UEFA Champion's League 08/09 - discussion thread

I have no sympathy for teams that choose to just defend!

Chelsea in both legs decided to just park a bus infront of the goal so deserved everything they got. If you dont try and actually win the game than you deserve to lose.

Well done Barca. It was a victory for football!

Gus Hiddink is a coach i admire but I very disappointed in his approach to both games. Pretty sure in Holland they cant be to happy about the way he decided to set out his chelsea team.
 
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Negative football received its just desserts for once as far as I am concerned.

I like to see teams that attack and can pass and move ie Barca. Not those that sit back and hope for a mistake from the opposition .

Chelsea are not at at all liked in England so no tears will be shed by anybody outside of Chelsea.

The behavious of the players after the final whistle was a disgrace and they deserve substantial bans. As for the death threats against the referee they are a stain on football.

We have already had one referee Anders Frisk forced out by thugs there is no reason why another should be as well.

Its only a game !

What it does highlight is the need for technology to aid referees. Listen Platini ! And the anachronistic procedures which mean Darren Fletcher is ruled out of the CL final for a perfectly innocuous challenge.

Wake up Platini !!
 
Fletcher is out of the final as well as Abidal. Both of them should be allowed to play in the Roma final, but we all know that won't happen. UEFA is too slow.
 
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:P
 
drekkard said:
Fletcher is out of the final as well as Abidal. Both of them should be allowed to play in the Roma final, but we all know that won't happen. UEFA is too slow.
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United have an appeal with UEFA on Monday so there is a very small chance he could be available.
 
Yet if it happens then it opens a whole can of worms as Barca will say ask for Abidal's case. I don't see it happening.
 
Late posting this, but... Chelsea are begging dumbasses. Here I am thinking Drogba is one if not THE best striker in the workd and when he enters the penalty are what does he do? Dive like in the pool - mofo.

Chelsea would've won that were they to attack and put pressure even for 5 minutes, cause as much as i love Barca i have to admit we're really really vulnerable against english pressure. So you could have easily made 2-0 without Drogba diving, Anelka diving and such. That shows the intention of the player and - yes, a refferee might tend to be careful not to fall for those.

You have an extra man for 30 minutes, world class players ... and what do you do? We have a saying here in Romania - it's not the bus parked in front of the net. It's the WHOLE MOTOR DEPOT in front of the goal. Which is shameful for them. I feel sorry for their fans.
 
I wish I can mute Andy Gray, Souness and Redknapp!

:BRICK:
 
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That wasn't Manchester i knew and that wasn't Manchester that i expected to see tonight. I thought Ferguson would try to take Chelsea's tactics ale gameplay like in semi's but of course he's not like that. I think any other way than Chelsea's is a way to lose. Dunno why Ronaldo was set to be a central attacker. If Fergie would move him to left wing instead of Park, put Berbatov in and Scholes for Anderson in the first pick squad, none of this would happen. They lost their confidence after first goal, couldn't create any occasion. Of course Barca reacted to it well. Started to play their style.
I was amazed with Messi's goal. What a jump there!He was straight positioned when heading and Xavi's pass was just perfect. I hoped to see at least one reply from ManU but there was too much chaos in their passes. Ronaldo was cut away from them. Long balls couldn't do nothing with Barca performing like that.
Pitty Manchester lost, i would regret Barca loosing too. Someone has to win that and today we had a fair result, fair match.

Puyol was really enevring me with his fake fouls and sh**. Even if he played a good match, he left a bad taste in my mouth (hah, funny isn't it?).
 
I'm very happy. Great year for us. Congratulations to Manchester, they were unlucky at the beggining but later on barcelona played our style and things changed. Man Utd has been a very good opponent and they played bravely and with ambition. The best teams in the world played tonight.
 
If Ronaldo hadn't tried to win it on his own in the first 10 minutes and played in park more in that first spell then it could have been very different
 
Maybe. But to be honest, he was the only man who could be a threat to Barca tonight.
 
Yeah i agree, if he'd passed to Park then the move probably wouldnt have come to much (not because of Park).

And also about Puyol, he was the only slight on Barca with his diving.
 
Another thing we're proud of. We won the cup with 7 players raised in our own club.

Valdes, Puyol, Pique (even if left for man for two years), Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi. Well done, boys! At the end, money is not everything, you have to form players and make the love football.

That and the fact we have one idea of how football must be played and we commit to it to the end.
 
A victory for football.
Attacking football won from counter-attacking football.
A (rich) people's club won from a billionaire's toy
A team player showed that he's the best player in the world instead of his "opponent" who went for personal glory.
Man U were totally outclassed. What a great match.
 
THAT'S how you do it!! What an incredible game by Barcelona. Exemplified Sacchi belief of 20M between attack and defense.

Attack as one, defend as one, win as one.

