Liverpool's UCL Draw

just heads up as we head into the sunset of the evening after what was quite a long but uh actually quite interesting Champions League draw and I kind of had some realizations during it but at the same time Liverpool have drawn Real Madrid Bayern Leverkusen Le that's an exciting one uh bologa leig Milan PSV Herona Girona it's a pretty tough draw at the time I remember taking a deep intake of breath my phone vibrated quite a lot because a few friends went o tough one couple of people in groups going that is probably the toughest draw so far I think there are probably a couple of smaller teams who are equally struggling with their draw but there's a lot of tough sides in there I mean it's also why you play the Champions League it's completely why we do the champion why do the champions league if you're not going to play some of these Champions why do the champions league if you're not going to play Real Madrid leusen that's two champions in there Leo obviously AC Milan a big side and I think all of them are technically proficient fast sides that are going to want to play really intense football and frankly take a scalp off Liverpool how does that make me feel well first of all I'm actually uh semi- grateful SL semi ungrateful obviously I miss the old group stages everyone's going to miss the old group stages that is now a classic format but the change format is interesting and it means that we don't get the boring homeg boring away leg matchup and therefore they will get more variation in the Champions League of course it also means that we are going to get a little bit more in terms of variation uncertainty as a side we don't know which side's going to be turning up we don't know how we've played them before managers aren't going to be able to do the same kind of scouting of hey we're going to play them more conservative than this leg play them less conservatively possibly or a slightly different way in the second leg and of course that was interesting in some ways but this is also really fascinating and I actually think I mean first of all I think it's it's put me in a position where I kind of think right how deep is the squad actually because playing when you see eight teams as opposed to just the six matches that you would have played in the group stage in the first place and two of them are champions in Madrid and Leverkusen one of which obviously we have a lot of history with the other we wanted their manager last season there's a lot of history there AC Milan we also have huge amount of history with leig I've actually seen leig live really impressive side in the Champions League I've seen them play in Europe three times now weirdly like maybe I shouldn't have every time annoyingly Technic proficient annoyingly intense annoyingly counterattacking kind of like go on then we'll play a tactical game annoying uh bologna obviously no one's going to have over uh like overriding feelings apart from beue uh either are bolog and um that wasn't a joke and uh equally people who know more about Syria I mean I I know that they're a good team but they're not one of the Premier sides within this listing obviously B G one of the more famous teams Li side very much on the up and Jona it's basically like playing a proxy of Man City so fun for us uh maybe they've been slightly weakened in the offseason but we'll see how they start early in this season it's an interesting one isn't it guys like I'm I'm excited because I think it shows where we're at I think it shows how we feel as a side about ourselves but also how other sides feel about this new Kess Liverpool the fact that we've got these games at home Madrid Leverkusen bologna and these games away which is actually quite fun leig Milan PSV Jona those are decent away games I'd say like decent cities to travel to decent um travel times so we're not ever traveling anywhere too far there's nowhere where you're kind of going completely obscure which I think is also really important in terms of Champions League draw and at the same time having Madrid and anfield having leverkus at amfield is interesting and I'm going to tell you why in a second first of all playing teams at home is very different to playing teams away you take your dedicated away fans those guys will champ throughout the game no matter what I've seen Liverpool lose to Napoli I've seen Liverpool Lose or Draw to to lose last season I've been to these games I've stood in those away sections I've also stood in some of the home sections of the opposition clubs people see Liverpool as a big scalp they see someone like Liverpool and they go ah we need to take these guys down we should up our game this evening the fans get excited for a European tie like that but then when you come bring and bring them back home they're are twofold with this first of all Madrid at amfield done special things at anfield before but equally Liverpool have done special things against Madrid and I think there is a very much mentality to punch up against these guys if and these are not actually the order of the uh fixtures either we will find those out on Saturday but Madrid Leverkusen Le bologna not terrible but what just darking down what I think is interesting in particular about it is the order in which going to play these guys will Madrid be one of the first ones or are we going to leave those guys until slightly later is it better to play Madrid early and get them out the way or is it better to play them later when actually we can kind here's the thing play a combination of like some of the week There's No weak sides in the Champions League but the smaller sides where you would feel that it is more of an achievable success against those teams and you can later on rest teams against someone like Real Madrid you don't need to play your absolute maximum against Real Madrid if you've already beat other teams within there right and I get it like you know you should never take a game for granted but of course we would like to map it that Real Madrid is one of the later on so that we don't feel that pressure or do we want it at anfield do we want a test an slot side do we want these big Knights because that's what we Thrive off as a fan base and do we want to see Real Madrid Bayern Leverkusen as the first two home games I'm just reading them that way because I think this is the kind of the the pot the tears left to right and my graphic so again if you lose against those guys at anfield that can actually be quite deflating as a fan base it can undermine some confidence if you do it away it's kind of harder for the team to then you know we go back to anfield and anfield is like hey welcome back it's kind of it's all right don't worry about it you lost away but we weren't there we didn't experience that directly with you so it's not all that terrible whereas if it happens at anfield it feels a little more real the same obviously goes for Liverpool and the Champions League in general like you know I know we've had some big losses in the Champions League or at least significant loss in the Champions League in recent years but and obviously that's always going to happen you got have away games those kind of things and humiliating ones I think at times in um when it came to amfield we always kind of took that as part of the course when being with jgen klopp that there would be games where some things just wouldn't go right or you know we always we'd always feel like we were recover in some capacity right because that we just write those off we not really had that yet with slot we don't know how a team under slot will react to those kind of things we're not yet sure how Liverpool will react to a loss so there's a lot of interesting Dynamics here at play does that make sense there's a lot of like o what what is it what are we going to be like in the Champions League how are we going to play up klopp always loved to go toe-to-toe with those big sides he always loved to punch equals with them it was never a case of well you know what we're the smaller team we need to sit back obviously there was a bit of counterattacking there was some tactics involved but very often we like to go toe-to-toe with them we've beaten Munich we've beaten multiple different teams in these areas and so I think it is a bit of a change here I'd be interested to see how slot Challen handles and challenges with it it's also interesting obviously because there's now eight games not the six um there's also this idea of obviously that we need to manage these fixtures that's quite a lot of intense games in there I think the emotionally Real Madrid's an intense game Leverkusen is an intense game Milan's an intense game and you know I could probably list all these teams leig is a team that you Warriors and banana skin same for PSG and the same for the other three uh smaller pop teams I know think it's the worst draw I I think we probably probably is a bad in terms of difficulty is a pretty difficult bad draw but actually I kind of like it I want these big sides man I want Madrid I want Leverkusen I want I kind of wanted another english team there you can't do that can you um but I think actually what I would say overall is especially when it comes down to Champions League you know format and stuff it looks easier to fix this way not I want to start conspiracy theories it just looks that way we'll talk about that more on a podcast let me know in the comments below what you guys think I think that's a very approachable winnable set of games I'm un slot obviously I've got to try and be confident I am relatively confident under slot now but that's in terms of difficult sides that's one two three four five I'd say six difficult teams and two that I would say if we don't beat them i' be disappointed instantly the other ones I'd say oh you know maybe they did something on the night or this kind of thing let me know what you guys think in the comments below obviously I'm not taking anyone for granted obviously I'm excited to see Liverpool in the Champions League champions league is back format has changed it that draw slightly made me realize we need maybe one or two more signings but it also made me realize why we signed someone like ker God that's exciting two Liverpool videos coming up tomorrow Kaza and a preview of the Manchester United game I love you guys I'll cheat in a little while uh patreon and of course there is a Discord down there go take a look and I'll see you in a while much love bye