Europa League Round 4 Preview

By: timmyg | November 3rd, 2009

All the hoopla regarding the Champions League has driven me to focus on Thursday’s fixture against Roma, perhaps out of spite.

Sure, the Europa League is basically the NIT and doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. But as Frank Drebbn once said, “But this is our hill. And these are our beans!”

More tabling goodness: Thursday isn’t necessarily make or break for our chances on advancing, but will sure push us into one category (happy) or another (sad).

europa

With news of CSKA Sofia’s manager suspending basically his entire squad, and already with just one point and one goal — against us, natch — I think its fair to write off The Pigs before they travel to Basel. And yes, “The Pigs” is one of their nicknames. After Thursday they travel to the Cottage and then host Roma.

So, for Thursday, worst case scenario is Basel getting three points and we lose. They’ll be on 9 points and we’ll have 5, 2 behind Roma on 7. After us, Roma host Basel before traveling to Sofia.

Second worst case scenario is Basel winning and us drawing. They’ll be on 9, we’ll be on 6 and Roma on 5. Basel travel to Roma before hosting us. There’s a chance that a Bebbi loss in Rome and then a win by us at the Cottage could eliminate their chances of advancing, but thats wayy too much conjecture.

Best case scenario is us winning in Rome, and Basel winning. That will create a gap of four points for Roma to overcome. Even if we defeat CSKA and then draw or lose in Basel, Roma will have to win out to have a sniff of advancing.

So yeah — we really can’t afford lose on Thursday.

Which is why one of the reasons why I enjoy footy so much is because one shot, one goal, one save, one anything can have such huge after effects. This bitter truth is what made shows like “The Wire” so fascinating. Sure, its bleak realism was a welcome relief from the mindlessly fantastic CSI, NCIS or other American law/order shows. And it was about my new home, Baltimore. But it’s depth came from how what someone said or did in one episode would come to pass with positive or negative — mostly the latter — consequences. You really had to pay attention.

Roma’s late equalizer could royally screw our chances to advance. But, essentially, it was just one goal in the third game of a six-game competition. Is that tough luck, or life?