Lille
Last season "dogs" had the status of the youngest football team in Europe with the average age of players - 20 years and 3 months. However, the stake on the youth was almost worth Lille's registration in the top division, they were separated from the departure area by only one point. In the off-season, the team of Christophe Galtier strengthened more experienced players, in particular, the place in the center of defense was taken by 35-year-old champion of Europe, the Portuguese José Fontaine, and in the attack was delegated to Luc Remy. The decisive factor in the success of the team was a balanced game in all lines, together with a crazy bunch of forwards Jonathan Bamba - Nicolas Pepe, who scored 32 goals for two in the gate of the opponents of the "dog" in the French League 1. In 4 rounds before the end of the national championship, the North team took the 2nd place with 6 points behind Lyon in the 3rd position. The quintessence of the season was the victory over PSG 5-1 at a time when even a draw guaranteed them early championship. Lille is likely to make it into the 2019-2020 Champions League directly into the group stage.
Getafe
It's still cooler here... The team, which is often used in speech as a common denominator in the context of: "Bars, Real, and Atletico can easily cope with your leftists, hashtags, and legans," maybe in the top 4 of the strongest club championship in Europe according to the UEFA coefficient. And the possible sign "Lille" - "Getafe" in the next Champions League draw sounds not so posterity, but how important it will be for the fans of both teams. The task of the "blue" at the end of the season is quite clear - to be higher than Seville and Valencia. In the 3 rounds before the finish of the season, Getafe is 100% ahead of the Andalusian team in terms of additional indicators and the bats by 3 points. The blues also have a good chance of a positive development - two home games with outsiders and a trip to Camp Nou against the unmotivated Barcelona right after returning from Enfield. Seville, on the other hand, will have two hardest matches against Atletico and Athletic, who are fighting for a place in the European competitions. Valencia's national championship calendar certainly looks better than its direct competitors for the Champions League, but the "bats" will have two matches in the Europa League semifinals with Arsenal and the final of the King's Cup against Barcelona, which will be more than motivated for another trophy. In general, we are expecting an intriguing "fiery" May. The main criteria for the success of "Getafe" were a reliable game of defense and goalkeeper David Soria, coaching genius Jose Bordalas, as well as a crazy figure of the trio of attack of "blue" Mata-Angel-Molina in the number of 35 goals, whose age total is 99 years and 6 months. Particularly impressive is the statistics of the latter, who in his 37 is experiencing a "second youth", having spent absolutely all the matches of the national championship, noting in them 14 goals. I think Spain is more likely to lose its European Cup odds due to the fact that Getafe is in the Champions League, but what a beautiful success story will be for a team that has never won a single trophy before.
Istanbul BB
Mert Gunok, Gael Klichi, Alexander Yepuryanu, Fedor Kudryashov, Serdar Taski, Emre Belozoglu, Arda Turan, Gokhan Inler, Emmanuelle Adebayor, Demba Ba, Robinho. What is this? The Ultimate Team's 4-3-3 line-up or a casting list for the series "Waste. Returns"? The 2018-2019 Turkish Super League season brought these people together to possibly win the first championship in history for Istanbul Bashaksehir. The main trump card of the team of Abdullah Avci was a successful game from the opponent on the counterattacks plus "Istanbul BB" misses very little - 18 goals in 30 matches (16 of them became "dry" for goalkeeper Murt Gunok). In the 4 rounds before the end of the championship, the team from Istanbul is 2 points ahead of its neighbors Galatasaray and Besiktas by 3 points. The fate of the title will be decided in the penultimate playing day when the second and first teams of the table will meet at the Turk Telecom Arena.
to be continued in the next part
Part 2