OFFICIAL 09 UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGE

If Arsenal does go on to the semi's then they will probably loose due to the fact that their a one-man team, mostly. like, if adebayor has a bad the , the whole team has a bad day. I'm hoping Chelsea will destroy Liverpool se they can get revenge against Man U in the semi;s and then beat barcelona in the finals haha.
 
Liverpool ftw

but im worried that we will lose and my buddy will give me shit...

i hate those damn chelsea and man u fans
 
well that "one man team" is on something like an 18 game unbeaten streak, only the last 2 of which have included either fabregas or adebayor. So you're argument there doesn't work all that well since the team has played really well without 2 of their star players.

If chelsea does by some miracle win, i don't think they'd get any farther than the semis. They had their chance at glory last year, and their captain of all people blew it. The pressure got to him.

 
If by some miracle? Give me a break, Chelsea match up and probably surpass all teams left in the competition on paper except Barca. Their manager is ruthless, experienced and is known for doing well in cup competitions. They have big game players in Didier Drogba, Lampard and most worryingly for the opposition...Essien. While Hiddink may not have the team scoring goals at will Chelsea are arguably the most defensively sound and disciplined team in the competition (Bosingwa's defending still sometimes scares me though). As long as Mikel, Terry and (hopefully) Carvalho can beat up on Torres and Gerrard or at least limit their time on the ball, I'm not too worried about conceding. Scoring is another story, especially if Drogba is out.

I'll concede, there's no way we're scoring more than one at Anfield. But, if we can score and come away with at least a tie, Liverpool are donezo in the return leg. Besides, after last years final and the recent ''dryspell'' over the last year or two I think Chelsea will be the hungriest team out there (as long as Ballack and Deco don't play). To say it will take a miracle for Chelsea to win is ridiculous though. All this coming from a very worried Chelsea fan.

Either way I hope the game is exciting as I will be missing important classes to watch it. It's nice to see some footy talk on NS.

 
Oh, and it blows that Quaresma can't play. I know Hiddink isn't a big fan of him but he would be just the type of player to light up a potentially boring game like this one. Hopefully Kalou can take up that role.

As they say outside of Liverpool: ''You'll never win again!''
 
true, i was exaggerating. But i think liverpool still has a bit of an edge. The whole team seems to be playing extremely well, and Gerrard and Torres have been doing absolutely incredible. 1 slip up and they can make you pay dearly for it. I'm thinking liverpool might edge out a win, probably 1-0 or something low at anfield, but on the return leg at the bridge, 0-0. Liverpool i think is much better in the attack than chelsea. Chelsea seems to rely too heavily upon drogba, and although normally he delivers, i think liverpool will keep him quiet. I think their win over Real madrid definitely gives them a confidence boost

I think right now its a very interesting situation in the cl, because seemingly anyone is in a position to beat anyone. I of course have Arsenal down for winning it all, but i'm biased. Though you must admit, things such as injured players etc have all been returning at the right time for Arsenal. Roma was tough because it wasn't necessarily our first line squad. Now that almost everyone is back and healthy, i think they are a huge threat. Though losing gallas is a bit of hit, as is almunia, but fabianski is actually just about as good as almunia, so i've got faith. Plus Almunia's ankle injury comes and goes. For all we know, he could be doing fine already.

Bayern-Barca will be a ridiculous game. Both just attack attack attack. It's going to end up like 13-12 on agg. Though i think in the end, Barcelona will out Bayern. They are just that much better. And Bayern seems to be falling apart a bit lately.
 
ha, it would be nice if transfers could play. If arsenal had arshavin in, it would be all over for villareal.
 
this isnt champions league but did anyone see the aston villa, man u. match today, it was fucking ridiculous, man u. scored the first goal on a free kick by c. ronaldo, then villa scored on two nice headers, then in the 80th minute or so ronaldo scored another goal, and then in stoppage time some new fucker on man u. scored a ridiculous goal to win it, it was nuts
 
yeah i just saw it on comcast sports network today, but it was such s sweet game, thats funny they played it today and it was on sunday
 
I think how Chelsea performs going forward will ultimately decide how the contest turns out. I'd give them the edge defensively and Liverpool is better at attacking. Still, there's no way Liverpool won't score over 2 games while it's very possible that Chelsea don't. Hopefully the two teams don't cancel eachother out and play for penalties though.

On current form I think the winner will come out of this tie. Barca and Bayern are great going forward but I think these are the two most complete teams in the competition. Man U is up there but they've been playing like garbage the past few weeks. I suppose you guys could nip it too if you can beat Villareal and catch the Mancs (if they even make it past Porto) in the rut they're in. And once in the final it's anybody's game really.

 
yeah that was such a great game to watch. dude scores his first goal in his first match playing for manchester, he's like a hero now.

 
so bayern barca today i am rooting for bayern. favourite club for years (and i live like 3 h away from their home stadium). they had serious problems in the league against wolfsburg, but CL is always something different. playing against the worlds best is something special and bayern tends to step their game up when its needed the most.
 
