[Henry Hill]

Now that the majority of the higher tier European leagues are pretty much sewn up, I thought it'd be interesting for people to share their thoughts on the best stuff they've seen throughout the European domestic campaigns. Answer as many as the categories as you wish and feel free to come up with your own too. Obviously you can only go on the stuff you've watched which is for me predominantly Serie A and the Premiership as well as a number of Barcelona and Bayern Munich games.

European Domestic Team of the Season: Real Madrid - Finally beat Barca in the league and at the Nou Camp in a massively important match for good measure, had a slight dip in form but were mostly ruthless throughout the campaign.

Honorable Mentions: Borussia Dortmund, Juventus


ED Manager of the Season: Antonio Conte - Came to a club who were worrying about Champions League qualification and transformed them into a title winning side with an indestructible defence and a great attitude. Drew far too many games and should have sewn up the league way sooner than they did but Conte's tactical magic has nonetheless returned Juventus to the top of the Italian crop and with a prolific striker added to the mix could make them a real threat in Europe also.

Honorable Mentions: Alan Pardew, Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho


ED Player of the Season: Lionel Messi - With Villa and Pedro out of action, the little genius was forced to carry Barcelona on his shoulders when it came to scoring goals. The mindboggling stats speak for themsevles.

Honorable Mentions: Robin Van Persie, Giorgio Chiellini, Cristiano Ronaldo


ED Match of the Season: Chelsea 3-5 Arsenal - Completely off the wall game with some absolutely shambolic defending and non stop unpredictable entertainment.

Honorable Mentions: Inter Milan 4-2 AC Milan, Man Utd 1-6 Man City


ED Goal of the Season: Cisse's second goal vs Chelsea

Honorable Mentions: Ronaldo's backheel, Van Persie's winner vs Liverpool


European Domestic Team Flop of the Season: Inter Milan - Two years after winning the champions league title, Inter looked like a second division outfit at times during the season lacking inspiration in attack and looking lost in defence. At other times though they looked like their old self again making it a strange but ultimately unsuccesful season for the club.

Dishonorable Mentions: Liverpool, Chelsea


ED Flop of the Season: Wesley Snejder - Pretty much summed up Inter's season, on occasion, deadly, enthusiastic, on the ball, controlling the game but mostly invisible and looking like he wanted to be anywhere else.

Dishonorable Mentions: Cesc Fabregas, Charlie Adam

Remember this is based on just the stuff you've seen in European league competition.

 

[Desecrated]

Domestic Team of the Year - Real Madrid. Extremely consistent, and they prevailed in the return game against the team that had their number for the past 2-3 years. Scored 115 goals, and still 1 game left to play.

Mentions -
Manchester City. While they were tipped to challenge, they've done so, they've done well, including the 6-1 victory over Manchester United.
Juventus. Won their first league title since 2005. Albeit that one was 'stripped'. Haven't fallen to a loss, which is very impressive.
Feyenoord. I talk regularly to a few Dutch guys, and keep my eye very often on Eredivisie news, and they've been the surprise package. Finishing 2nd, when their team had bee weakened last summer, having had to clear out to get rid of the outstanding debts. Last season, no Europe. This season, potential Champions League.

Domestic Manager of the Year - Alan Pardew. Team were tipped for mid-table, hes come away with vital victories in big games against Manchester United & Chelsea. Hes still on track to guide them to the Champions League, and if he doesn't hes got the Europa League, which I am sure most Newcastle fans would of laughed if someone told them they were going to Europe next year.

Honorable mentions -
Frank de Boer. Had a lot of turmoil around Ajax, board directors quitting, Johan Cryujff and Louis van Gaal trying to get them jobs themselves. Very tricky period, lots of injuries to key players, but bounced back, in his first job, to win 14 games in a row and win the Eredivisie.

Antonio Conte. I don't really pay attention to Serie A anymore, but he has led Juventus to the title, in a season I am 99% sure they just wanted to get 3rd. Hes kept them undefeated, the defence is solid, midfield is class. Like stated before, if they had a class striker, they'd of had a bigger point tally.

