Champions League 2011/12

United deservedly crash out in Basel. Young Xhedran Shaquri follows up his superb display in Wembley last June and in the Euro under 21's last summer with an excellent performance tonight, this lad has the ability to be something special



L2TR's bravado about Man City has been badly found out as well, He has been very quiet about them and how they are a better side than barca since their defeat to Napoli

"we're not struggling"




The much maligned Serie A continues its upward curve. Three teams in the knock out stages, best represented league in it, once these financial fair play regulations are in place in a few seasons time Serie A will be back as the dominant league again.


Michel Platini deserves a lot of credit too, a few years ago it looked as though the days of sides from leagues like Switzerland and Cyprus making the knockout stages were gone, even for them to qualify for the group stages was noteworthy

It appears to have been a bad night for venture capitalists who punt on the commodity that is soccerball......

Ferguson's very poor European record continues. United in the easiest group of all and go crashing out. Made a nice few bob on it.

Parouisa wrote:Ferguson's very poor European record continues. United in the easiest group of all and go crashing out. Made a nice few bob on it.

what was the odds P????

bocerty wrote:

Parouisa wrote:Ferguson's very poor European record continues. United in the easiest group of all and go crashing out. Made a nice few bob on it.

what was the odds P????

An incredible 5/1 to win and 9/1 to be winning at HT and FT!!!

The Puke wrote:United deservedly crash out in Basel. Young Xhedran Shaquri follows up his superb display in Wembley last June and in the Euro under 21's last summer with an excellent performance tonight, this lad has the ability to be something special



L2TR's bravado about Man City has been badly found out as well, He has been very quiet about them and how they are a better side than barca since their defeat to Napoli

City are no good without Tevez.

I think AC Milan will win the Champions League.

Besides, the big disappointment of this Champions League has been Borussia Dortmund, not Man City, Puke. Two best centre-halfs in Hummels and Subotic and the world's greatest playmkaer Mario Gotze and they can't even qualify for the Europa League.

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:

The Puke wrote:United deservedly crash out in Basel. Young Xhedran Shaquri follows up his superb display in Wembley last June and in the Euro under 21's last summer with an excellent performance tonight, this lad has the ability to be something special



L2TR's bravado about Man City has been badly found out as well, He has been very quiet about them and how they are a better side than barca since their defeat to Napoli

City are no good without Tevez.

I think AC Milan will win the Champions League.

Besides, the big disappointment of this Champions League has been Borussia Dortmund, not Man City, Puke. Two best centre-halfs in Hummels and Subotic and the world's greatest playmkaer Mario Gotze and they can't even qualify for the Europa League.

I rate all three players and have been impressed from what I have seen of them but you are seriously overrating all three at this point in time. Gotze will be an outstanding player in years to come but is not the best playmaker in the wolrd not even close at this time, he isn't even the best German playmaker. Hummels has potential but is not even next to the best in Europe either. But I suppose this is another one of your typical claims full of bravado but no real substance like how Micah Richards is a far better player than Daniel Alves or how City are a better side than Barcelona, or how Leon Best should be starting for Ireland

AC Milan made to look better than they are by an ordinary Arsenal outfit. Its like getting excited about some teams in Div 2 NFL winning games in February. Barca - and Real - still some distance ahead.

Parouisa wrote: Its like getting excited about some teams in Div 2 NFL winning games in February.

At least some teams have been winning games in February

But yes, Arsenal probably did make Milan look better than they are. Still, though, Madrid and Barca could take each other out before the final, and the draw could open up for someone like Milan. They have a lot of energy and pace, and will be a handful for most sides.

Would love to see a Barca-Madrid Final - with just the football and not the kicking and diving! It is on May 19th (7.45pm) - same day as the Heineken Cup Final (5.00pm) - where hopefully we will be awaiting a Leinster Munster clash. Mind you there is the small matter of another HC that day .....

Thomas Clarke wrote:

Parouisa wrote: Its like getting excited about some teams in Div 2 NFL winning games in February.

At least some teams have been winning games in February

But yes, Arsenal probably did make Milan look better than they are. Still, though, Madrid and Barca could take each other out before the final, and the draw could open up for someone like Milan. They have a lot of energy and pace, and will be a handful for most sides.

The one thing Milan wouldn't be considered is a pacey side. While Nocerino and Boateng do a decent job of covering ground and shuttling Ac are quite slow at the back and Van Bommel while a decent holding midfielder isn't too mobile either. They will struggle against sides who play with orthodox wingers and look to take them on out wide. Which makes it all the more bizarre that Arsenal didn't look to do this last night

They were much faster than Arsenal last night. Boateng, Robinho, Emanuelson, Abate and even Ibrahimovic were all too quick and mobile for anything the gunners had up against them. Pato also has plenty of pace.