My god, what a team!
 
That was no "dream" final. That match was DECENT at best. Milan vs Roma this past weekend was 100X better than that nonsense. United lost the game in the center of pitch. Their midfield got bossed. Moreover, they couldn't provide quality service to Ronaldo, who by the way was the only United player aside from John O'Shea who came to play. I'm starting to think that Vidic is DEFN overrated. Torres got the best of him at Old Trafford and Eto'o turned him inside out today. Congratulations to Barcelona though. Well played and well deserved. If "beautiful" football is truly back then I think we all have a good idea of who is going to win the 2010 World Cup.:))
 
It was a decent match at best, i agree with that.
But i said it was a great match because i'm over the moon with the outcome...the team who was certain to win was outclassed, the player who saw himself as the absolute star of the game was outclassed by a humble and fair team player...i think the outcome of this final was a triumph for football.

Of course Man Utd have a great team, but some players and quite a lot of fans became arrogant...i listened to the Guardian's podcast and when James Richards spoke to Spanish correspondent Syd Lowe about the final he mentioned the fact that 'in England' (and i'm aware that is an unfair generalisation) had no doubt that Man Utd would win...Barcelona proved them wrong and Man Utd could have been humiliated if Van Der Sar had not played a very good match...Man Utd had only one decent goal chance whic was saved by Valdes.
They lost the match right at the start when Ronaldo time and again went for personal glory...I'm convinced that United would be a better team without him despite his brilliance...he brought them in the final but he also lost the final for them...Ronaldo is United's first star who isn't a team player...Best, Cantona, Beckham were stars but they also played for the team.
In contrast there is Messi. He never went for personal glory, played for the team and became the star of the match. The irony of it all is that Messi scored with his head, the one aspect of play where everybody is convinced that Ronaldo is the better of the two...as if he wanted to make a point....Messi also proved what a fair player he was. At the end of the match he made a tackle on a United player and while doing this made a nasty contact with another United player (clearly not on purpose). He immediately apologized...what a class player...
 
That's been a football lesson: teamwork works better than a lone man trying to get all the glory for himself.
Learn from this final, dear Ronie..

I should say that I'm even happy about the result: both teams had the same possibilities to win it, but Barça just deserved it more than United. When Messi scored the second one I just couldn't believe what he did..
CAMPEONES!!​

gerd said:
He immediately apologized...what a class player...
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Talking 'bout Scholes? Nah, I doubt you are.
Scholes deserved the red in my opinion, no one should be allowed to tackle an opponent that way.. Even if he's a legend.
 
I take it your a Barca fan. Yes, its true a lot of Man Utd fans have become arrogant. This loss, however, has brought them back down to reality. Even though they lost out to Barcelona they still had a great season. I don't think Ronaldo lost the match for them at all, but instead tried to win the match for them despite not even playing in his true/best position (winger). As we know this didn't happen as his finishing was off today. If you want to blame any players in particular for United's loss you should be looking in the direction of guys Rooney, Park, Giggs, Carrick and Anderson. Pointing the blame on Ronaldo makes you sound a lot like the Messi fanboys who will say anything to discredit Ronaldo. About Messi though. Great year, great player. Will sweep this years awards like Ronaldo and Kaka' before him, but he is by no means whatsoever a better header of the ball than Ronaldo.;)
 
i gotta be honest i really don't share all this hype. it almost seems we can't just enjoy a football match, unless we give it a "deeper meaning".... the humble beated the arrogants.... the fancy attacking football won against the negative football.... the cocky british media was brought back down to earth.....

who cares if ronaldo or the media or the fans are arrogants? we just wanna watch a football match, that's it. the english football media are definitely pretty ignorant (and this ignorance doesn't help them to put things in perspective, most of the times)..... but then again... this isn't just an english issue.... i know both of em, spanish and english media, and i can tell u the spanish journalists can be even more irritating and show even more ignorance than the english, at times.

and the same goes for the fans... yeah most of man utd fans are probably a bit "overconfident"... but then again it's understandable; i mean man utd is quite a team. besides, it's not like barca fans are down-to-earth either!
what is really important to me is not your attitude before the match. u can be as arrogant as u want before the match... besides, if your team was good enough to get this far in the competition, a little bit of cockiness is absolutely excusable.
what really matters is your attitude after the match.... and on this concern, i think the reaction of man utd fans in this forum speaks for itself. i took a look at the barca thread and it's full of man utd fans complimenting their opponents for the victory. :))

it was just a football match in the end... not some sort of an "ultimate challenge between the good and the evil"

speaking of the match.... after all that boring media hype about the ronaldo-messi matchup.... the real matchup wich decided the match (as expected) was the carrick-xavi one.

it was nice to see Pep dedicating this victory to Maldini.... nice and unexpected :))

edit: almost forgot :P congrats to all barca fans here for the victory..... and congrats to man utd fans for reaching the 2nd final in a row.
the match wasn't bad.... my expectations were a little higher to be honest... but not that much. :))
 
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Pre-match, i was one of the people who thought Man Utd would win it (not arrogant about it, but i looked at the fact that Barca had 3/4s of their backline missing and the fact that Chelsea kept them very quiet).