Domestic Player of the Year - Lionel Messi. Can't really look beyond him. Amazing goal record. His team struggled with injuries to key attacking players, he still chugs along, scores 52 or so goals in a league campaign with 1 game left to play. Outstanding.

Honorable mentions -
Robin van Persie. Kept a deflated Arsenal side alive in games they were beaten or contained. By about February, believe he was involved n about 70% of Arsenal's goals.

Yaya Toure. With him, Manchester City were class. He is the chain that kept the team together. Without him, they were poor. Lost games when he went off to the ACON. And when you look where they are, that is a pretty fantastic feat.

Cristiano Ronaldo. Equally just as prolific as Lionel Messi, imo. But he'll always get devalued because of the amount of attempts he can waste with ambitious 30 yard shots. His goals helped Real Madrid win the title, even though, his performance in their first game against Barcelona could of cost them the title. Regardless, his goals led them to glory.

Match of the Year - Chelsea 3-5 Arsenal. Not much I can say about it that hasn't already been said. Was a very entertaining game between 1 side that were caught off the pace way too often, and another that had been in poor form beforehand.

Honorable mentions - (can only really include English games)
Tottenham 1-5 Manchester City. Fine performance by Edin Dzeko that day. Was the first hint that Manchester City were the force to win the title.

Manchester United 8-2 Arsenal. Turning point in Arsenal's season. Well, they still lost to Blackburn a few weeks later, but it forced Wenger to dip his hand in the transfer market. Merciless by Manchester United, brutal in their slaughter of Arsenal. The type of performances that we usually don't see from either side.

Goal of the Season - Peter Crouch vs Manchester City. Pure class, on the right foot, on the right side of the pitch.

Honorable mentions.
Papiss Cisse vs Chelsea.

Lionel Messi vs Real Madrid.

Domestic Flop (Team) - AS Roma. Spent very big, on players like Stekelenburg, Pjanic, Kjaer, Osvaldo, then failed heavily. Its like their board decided to plug in Football Manager and pick players based on that.

Honorable mentions.
Villarreal. Champions League spot last year, then 16th.

Liverpool. Were tipped for Champions League by some no-brained pundits and media, finishing 9th.

Olympique Marseille. They got to the last 8th of the Champions League, and have had a difficult year in the league, finishing in a lowly 10th.

Domestic Flop (Player) - Stewart Downing. While there are people, like myself, who had mocked Liverpool for signing them(him, Adam, Carroll etc), there were a selection of their fans that were delighted they signed. Most of them turned on Downing eventually. Others forget Adam is alive, and there is then the others that believe Carroll will be a huge success, eventually. The one that stands out the most is Downing, however. I believe 1 assist? 0 goals, about 30 league games played, and probably 1% contribution if it was put into a percentage. Flop.

 

[Gunner14]

Fabregas a flop?? 2nd highest scorer this season at Barca.

Played 47 scored 15 with 23 assists and thats a flop?? Jesus

 

[Razor King]

^ Fabregas is far from being a flop but when the pressure was on him, he crumbled as he always did in his time with us. Stats aren't everything though. Fabregas hasn't been the influence that many thought he would be. At Barca, assists don't mean a thing when you have Lionel Messi finishing them off.

I haven't watched every game of Barca this season, but Pep failed to accommodate him in the line-up and there is no way he was replacing either Xavi or Iniesta. Playing on the flanks doesn't do justice to Cesc though. I'll have to say that.

 

[Fargerov]

I don't really follow Serie A, but are Juventus really that good? They don't seem very special but a few weeks ago I was very suprised when I saw they were undefeated.

 

[Samoon]

Domestic Team of The Year: Real madrid, very consistent and deserve their title.
Honorable Mentions: Juventus.


Manager of the season: Antonio Conte-Revived Juventus after two horrendous seasons, won the serie a title after no one expected them to win and also remained unbeaten. Their mission was to get 3rd but he got the 1st.
Honorable mentions: Mourinho and Pardew.


