and 4 from the League Route.

 

Imagine being Rosenborg though, they need to beat us then AEK just to get to the play-offs lol

 

Home or away first with athens?

 

They need to bring in a new rule. Any club who's won the big cup gets automatic entry into the competition if they win the domestic league. Get your finger out lawell

 

Exactly..

We're basically 1-3 on to beat them Wednesday..

Out of the 10 midweek qualifiers. Only 2 side's are more odds on, and they're playing at home to Lithuanian and Hungarian side's..

Of course it can occasionally be wrong, but it looks marked up about right. We should be seeing Rosenborg off no problem..

If we get through, I'd imagine we'd not be too far away from that against AEK first leg. Maybe 1-2 on..

 

Honestly, we have a tory chairman and what could be very well described as an "irish oligarch" as a CEO. We are not supposed to stop following Celtic because of this, so why would they?

Sadly most if not all teams will be in such a situation.

Hope you get to see the game. When Celtic played in Malmö I couldnt get the tickets, I was not allowed to buy tickets in the away section and didn't want to sit in the home crowd.

 

The amount of asterisks and bankruptancies in the greek league never ceases to amaze me, I fear one day they are going to run out of teams to play

 

Aye, you can't help but think they are really dodgy games.

But in reality we have the best manager out of us Rosenborg and AEK plu the best players, they probably don't have anyone as good as Boyata, Brown, Tierney, Ntcham, Rogic, Edouard, Forrest, Dembele in their squads. At best both Rosenborg and AEK maybe have 2 or 3 players who would get into our team.

Always hard to judge though until we actually play. I think other European teams always go into European games with much more confidence than Scottish teams, the Scottish mentality has always been a shitebag mentality possibly as our National team is always utter pish where as even wee Croatia, Czach, Slovakian, Greek and that teams seem much more comfortable in Europe - may be as their Leagues are more competitive so they go into Europe on a high knowing they did well in their League just to get into Europe where as we pish our League with ease.