Champions League Thread (the dawn of time - 2014)

[Ollie_H]

What a terrible advert for not only Spanish football but football in general. I now know why I went back to playing rugby.

 

[JBlues08]

Mourinho: Barca are in final - ESPN Soccernet

Sometimes I feel disgusted about this football world of ours.

I couldn't agree more...

 

[JBlues08]

Utter disgrace!

 

[Akash00]

I will be surprised if any Madrid player fails to injure Alves' leg at Camp Nou.

 

[m_vaughan]

Refereeing decisions are part of the game and you got to live with it. What I don't like is Barcelona always mentioning about how they like to play football the way it should when most of their players (Messi included) are just looking for an opportunity to go down.

I hate pretenders. Barcelona are just that.

Second leg looks difficult, but we'll keep fighting till the end. Hasta el final, Vamos Real!

 

[Haarithan]

2006 - Barca got some serious help from the refs against Milan (SFs) & Arsenal in the final - Won the CL

2009 - got the ref's help against Chelsea (SFs) - won the CL

2011 - against madrid (Sfs) - ????

Bunch of wicked cheats with the exception of Xavi .

 

[JBlues08]

2006 - Barca got some serious help from the refs against Milan (SFs) & Arsenal in the final - Won the CL

2009 - got the ref's help against Chelsea (SFs) - won the CL

2011 - against madrid (Sfs) - ????

You should also include the Busquest's Oscar award-winning acting that caused Motta to be sent off last season when Inter played Barca. The latter may not have won the Champions League but they still conned the referee to gain an unfair advantage.

Even the Van Persie's red card in the Last 16 against Barcelona is worth mentioning.

Bunch of wicked cheats with the exception of Xavi .

Kinda disagree with that. I dislike him every single time when he makes comment about how other teams never bother to play football against them and only defend in the entire game. That comment tends to come whenever Barcelona face an English team.

Xavi - A win for football | Sky Sports

On one hand, they may have deservedly won the first leg in terms of the way both teams approached the game but on the other hand, I really fail to understand the logic in that when some of the Barcelona's players were diving, play acting, surrounding the referee at every opportunity and asking him to book a Madrid player. I seriously don't know how can they be proud of themselves whenever they have done something like that.

 

[Auwais]

They were both as bad as each other as far as I'm concerned.

Although Barca have the consolation that they at least tried to play something resembling football.

They learned from what happened at the San Siro last year and sat much deeper and didn't commit as many men forward, rendering Mourinho's counter-attacking gameplan fruitless.

 

[JBlues08]

They learned from what happened at the San Siro last year and sat much deeper and didn't commit as many men forward, rendering Mourinho's counter-attacking gameplan fruitless.

I think it was more of a case Barcelona learning from the two previous El Clasicos where Madrid constantly exploited the space left by Alves and Adriano whenever they bombed forward. This time, both Alves and Puyol stayed at home and Madrid couldn't do anything about it.

The one surprise is that they did not take advantage of the fact that Mascherano was playing as a centre back.

 

[War]

Ye the diving in football in the last couple years has become a disgrace. No wonder some of my american friends since football is "pussy sport" because these players for the so called top-teams fake injury just to get advantage.

More reason why technology needs to come in.

 

[Haarithan]

Spent an hour reading each and every article on Soccernet related to this controversial match . Couldn't agree more with Jose and Ronaldo . Xavi's post match talk was just ridiculous .

"I just want to talk about football. There will always be decision from referees that will be talked about. Sometimes they go against you and sometimes they go in your favour. It was clear to see for everybody that Pepe's dismissal was a correct decision," Xavi told Marca.

Says who ??

 

[Bevab]

I would love to cut Alves's leg, Xavi's mouth and the referee's hand.
Madrid would love to do that also.

Freaky cheating from Barcelona.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

The only thing that mattered for me was Raul and Giggs exchanging shirts. Two legends of the game.

Also Schalke are not out of this yet. They scored five away goals in the last round.

That's really not going to happen at Old Trafford - we completely dominated them away from home and should've scored at least five easily. At Old Trafford, it will be more of the same - especially if Utd get an early goal. If that happens, it could be a cricket score - it would've been at Schalke if Utd had their scoring boots on. Also, it's unlikely that Neuer will be able to save them for that long two games in a row.

Really hope we get Neuer. There are rumblings of.... rumblings between Schalke and Bayern, so that could open the door for Neuer to come to Old Trafford. We can't afford what happened after the Schmeicel era.

 

[Ollie_H]

This video sums it up for me. The foul was from (at my estimation) 25 meters from Valdes, yet he sprints all the way to the ref and is one of the lead players in trying to get Pepe sent off. Almost every Barcelona surrounding the referee has their hand up trying to make him send Pepe off and then to top it all of, Sky show how Pepe didn't even touch him.

F*cking disgusting. It wasn't even close to a win for football, it was a disgusting advert for the El Clasico that was built up to be so much.

 

[JBlues08]

Mourinho reunited with de Bleeckere - ESPN Soccernet

Uh oh!

I wonder if there will be any excitement in tomorrow's El Clasico with Barcelona holding a 2-0 lead from the first leg. Probably only more diving, play-acting and red cards.