Player of the season: Andrea Pirlo-The reason why juventus won the title. Dictated the play, gave amazing long passes and was very consistent. If it was not for him, juve would have not won the title.
Honorable mentions: Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel messi and Van Persie.


Match of the season: Chelsea 3-5 Arsenal- Fantastic game, very entertaining. Both teams played beautiful football that day.
Honorable mentions: Manchester United 8-2 Arsenal
Roma 4-0 Inter
Napoli 3-3 Juventus.


Goal of the season: Cisse second goal vs chelsea.
Honorable mentions: Van Persie goal vs everton and Cristiano ronaldo´s backheel.


European Domestic Team flop of the season: Villareal- From 4th to 16th. No doubt the the Domestic team flop of the season.
Honorable mentions: Roma,Liverpool, Inter and Chelsea.


Domestic Flop(Player of the season): Downing- Was hyped and was bought for 20 million. He was terrible for liverpool this season. 1 assist and no goals in 34 appearences. He offered nothing. With these kind of performances, he is not even worth 1 million. Huge flop.

Honorable Mentions: Pato- Had a terrible season with all those injuries, but even when fit he offered nothing to the team and was worthless.

Wesley Sneijder- Was very average. Had a poor season, did not contribute much to the team.

I don't really follow Serie A, but are Juventus really that good? They don't seem very special but a few weeks ago I was very suprised when I saw they were undefeated.

Yes, always dominated the game, they had a brilliant season. If they had better strikers, they would have gained much more points. Were a little bit lucky to remain undefeated because of that Muntari ghost goal which would give them their first defeat. I still dont understand how that goal was not given.

 

[Henry Hill]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Yeah looking at that Villarreal definitely flopped worse than Inter.

Also thanks for reminding me of that Juve vs Napoli game, that was absolute class.

 

[Gunner14]

^ Fabregas is far from being a flop but when the pressure was on him, he crumbled as he always did in his time with us. Stats aren't everything though. Fabregas hasn't been the influence that many thought he would be. At Barca, assists don't mean a thing when you have Lionel Messi finishing them off.

I haven't watched every game of Barca this season, but Pep failed to accommodate him in the line-up and there is no way he was replacing either Xavi or Iniesta. Playing on the flanks doesn't do justice to Cesc though. I'll have to say that.

But nobody with any sense thought he would be an influence at all. Everyone knew that he'd be a rotation player

 

[Kiz]

claiming villareal flopped is very harsh, they had an absolute magnitude of injuries at one stage, i think they played against us with something ridiculous like 8 of their first team players injured, including rossi and nilmar. very harsh.

 

[Seb]

Team of the Season - Borussia Dortmund

Record points haul on a modest budget against a Bayern team likely to win the Champions League. They also play fluid, entertaining football and in Kagawa and Gotze they have two of the best young players on the planet. Madrid deserve a lot of credit too for toppling Barca and breaking all sorts of records, but with a much better team on an unlimited budget.

Manager of the Season - Alan Pardew

Worked absolute wonders with Newcastle against all the odds. As for Europe overall, if Bielsa can beat Barcelona in the Kings Cup and win the Europa League in his first season, then he deserves it. Shout out to Conte for taking Juventus unbeaten too.

Player of the Season - Lionel Messi

Well duh. 50 league goals and counting, a record for European Leagues towards his record breaking total of 72, and a lot of assists too (the most in Europe at 29 if you extend the parameters beyond just domestic leagues). Two honourable mentions could be Gomez and Falcao, and combined they have less goals than Leo. I run out of superlatives.

Match of the Season - Chelsea 3-5 Arsenal

Absolute car crash of a match. Fantastic entertainment. My next favourite would probably be Barcelona 3-2 Madrid from the Super Cup, when Messi went on an absolute tear and bagged a last minute winner. That was one hell of a game.