However, Man Utd didn't turn up. Their midfield was toothless. I don't really see the likes of O'Shea and Park as starters in a CL final, personally. They're fine for the inadequacies of the Premier League, but we're talking a whole different occasion here.

Barca did turn up and it showed. Key players performed: Pique, Messi, Puyol, Iniesta, Eto'o...

As a neutral, i don't like it when one team outperfoms the other in a final, i'd like to see 'even stevens' and a tighter, more exciting game. It's almost as if Man Utd let them win (again, not in an arrogant way). I didn't see a passionate fightback towards the end either. SAF looked stumped. I don't think Liverpool would have rolled over so easily for example. Still the better team won on the night, even if they were very lucky to be there.
 
Well, Barça deserved it, but let's be honest: United simply did not come to play yesterday, as they were absolutely unrecognizable in their game, I couldn't believe my eyes! Overly confident, perhaps...?

Anyway, yes, Messi did score a goal with a decent header, but that doesn't prove anything :P Seriously though, I still don't think Messi is better than Cristiano as some of you say; Messi is in great form, that's pretty obvious, unlike Ronaldo, who's clearly on the downside compared to his last season, and that's exactly what's separating these two players right now.

The way I see it, Ronaldo seems like an all-around more 'complete' player than Messi. We've all seen him at his best: he has tremendous technique coupled with great speed on the ball, great shooting accuracy from any range, he's an excellent freekick and penalty taker, is equally good with both feet and a remarkable header of the ball.

Messi is a bit different. He constantly looks for 1 on 1 situations (actually, sometimes it'll be 1 on 4!) without the fear of ever losing the ball; he's much more spontaneous and unpredictable than Ronaldo, but as I said, not as complete or effective for that matter (and please don't refer to this season only, that's misleading).

Love them both, but I'd still pick Ronaldo as n.º1. Just my humble opinion. Now bash away, fanboys ;-)

P.S.: Having said that, it's clear that Messi will be the next FIFA World Player of the Year.
 
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Excellent performance by Barca, some of their football was sensational.

The quick movement, control and passing where a joy to watch, Man Utd didn't do what I thought they might, thought they would try and bore to death Barca, but they came out well at the start, but Barca then got a grip and controlled the match.


FD
 
*aLe said:
Talking 'bout Scholes? Nah, I doubt you are.
Scholes deserved the red in my opinion, no one should be allowed to tackle an opponent that way.. Even if he's a legend.
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he was talking 'bout Messi..

but yeah, Scholes deserved a red card, he wanted to tackle busquets, not aiming the ball..
also Ronaldo deserved a red.. he tackled Puyol near ManU box in a way he could even get the red, but the referee showed him nothing, not even a yellow..
then he used his elbow to throw Puyol away and finally he got the yellow, but could be he been sent away.. (for 2 yellows)

anyway, great game by barça..
I think that at the same time Manchester players wasnt at their best, most of them not playing what they use too, Barça was really good at marking.. Puyol was great against Ronaldo, Toure and Piqué were also perfect, nothing passed..
and of course, barça's perfect passing system just didnt let ManU get the ball for a long time, and when they got it, they missed a pass and barça's domain started all over again..

oh, and what a header from Messi, he throw his body back in the air so he could reach the ball and could even put it where he wanted, no chances for Van Der Sar
BEST PLAYER OF THE WORLD, no doubt of it..
 
lo zio said:
it almost seems we can't just enjoy a football match, unless we give it a "deeper meaning"
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Bella zio!! Long time no speak.. How are things going?

You're right indeed.
I wasn't thinking at a "deeper meaning" like a morale..
But what the hell, I can't watch a football match without having to cheer for a team or for another.. And doesn't matter if it's Milan or Barça or Vidalengo.. And this is why I'm really happy today about Barça's win..

When they got that draw against Chelsea I decided to cheer for them during the final (they made Liverpool justice after all :BLEH:) even if they were seen like some sort of underdogs..

So I'm erally happy today.. Could have not been the best final ever (Istanbul anyone?) but of course it's been a hell of a happiness when Puyol lifted taht cup :APPLAUD:

stefanoo said:
he was talking 'bout Messi..
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Yeah I know.. I was just joking :D

stefanoo said:
Toure and Piqué were also perfect, nothing passed..
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Well, Toure scared me a lot in the second half when ne let a ball pass and go to Ronaldo near the edge of the small box.. Luckily enough Valdes managed to deflect the shot though..
 
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