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· What happened in the Premiership in Match 2011-12
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· All the Spurs Stats you could hope for here! THFC6061 Sports Stats
Spurs record in Europe:-
U.E.F.A Champions League
P W D L F - A
12 5 3 4 25 -19
European Cup
P W D L F - A
8 4 1 3 21 - 13
(Semi-Finalists 1962)
European Cup Winners Cup
P W D L F - A
33 20 5 8 65 - 34
(Winners 1963)
UEFA Cup/Europa League
P W D L F - A
96 55 24 17 197-76
(Winners 1972, 1984
Finalists 1974)
Total
P W D L F - A
149 84 33 32 308-142
Europa League Group J Table (after 2 games)
Pos P W D L F-A GD Pts
1. Lazio 2 1 1 0 1-0 1 4
2. Maribor 2 1 0 1 3-1 2 3
3. Spurs 2 0 2 0 1-1 0 2
4. Panathinaikos 2 0 1 1 1-4 -3 1
Results to date:-
Maribor 3-0 Panathinaikos
Spurs 0-0 Lazio
Panathinaikos 1-1 Spurs
Lazio 1-0 Maribor
Also playing 25.10.12
Panathinaikos v Lazio
Into unknown territory
Spurs' next (and 150th) European venture is another match against a team we have never met before, in a country where we have never played. Slovenia was part of the old Yugoslavia until 1991, but was then established as an independent state.
Maribor is Slovenia's second largest city (next to the capital - Ljubljana), and has a population of just 95,000. This year, Maribor is jointly the European Capital of Culture, sharing with Guimaraes in Portugal.
NK Maribor (Football Club Maribor) was established in 1960, and is one of only three clubs that have never been relegated from the Slovenian top flight, since it was established in 1991. Currently, they seem to dominate their league, which they lead by 9 points after 14 games, having gained 35 points. In domestic football this season, Maribor have lost just one game, but that was just two games ago, away to 8th placed Triglav Kranj. (There are only 10 teams in the Prva Liga). Perhaps our opponjents were suffering some post Europa League depression, after losing 1-0 in Rome to Lazio.
Maribor are the reigning Prva Liga Champions, and have won three out of the last five titles. Thus, they qualified for the Champions League qualifying stages, and won their way through to the play-off round, where they were beaten by Luka Modric's old team, Dinamo Zagreb.
Maribor is a team with a little Champions League experience, but competed last year in Group H of the Europa League finishing bottom of the group, which included Sporting Braga, Club Brugge, and Chris Hughton's Birmingham City. Maribor qualified last year by beating Rangers on aggregate, but in their group could not muster more than one point, even losing at St Andrews.
It is difficult to assess the form of a team that dominates such a small league, but the Slovenians did beat Panathinaikos 3-0 in the first match of this group stage. Their scorers were Beric, Ibraimi, and the Brazilian striker Tavares. Tavares has spent his career at minor clubs, and was on the books of Hapoel Tel Aviv in the season we played them (2007-08), but never featured in our one game in the old UEFA Cup Group stage format.
Maribor's competitive season started in mid-July, and in 17 domestic and European games, Tavares has scored 10 goals, two of which have been from the penalty spot. Ibraimi is a Macedonian International, who scored in both his country's recent games. (A 2-1 defeat to Croatia, and 1-0 win over Serbia). He has yet to score a league goal though.
Maribor is a team consisting predominantly of Slovenian players, with two Brazilians, two Croatians, and one Serbian in addition to the Macedonian Ibraimi. Their manager is Slovenian International Darko Milanic. The Ljudski stadium capacity is around 13,000, but it does regularly host Slovenian International games, and appears to be of a good standard.
Spurs are unbeaten in their two group games, but of course they have also yet to win a game. The two home games against Maribor and Panathinaikos will be crucial to our qualification to the knock-out phase. On that basis, this match is not a "must-win", but we will certainly be looking for a minimum of one point.
I think we will be sending a strong team, and that we could gain a win in this game. Hopefully Gareth Bale will be available. Michael Dawson is likely to replace William Gallas, and captain the side, and I've made a case elsewhere for Kyle Naughton and Emmanual Adebayor to get starts in this game. (This week's Premier League Review)
I'll be travelling to Slovenia, and I shan't be home before Friday night, when the normal website service will be resumed!
COME ON YOU SPURS!
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