Domestic flop of the Season (team) - Villarreal

I would've said Liverpool, but they've only done marginally worse than expected. Villarreal have been in a relegation fight all season. Extremely disappointing and they're going to lose a fair few players in the summer.

Domestic flop of the Season (player) - Alexandre Pato

Poor whenever i've seen him, and I really do rate him. I knew Downing was horrible, he hasn't flopped in terms of performances, this is just his level. The mistake was signing him in the first place, especially for that fee. Sorry Pool fans.

 

[#dealwithit]

As much as I usually disagree with Henry Hill, I think he's spot on with all his awards. Although I'd give a bit more credit to Mancini, and have him on the honourable mentions over Ferguson. And I also agree with Seb on Villarreal being the flop of the season.

I don't really follow Serie A, but are Juventus really that good? They don't seem very special but a few weeks ago I was very suprised when I saw they were undefeated.

It is somewhat hard to gauge them given they weren't in Europe at all this season. But their midfield is godly. Their backline is strong and versatile (they can switch between back four or back three with ease due to Chiellini and Lichsteiner's versatility). If they can sign a quality forward in the summer, then I think they'll be right up there with the favourites to win the Champions League next season. Their midfield trident of Pirlo-Vidal-Marchisio is second only to Busquets-Xavi-Iniesta.

 

[Saint Dick]

It is somewhat hard to gauge them given they weren't in Europe at all this season. But their midfield is godly. Their backline is strong and versatile (they can switch between back four or back three with ease due to Chiellini and Lichsteiner's versatility). If they can sign a quality forward in the summer, then I think they'll be right up there with the favourites to win the Champions League next season. Their midfield trident of Pirlo-Vidal-Marchisio is second only to Busquets-Xavi-Iniesta.

Spot on. Going undefeated all season is no mean feat and it shows how good they have been. The defence is excellent, the team is flexible and has a fantastic attitude and mentality under Conte, and the midfield trio is one of the world's best. My only worry is that they are somewhat reliant on Pirlo, who thankfully managed to stay fit and in form all season.

Juve is my team of the year. From back to back 7th placed finishes they've gone undefeated to win the league and can complete a double if they beat Napoli in the cup final. Dortmund and Madrid get honorable mentions.

 

[STALKER]

Domestic Team of The Year:Ajax.- They lost have they team, lost Sigþórsson for a big chunk of the season also had problems behind scenes but still won the Dutch league and done pretty good in the euros.

ED Manager of the Season: Alan Pardew - WHo would of guessed would so well, Pardew has be credited with this for some great signing in Ciise and Ba.

ED Player of the Season: Messi - Do i really need to say why?

ED Match of the Season: Man utd 1 Man city 6- Why always me?

ED Goal of the Season: Cisse's second goal vs Chelsea - What can i say the goal was simply amazing

European Domestic Team Flop of the Season: Inter - just an overall bad season for them

Btw - for me i can't vote Villareal here because it unfair to say they been flops with the amount of injuries they had this season.

Domestic Flop(Player of the season): John Terry - has been awful every time i seen him play. Also he should be here for the simply reason of the red card incident in the barcelona game.

 

[Nas]

Domestic Team of the Year: Manchester City.

ED Manager of the Season: I'll just go with Pardew.

ED Player of the Season: Messi, obv.

ED Goal of the season:

lol, Cisse.

ED Domestic Team Flop of the Season: Lyon

Domestic Flop (Player of the Season): Chamak.

Edit: Match of the Season: Manchester United 1-6 Manchester City

 

[D'Angelo]

European Domestic Team of the Season: Borussia Dortmund - Another excellent season for them. Seb explained most of what I'd say so I'll keep it short. Another notable thing that should be said is that they have coped extremely well with the loss of Sahin who was by far the best player in Germany last year. They have also had to deal with a fairly hefty injury to Gotze who was also exceptional last year.

Honorable Mentions: Real Madrid, Juventus.