Thomas Clarke wrote:They were much faster than Arsenal last night. Boateng, Robinho, Emanuelson, Abate and even Ibrahimovic were all too quick and mobile for anything the gunners had up against them. Pato also has plenty of pace.

I think the fact that Arsenal were completely gutless in midfield and not one Arsenal player was willing to consistantly track runners last night distorts the picture somewhat. Milan were allowed stream runners through as easy as they liked. Just look at Sagna involvement in the second goal, he is just jogging back as opposed to bursting his gut to get back and close down Zlatan



Zonal Marking had a good piece in the aftermath of the AC v Inter match a few weeks ago and it summed up AC Milan's stengths and weaknesses pretty well.


http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/01/15/milan-0-1-inter-inter-sit-deep-and-counter/

Perhaps, although the article by Paul Hayward that you posted on the Premier League thread also made reference to the pace of Milan's play last night. Maybe it was because Arsenal weren't running, but Milan certainly look to have more energy and dash about them that the side of Pirlo and the likes a couple of years ago.

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:

I think AC Milan will win the Champions League.

The best striker in the history of Italian football (the second best in Europe in terms of goals scored) was not even included in the AC Milan CL panel, Puke. Milan only have themselves to blame. .

England left Bobby Charlton out of the 1988 Euro squad as well.......

The Question: what marks Pep Guardiola out as a great coach?
The Barcelona coach tinkers and revises, recognising that what is good now will not necessarily be good in a year's time
Jonathan Wilson
guardian.co.uk, Wed 4 Apr 2012 12.18 BST

There is a strangely persistent idea that Pep Guardiola is not a great coach, that a great side somehow fell together beneath him for which he bears about as much responsibility for it as, say, the man who turns the lights on at the Louvre does for the Mona Lisa. He has fine players of course, but you wonder how many of them would truly prosper away from the Camp Nou. Even the greatest of them, Lionel Messi, looks a different player when he turns out for Argentina.

Barcelona are a triumph less of the players than of a philosophy, one laid down 40 years ago and refined to near-perfection in the modern era. Crucially, Guardiola is not a blind devotee. He does not simply write the same names on the team sheet and expect them to go out and do the same thing over and over again. He tinkers, revises and, like a watchful gardener, seems engaged in a constant battle against the entropic imperative.

What marks Guardiola out is his awareness of the future, not in the sense of positioning himself for a move to another club or even in terms of youth development – although he is clearly acutely aware of that – but in terms of understanding the sweep of history, of recognising that what is good now will not necessarily be good in a year or two's time. Dress it as the lesson of Bela Guttmann ("the third year is fatal") or Karl Marx ("all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned"*), but that awareness marks Guardiola as a true dynastician. Not for him the club-hopping of Guttmann or even José Mourinho: he wants to erect an edifice for the ages, something, paradoxically, strengthened by his refusal to commit to more than a 12-month rolling contract; he will not become a weary leader, governing by convention, but leaves open a perpetual route to step down for a fresher man when the occasion calls for it. (As examples from Tony Blair to Abdoulaye Wade indicate, though, leaving the door open does not necessarily mean he will still be willing to step through it when the time is right.)

In football terms, Guardiola is clearly determined to prevent Barcelona ever becoming complacent or predictable, to make sure they always have a second line of attack. The signing of Zlatan Ibrahimovic was intended to give them height, the option of going aerial if the usual tiki-taka didn't deliver and, when that didn't quite work, he began experimenting with the back three.
What is interesting about that is the way that it has changed the mindset. Barcelona often don't play a back three or a back four, but a hybrid – a back three and a half, perhaps. In the Clásico, that meant Sergio Busquets dropping deep to become an extremely deep-lying playmaker. On Tuesday, against Milan, it meant Dani Alves being given freedom to charge down the right flank, operating most of the time as an attacking midfielder. When they use a back four it is with the knowledge of a back three; when they play a back three it is with the knowledge of a four. It is neither one thing nor the other, but both simultaneously, gloriously protean and so are all but impossible to counter.

Given Milan's narrowness, the odd thing is that Alves didn't operate higher in the first leg as well, but perhaps the issue there was that Barça became a little narrow themselves. That is always the danger (admittedly not an especially big one) when Messi starts in a nominal right-sided role, as Argentina have often found; when Uruguay frustrated them in the quarter-final of the Copa América last summer after having Diego Pérez sent off, it was by vacating their left flank and trusting Messi to wander into congested areas.
The surprising introduction of Isaac Cuenca, who has started only nine league games, seemed specifically designed to ensure Barça retained their width: he is a natural winger – whereas Pedro and Christian Tello are modern wide forwards prone to cutting infield – and his value was almost entirely tactical. With Alves pushing so high that Barcelona's shape often resembled a 3-3-4, Messi and Cesc Fábregas drifting vaguely in central areas, it meant that Milan's two full-backs were kept wide, stretching the back four and so increasing the possibility of spaces opening up.

