Official Champions League & Europa League thread

[Pittsey]

Wilshire was immense. Against Denmark he was decent, but his positioning was poor. Yet the studio "analysts" were all over him. Today he was fantastic and got about 2 mentions.

I hate this love for Barca. They are a good team. And their pressing is impressive. But.... 500 passes doesn't win a football game. Goals do.


The game is still Barca's. Arsenal need to get a result at Camp Nou. And that is not gonna be easy. They don't have Jose's arrogance to go there and sit behind the ball for 90 minutes. Nor do they have his 2 goal cushion. 1 goal conceded and Barca are in the lead.

 

[hizzle?]

Yeah this result kind of suits Barca better...

I also hate all that goddamn love for Barca... It's annoying all these groupies.

 

[Bobby Sands]

Wilshire was immense. Against Denmark he was decent, but his positioning was poor. Yet the studio "analysts" were all over him. Today he was fantastic and got about 2 mentions.

I hate this love for Barca. They are a good team. And their pressing is impressive. But.... 500 passes doesn't win a football game. Goals do.


The game is still Barca's. Arsenal need to get a result at Camp Nou. And that is not gonna be easy. They don't have Jose's arrogance to go there and sit behind the ball for 90 minutes. Nor do they have his 2 goal cushion. 1 goal conceded and Barca are in the lead.

yea and they do score alot of goals and win alot of football matches.

that team has lost maybe 5 games in the past 3 years or something.

 

[Flipmo]

I don't think anyone hates Barcelona persay... they obviously play the best looking footy imo. I enjoy watching them play as much as does the next football head.
I think what pisses people off is how the fanboys get a hard cock for them. As Hizzle said, the whole "Mes que un club" gives people a reason to hop onto the bandwagon and argue that it isn't fanboyism.

 

[hizzle?]

While I was chatting with you, I was in my Sports Marketing class. We were discussing that fanboyish problem with Barca and their recent actions. We were actually arguing about Barca's "Mes que un club" statement, that it represents a genuine and pure football club (for the general fans) and it's representing Catalonia as a "national team" (it's actually what their marketing positioning is) while adopting their first jersey sponsorship in their history, along with some other marketing actions, making them look more and more like just "one of the clubs". They kind of contradicted themselves a couple of times in the past few years marketing wise.

Not that I give a shit, it was just an interesting discussion.

 

[Flipmo]

Mes que un govnar

 

[tHuG $TyLe]

yea and they do score alot of goals and win alot of football matches.

that team has lost maybe 5 games in the past 3 years or something.

It was funny the amount of people saying today "well they can do that in spain but nowher else" Um...they battered Man Utd and Arsenal in the past 2 years, they have won the Champions League twice in 5 years? A better record in recent years than anyone else.

Funny how one game can turn people's heads, Barca went from GREAT to..yeah they are good but...

 

[Bobby Sands]

yea it is. they have won 2 in 5 years and got to the semi finals twice wasnt it? Liverpool beat them the other year.

i still think they will go through anyway. if Arsenal cant hold onto a 4-0 lead against Newcastle and put themselves back close to Man Utd in the league, its hard to see them go to the Nou Camp and hold on to a goal lead. that said they can score goals and Van Persie in particular makes a big difference.

 

[Pittsey]

It was funny the amount of people saying today "well they can do that in spain but nowher else" Um...they battered Man Utd and Arsenal in the past 2 years, they have won the Champions League twice in 5 years? A better record in recent years than anyone else.

Funny how one game can turn people's heads, Barca went from GREAT to..yeah they are good but...

That's football. Good players become shit overnight.

Sad isn't it. Barca will be the best team in history next week.

 

[Bobby Sands]

fuck, that was painful.

 

[Bobby Sands]

Apparantly Aris Salonika used this for the Man City squad photo in their match programme for the game the other night lol:

View attachment 3011

 

[Bobby Sands]

Once Rooney heard there would be a Nani and Fanni on the pitch he had his cheque book out.

 

[tHuG $TyLe]

Hahaha^

Seriously, how are we top of the premiership with a team that doesnt have ONE midfield player that can pass it forward? I didn't expect to win today so i'm not overly surprised but we can't even pass the ball 5 yards, without Nani and Berbatov this season we wouldn't of scored many goals.

Plus side, Smalling did well. Smalling > Evans by a mile.

 

[Bobby Sands]

i watched bits of it. poor game. Marseille arent a whole lot really although Remy looks a good player.

bad mistake by Cesar in the other game.

 

[tHuG $TyLe]

Marseille were missing Gignac and Valbuena though, but still they're not a free scoring side, if they nick a goal at OT then it will be difficult as they don't give much away. I was impressed with their defenders.

 

[vg4030]

Carrick and Oshea SUCK BAWLS!!!!!

Also, is it me or does Heinze have one of those face you just wanna punch?

 

[tHuG $TyLe]

Sporting Lisbon are god awful. Glad Rangers got through.

The Liverpool game was piss poor. I know Kuyt scores and does his job, but the amount of times he gets in a decent position only to then over hit his cross is riduclous.

 

[tHuG $TyLe]

So Serie A has lost it's fourth CL spot. It came down to Italians snubbing the Europa Liga by playing their kids whilst the Germans took it seriously.

I wish they would cut down the teams altogether, and give more prize money in the Europa Liga. Then maybe we can have some competitive matches, rather than waiting til the quarter finals to be entertained.

16-24 CL teams would be suffice.

 

[Flipmo]

Fucking crap...

At least Shakhtar slapped around yet another trashy Serie A club.

 

[Bobby Sands]

Arsenal can thank RVP for that.