The only reason Terry missed that shot, is because he slipped on a wet Russian soccer field.

he got so much experience so the if anything it couldnt have been the pressure that killed him
 
although youre right with that shot (but all others made it to stay on their feet), pressure is something that can kill all people, no matter how long theyve been in the game
 
a wet field is the same anywhere. Pressure can get to you when you're 1 shot from winning a champions league final. Hell, even i have scored penalties on wet fields.

anyways....liverpool needs to get their shit together. 1-1 at half

barca destroying bayern as expected
 
Frig this life, I was stoked to skip schoolio to watch but not even Setanta is broadcasting the game. Who's been dominating so far?
 
But Terry obviously didn't slip because of pressure...However Chelsea won 3-1 oh yeah!!!! I thought they dominated second half. as i expected them too.and they show one game on espn2 and one game on setanta sports.
 
wtf? bayern 4:0 loss against barca?

ok, first off, i am a huge bayern fan.

SOMETHING ABOUT THE GAME:

but 2 of the goals were freakin unlucky, some feet flying around, NOONE had control, and BOOM, that fucking ball ends up infront of henry or messi, who just have to chip the ball in. 1 goal seemed to be off-side, but i am not too sure, since no slomo showed anything, what a shame, any situation is showed 20 times from various spots, but the goal wasnt analyzed like that.

WHAT I THINK ARE THE REASONS:

of course, bayern had to lose that game, they were waaaay too bad. but i just wanna say, that they werent lucky either. their whole defense (lucio, van buyten, lahm) is injured/not available, klose (their best scorer in the CL) is missing too, thats just too much for a "small" player like bayern. its not an excuse for losing like that, but i guess the game couldve ended 1/2:0 WITH the best players available.

GENERAL STUFF:

and theres one point that really annoys me. barca is a club that would get sold by court order if it was situated in germany because of the financial situation. debts everywhere and theyre still allowed to compete. same with real and partly chelsea (although abramowitsch has enough money anyway to fix it). bayern (and same with most english teams) are doing a great job to stay within their own financial limits. i no, i cant buy myself anything off that, but its important to see the relations.

what i wanna see in soccer is some kind of NFL-salary system. just to prevent this fucked up saudis or russians to buy 20 other clubs and destroy the sport further. and there could be smaller teams benefiting if other teams werent allowed to spend 100 m on one player.

 
I think a better solution than a salary cap would be to limit how much debt a club can take on. And then apply penalties if they go over the limit.

Or maybe how much foreign ownership can invest in a club at one time.

Or maybe a cap on how much a team can spend in a single transfer window.

I just feel that a salary cap is unnecessary and while it would obviously help with parity in the leagues, you still need big teams with big players. A sort of elite to attract those foreign fans and pour money into the league. People say the Championship in England is probably the most entertaining league in the world because any team can win it any year. But do you personally know many people who watch it (I'm assuming you're not from England when I ask this)?

The BPL is hands down the worst in terms of the same teams finishing at the top all the time, but that could soon change with teams like Villa coming up or the rich boys QPR and Man Shitty. Oh and also, teams like Bayern and Arsenal choose not to pay their players more when they easily could. That's their choice/problem, not anyone elses. Besides, huge salaries don't necessarily garantee success, just look at Chelsea since they signed Ballack, Sheva, Deco, Lampard's new contract; or maybe Milan.

Anyways I like the third option I proposed best. It would spread the wealth of players and hopefully drive transfer prices down. We wouldn't see any ridiculous single season raids like Man Shitty or Madrid have threatened to do.

Btw, my mom just walked in the door with a Chelsea scarf for me, so pumping!
 
didn't get to see it, but from what i heard from some friends, the chelsea-liverpool match was great to watch.

hoping arsenal and porto can pull off wins tomorrow. Both should be pretty good games
 
dayum..... dirty game today between chelsea and liverpool
tomarrow, FC porto vs. Man U
daz gonna be a good game
 
well to look at the good side of things, bayern did nto get their asses kicked today like in the last match. now that bayern is out im all for chelsea. i fucking hate Torres, and i can not fucking stand ronaldo.
 
man i was getting a little worried today at the end of the second half of the chelsea/liverpool game but thankfully they held on to tie it 4-4. so many sick goals. stoked to see they are moving on again to the next round!

chelsea vs. barca is going to be a sick game. chelsea will do so much better as long as they have terry back to control the team and keep everyone together. im calling 2-1 chelsea on this match
 
i think they might be able to hold their own for a bit, but in the end barcelona's attack will overwhelm them. they did a good job of keeping torres quiet, but thats only 1 man. Barcelona has 3, who in my opinion are equally as good as torres, if not better.