ED Manager of the Season: Jürgen Klopp - Conte & Girard ran him extremely close, and you can't separate them much IMO. He was far and away my MOTY last year but his accomplishments obviously don't seem as impressive now as they were last year as no-one were really expecting that much in 10/11. He has worked wonders in the transfer market, and has BVB playing some of the best football in Europe. The only slight you can put on him is that he didn't adequately prepare them for Europe. It's impossible for them to play their game domestically and in the CL. Conte self explanatory, superb achievement. Girard has gone under the radar, somewhat unfairly IMO. Worked wonders with M'pellier and it looks as if they'll take the title even though PSG spent huge amounts.

Honorable Mentions: René Girard, Antonio Conte.


ED Player of the Season: Lionel Messi - Not much explanation needed.

Honorable Mentions: Robin van Persie, Andrea Pirlo, Cristiano Ronaldo.


ED Match of the Season: Chelsea 3-5 Arsenal - Ridiculous game. I'm sure there's some that rival it that I can't recall, but this has stuck in my head.

Honorable Mentions: Can't think of anything spectacular at the moment. Again, rough.


ED Goal of the Season: Cisse's second goal vs Chelsea. Unbelievable trajectory.


European Domestic Team Flop of the Season: Liverpool - spent a huge amount. Unforgivable.

Dishonorable Mentions: Roma, OM. (this is rough, just popping off names.)


ED Flop of the Season: - Can't think of one that is above all else really.

As much as I usually disagree with Henry Hill, I think he's spot on with all his awards. Although I'd give a bit more credit to Mancini, and have him on the honourable mentions over Ferguson. And I also agree with Seb on Villarreal being the flop of the season.



It is somewhat hard to gauge them given they weren't in Europe at all this season. But their midfield is godly. Their backline is strong and versatile (they can switch between back four or back three with ease due to Chiellini and Lichsteiner's versatility). If they can sign a quality forward in the summer, then I think they'll be right up there with the favourites to win the Champions League next season. Their midfield trident of Pirlo-Vidal-Marchisio is second only to Busquets-Xavi-Iniesta.

I said that about their midfield a couple weeks back. Superb.

 

[KingJames23]

Team of the Season: Borussia Dortmund

ED Manager of the Season: Antonio Conte

ED Player of the Season: Lionel Messi

ED Match of the Season: Chelsea 3-5 Arsenal

ED Goal of the Season: Peter Crouch vs Man City

ED Team Flop of the Season: Inter Milan

ED Flop of the Season: Andy Carroll

 

[D17]

Seeing as the only major domestic leagues I watch on a consistent basis are the Prem and La Liga therefore can make judgement from...

Team of the season - Real Madrid
HM: Man City/Newcastle

Manager of the season - Alan Pardew
HM: Mancini/Bielsa

Player of the season - Messi
HM: Ronaldo/Kompany

Match of the season - Chelsea 3 Arsenal 5
HM: Real Madrid 1 Barcelona 3/Chelsea 3 Man United 3

Goal of the season - Benzema vs Osasuna (A)
HM: Crouch vs City (H)/Ben Arfa vs Bolton (H)

Team flop of the season - Liverpool
DHM: Villareal/Chelsea

Flop of the season - Torres
DHM: Downing/Carroll

 

[Henry Hill]

I don't understand the logic in selecting Mancini over Ferguson. United are level on points after 37 games despite having a team that doesn't come close to City's on paper. Plus they showed great attitude to bounce back from the 6-1 defeat and always stay in sight of City before overtaking them. Mancini has done a good job with a great team but imo Ferguson has done a great job with a good team.

 

[Razor King]

It's Pardew, Klopp, and Conte for managers. Others don't even come close.

 

[D17]

I don't understand the logic in selecting Mancini over Ferguson. United are level on points after 37 games despite having a team that doesn't come close to City's on paper. Plus they showed great attitude to bounce back from the 6-1 defeat and always stay in sight of City before overtaking them. Mancini has done a good job with a great team but imo Ferguson has done a great job with a good team.

Well...Fergie has seen it all before. Mancini had to deal with lots of BS from Tevez, Balotelli etc and keep the squad from all messing up.