The general football thread

[Turrican]

Hi! Now that the second leg matches of the Champions League matches come close , I've decided to make a thread about my favourite sport , football.

I watch a lot of football the last decade , and I watch several teams . The teams I support is Olympiakos on the league of my country ( Greece ) , and Bayern Munich on the Champions League.

Matches I watch the most are Olympiakos matches for the Greek league ( of course ) , Bayern matches on Bundesliga ( and more ocasionaly , matches from Dortmund and Leipzig ) , Premier league ( I may watch matches from Liverpool ,Tottenham , Arsenal , Manchester City/United and Chelsea ) , and La Liga ( matches from Real/Barcelona/Atletico . My father is a huge Barcelona fan , so we often watch Barca matches together ).

Matches I am looking forward the most the upcoming weeks are ( from the Champions league ) Bayern - Chelsea , PSG - Dortmund , Liverpool - Atletico  , Leipzig - Spurs , Manchester City - Real , Juve - Lyon , Barca - Napoli and from the Europa league , Olympiakos - Wolves .

Which is the team you support ? Which impression it gives you this year , and what are your expectations from your team for this year?

[Swerdis]

Hi, I am a big football fan too though I have to say that I follow the lower leagues in my country (Germany) more than the big players. The Champions League for example bores me since it's always more or less the same teams that perform well and make it to the quarterfinals or further. The Bundesliga is even worse.  The club of my heart plays in the 3rd German League. It's called Chemnitzer FC, the Sky-Blues.  We are trying to avoid relegation this year and played a horrible first half of the season. But at the moment, things run a little better, so it's a realistic goal. When I was younger, I also travelled to the away games quite often, but nowadays, I don't have the time for this anymore.

[Turrican]

Hi Swerdis! It's very nice that you follow a team from the lower leagues of your country! I often watch matches from 3 clubs from the lower leagues of my country ,  but the main reason is that I have some connection with the places they belong ( and all three share the same name with the places they belong , they are practically the local clubs of these towns ) . First one is Kallithea .     
Kallithea is a suburb of Athens , and it is the place where I live. Second one is Kalamata . Kalamata is the town my mother has been born , it's a town in southern Peloponnese and we also own a house in a small village near it. Third one is Petralona . Petralona is a  neighbor suburb of Athens ( you can easily go there from my home by feet ) . Also  a very popular football journalist of my country , supports them ( he lives there too ) , and he often analyses their matches .

As for what you are saying about the Champions League having always the same teams performing well , that is correct , and the main reason are the insane costs that you need to pay in the transfer market , to have lots of world class players on your team. Also the huge revenue that the teams which participate in Champions League enjoy , can create large disparities in their national leagues , compared to the teams that they don't have that privilence . That is not so visible in the large countries with popular leagues ( like Germany , England or Spain ) , because they broadcast their leagues to many other countries and they get a lot of revenue , that helps them imo to balance things out a little bit.

For example here in Greece , if you have subscribed to the tv stations me and my father have subscribed , you can easily watch many of the Bundesliga matches . And if you miss a match , you have even the option to watch it later or one of the following days " on demand" on your tablet.

Smaller counties with smaller leagues that also have one of their teams participating in the Champions League , have the potential for larger disparity problems imo . For example for many of the previous years , Olympiakos here in Greece had a very large edge compared to their main competitors ( like AEK or PAOK ) , but at the last 2-3 years they have lost that edge , mainly due to the bad habit the president of the club has , to sell lots of the good players of the club .