I wanna see an arsenal-barcelona final rematch, with arsenal winning it all. Poor old thierry henry would hate himself if he had to go against his beloved old club
 
and the semis will be:

chelsea vs barcelona

manchester united vs arsenal

looking for a rematch of 2006, with arsenal on top this time around!
 
even though im sure this isn't gonna happen, but how sick would it be if there was a final matchup chelsea vs. manchester united?

i really think the semi finals right now are unpredictable. chelsea is stepping it up, arsenal does have a chance against man u because man u's defence is kinda going down the shitter.
 
torres has always been my idol. from his time in atletico to liverpool, i've always loved his style of play even though ima chelsea fan....i play forward too and torres is just nasty period. u cant say hes bad just as you cant say c.ron sucks.....and good job bein for chelsea now....blues takin it all da way
 
oh handsdown they dominate the pitch, and noone can dispute that. But hwat im saying is that i can not sand the both of them. I just hate Torres because he scred the winning goal against Germany in the Euro. Ronaldo is jsut a little bitch, but still he is a beast.
 
Today is the day Chelsea vs. Barcelona and Man U. vs. Arsenal.

I would like to see a Chelsea Arsenal final, thining that would be a good math. Or yet another Arsenal Barcelona final.

CFC FTW

kickoff is at 2:30 on ESPN2 EST.
 
all chelsea did was defend, and it worked for them. But that won't get them through. And for every 1 goal barcelona scores in the next leg chelsea has to score 2....i just don't see chelsea through.

And i won't lie, i love arsenal but...i'm not so sure if they are up to the challenge.
 
Ya, all he was saying was that obviously a 4-2 game would not end up as draw. Aggregate will only come into play on a draw. The way you described it the first time was just a little messed up, that's all.
 
Epic fail.

Not surprising that Barca came up against a hard English team and didn't score. Camp Nou is an intimidating place and IMO they did well to come out with a draw. Hiddink seemed to have played for one (judging by the line up, I'll admit I didn't see the game I had a test I couldn't miss) and got what he wanted. A goal would have been amazing but I guess you can't have it all.

A crucial aspect of the return leg is that Stamford Bridge has a smaller pitch. I'm not sure what this will mean for Barca as I haven't seen them play that much this year. Either they get snuffed out and bullied around due to Chelsea's stronger and bigger players or they excel with quick passing thanks to their closer proximity. An added bonus for Chelsea is that the fans are much closer to the pitch in most. Also, Puyol is suspended and that dirty cunt Marques is potentially out. Cashley is also back and he's an amazing defender, just ask CRY. Oh, and Barca have to play El Clasico this weekend if I'm not mistaken which will take a toll on them.

I still think this one is too close to call. One thing I'm pretty sure of is that Hiddink will put out a much different line-up. I can see Anelka or Kalou starting on the wing and Essien slotting back into defensive midfield. As much as I love Mikel (and prefer Essien more forward) I'm not sure he's quite ready to solo mish the defensive midfield position against the likes of Xavi and Iniesta.

One last thing, I'd be curious to see the stats on how many times teams with the second leg at home have advanced in the CL throughout the years. It seems to be a crazy advantage because you can just play for a draw and have the second leg at home to fall back on.
 
yea i realize that after i wrote it, my bad. You all seem to get what i was saying.

But anyways, i wouldn't be all that surprised to see this one go to pks. In regards to the smaller pitch, today barcelona was making really good use of the entire pitch with quite a few long balls. But i've seen them play on smaller fields before, and they were able to adjust quite well to the smaller size. It'll definitely be a good one to watch
 
1-0 man utd's favor at the half.

Decent game so far, almunia has saved arsenal's ass a few times, but whatever. Arsenal is doing good going up the field and staying there, not so much on the actual shooting. So basically they are playing like arsenal traditionally does. Whereas utd has mostly just been surging up field for brief attemps at goal.
 
well it ends 1-0.

Really not all that bad for arsenal going back to the emirates. Playing Manchester Utd at Old Trafford is arguably one of the most difficult tasks in football, so for an injury struck arsenal, i'd say thats good enough.
 
O'Shea!!

The game was so good today. I'm a little bummed Ronaldo didn't get his goal that hit off the crossbar. He was so hungry for one today.

By the way. What the hell was Tevez thinking? I don't like the fact that now he, Rooney, and Evra have cards.
 
shot was a fucking rip
fuck i really wanted arsenal to win but i will admit, as much as i hate man u, it was a good game and they played well
 
ah fuck it all, i can't even watch. Ronaldo is diving all over the place and this ref is basically blowing him and giving him everything.
 
well, time to go hang myself.

Congrats man utd, arsenal played like absolute shit and didn't deserve it. But i hope either chelsea or barcelona make you forget any past victories by crushing you in the finals.

Oh...and c. ronaldo-you should be shot.
 
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