The other effect of Alves playing so high was that it took Barcelona as a whole farther up the pitch. Busquets, who so often drops in to become an additional centre-back, played in a much more orthodox holding midfield role, pushing far higher than is usual. To an extent he was able to do so because of Robinho's reluctance to track back – non-tracking forwards have been a feature of Milan for years and have arguably played some part in their exits from the Champions League in each of the past five seasons, most particularly against Manchester United in 2010.
That, of course, is something of a gamble because it means that the forward can be left free if the opponent breaks quickly, as happened when Robinho, dropping away from the defensive line, found space to initiate the move that led to Milan's equaliser (although the person most at fault for that goal, of course, was Javier Mascherano, inexplicably 10 yards deeper than his team-mates and so playing Antonio Nocerino onside as Ibrahimovic picked him out with a finely weighted through ball). It could be argued that, with a one-goal lead, Barça had no need to be playing in such an offensive way, but that would be to deny what they are and what has made them so great.
Yet while they were better than Milan and deserved winners – the ludicrous "debate" over the second penalty notwithstanding – Barça were not great on Tuesday. They were adequate. They did enough, but not a huge amount more. They could have won by much more – Messi missed two decent early chances and Christian Abbiati made an excellent save to deny Xavi in the first half – and that Milan over four games against Barça this season lost by an aggregate score of only 8-5 was largely down to greater productivity in front of goal (Barça had 67 shots in the four games, Milan only 20), but Barça were far from their most fluent, something borne out by the fact they had only 61% possession, as opposed to the 65-70% they commonly enjoy.

To an extent that is credit to Milan. Their midfield four stayed narrow, worked diligently and even, when they had the ball, caused problems as Clarence Seedorf and Nocerino attacked the space afforded them on the flanks. With Fábregas dropping back, it was effectively four on four in the middle, which, even for a side with Barcelona's close technical skills, makes for a congested game, especially when the use of a false nine denies them the option of bypassing the midfield by going long. Hércules, similarly, played a flattened midfield diamond when, 53 games ago, they were the last side to beat Barça at the Camp Nou.
Fatigue, physical and mental, may be a factor – which must be a concern for Spain in the summer – but it's important to keep these things in context. Barcelona have beaten a decent Milan side 3-1 on aggregate with barely a scare; it's a measure of how good they are, how high expectations, that that should bring a slight sense of disappointment.
Yet for Guardiola the relative lack of fluency must be troublesome. Is it a blip, the sort that is inevitable, or is it an indicator of longer-term decay? An awareness of entropy and putting in place measures to combat it is one thing; winning that battle is something else.


*Given that Marx categorised the "bourgeois epoch" as being distinguished by "everlasting uncertainty and agitation", you wonder if that epoch has found its apogee in modern football.


http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/skmB1VMmyihOuj41C1_S3Xg/view.m?id=15&gid=sport/blog/2012/apr/04/the-question-pep-guardiola-barcelona&cat=most-read

Wow, what do you say about that.

I've never seen a more disciplined performance in my life. No Chelsea player was going to be dragged out of position. Bar the penalty, Barcelona created no obvious chance. despite all the time they spent in Chelsea's half. Magnificent from Lamps and co.

Shame that Ramires misses the final. As I said on the other thread, he's one of the best players in the world.

Terry can have no complaints. Meireless is unfortunate.

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:Wow, what do you say about that.

I've never seen a more disciplined performance in my life. No Chelsea player was going to be dragged out of position. Bar the penalty, Barcelona created no obvious chance. despite all the time they spent in Chelsea's half. Magnificent from Lamps and co.

Shame that Ramires misses the final. As I said on the other thread, he's one of the best players in the world.

Terry can have no complaints. Meireless is unfortunate.

had a sneaky feeling Chelsea were going to pull this one off, watched Barca against Real at the weekend and they were woeful, it was really hard to fathom that Barca were the home team. For all his goals and all the furore about him Messi was merely a passenger. So Barcas form going into this game wasnt great, that said when they went 2 up i figured it was going to be a night to forget for Chelsea.

What a clown......



Gave some lad a dunt in the ass and gets sent off. Whatever additive God gave him in the talent stakes, he swiftly clawed it back from the brain department....

Boxtyeater wrote:What a clown......



Gave some lad a dunt in the ass and gets sent off. Whatever additive God gave him in the talent stakes, he swiftly clawed it back from the brain department....

just seen the incident on tv - what a w*nker he is - as blatant as they come. Even if ref/linesman hadnt have seen it he would have been banned on video evidence alone after the game.

As for brains, we all know where his brains are Boxty

It was all part of the master plan to lure Barca into thinking 'handy now'. Great tactics Di Matteo. Come on blues.