Football 2011-2012

[Ed209]

Wow.

I started off watching that game hoping Chelsea would lose. By the end I was screaming for Drogba to put it in. What a way to end. I dont like him, but i'm made up for him.

Watching Brad Friedel as a Fox pundit is fairly heartbreaking though. He's trying to professional, but he's absolutely gutted

[kaosmark2]

Fucking defensive c**t w*nkers!

And fucking Robben.

A huge loss for football. Defensive against Benfica, defensive against Barca, defensive against Bayern. Just horribly defensive, ugly, cheating team. Absolutely disgusting.

[Ed209]

It's Bayern's fault attacking football lost. They wasted about a million chances. Chelsea should have been beaten

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

You can't blame one team for acting defensively against a better team. It might be bad for attacking football, but you don't always win the game by attacking, you win the game by setting out the plan which is going to defeat your opponent.

[thetime]

Pleased as punch for chelsea!

Football is all about different styles and chelsea played to the strengths!

They have to give it to matteo now.

Not a bad move for torres afterall fa cup and cl medal and cl football next year.

[pink_triangle]

I personally think all the English teams who have won champions league have been very lucky on the day, so the trend continues. Arsenal probably played as well (if not better) when they got to the final and lost. Its funny, if an italiain team had won the trophy like chelsea had the last 3 games they would be typical negative italians but when chelsea do it they are brave lionhearts, I had to turn it over before the presentation as the thought of JT lifting the trophy was too much.

The luck seemed to be on chelseas side throughout the tournament, theres no way you would expect the likes of Messi, Robben and Schweinsteiger all to miss penalties against you normally. Agree to some extent Bayern have themselves to blame, their shooting was terrible today. Drogba on the other hand is probably the best big game player in premiership history.

Spurs are now screwed, Arry threw away what should have been an easy 3rd and its going to be bye bye adebayor, modric and bale.

[pink_triangle]

!

They have to give it to matteo now.

Not a bad move for torres afterall fa cup and cl medal and cl football next year.

[kaosmark2]

I personally think all the English teams who have won champions league have been very lucky on the day, so the trend continues. Arsenal probably played as well (if not better) when they got to the final and lost. Its funny, if an Italian team had won the trophy like chelsea had the last 3 games they would be typical negative italians but when chelsea do it they are brave lionhearts, I had to turn it over before the presentation as the thought of JT lifting the trophy was too much.

The luck seemed to be on chelseas side throughout the tournament, theres no way you would expect the likes of Messi, Robben and Schweinsteiger all to miss penalties against you normally. Agree to some extent Bayern have themselves to blame, their shooting was terrible today. Drogba on the other hand is probably the best big game player in premiership history.

Spurs are now screwed, Arry threw away what should have been an easy 3rd and its going to be bye bye adebayor, modric and bale.

[strummer77]

Targeting fourth place was a good tactic wasn't it!

As Drogba scored that penalty, somewhere in North London, Harry Redknapp sat with his head poking out of a wound down car window with tears streaming down his droopy cheeks, howling into the night...

[Ed209]

I personally think all the English teams who have won champions league have been very lucky on the day, so the trend continues. Arsenal probably played as well (if not better) when they got to the final and lost. Its funny, if an italiain team had won the trophy like chelsea had the last 3 games they would be typical negative italians but when chelsea do it they are brave lionhearts, I had to turn it over before the presentation as the thought of JT lifting the trophy was too much.

The luck seemed to be on chelseas side throughout the tournament, theres no way you would expect the likes of Messi, Robben and Schweinsteiger all to miss penalties against you normally. Agree to some extent Bayern have themselves to blame, their shooting was terrible today. Drogba on the other hand is probably the best big game player in premiership history.

Spurs are now screwed, Arry threw away what should have been an easy 3rd and its going to be bye bye adebayor, modric and bale.

Edited May 20, 2012 by Ed209

[zahidf]

As a spectacle,it was an amazing final.

Bayern were very unlucky. But Chelsea fought for it.

Peter chech was man of the match. He saved three penalties and a hell of a lot of near misses.

John Terry is still a twat though

Drogba should def leave now, he wont do better than today.

Spurs not being in the champions league next year is pretty funny.

[the_hedge]

Not a big fan of Chelski but really happy for them. I like to see UK teams do well in the Champions League. I never believed the saying "they're name is on the trophy" but you get the feeling it was the case this year for Chelski. Thought Cashley, Chech and Drogba were awesome tonight. That's hard for me to say as I cant stand Drogba or Cashley but you have to say they were excellent.

Anyone else sick of how many times the questions were asked about RDM getting the job? They seemed more concerned with that than the fact Chelski had just one their first European Cup!!!

[strummer77]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FykZnEzNOzY

[Kyelo]

As a spectacle,it was an amazing final.

Edited May 20, 2012 by Kyelo

[pink_triangle]

Admitedly I dont remember the first, but my dad tells me that is the 3rd time in a row bayern have dominated an english side in the european cup final and managed to lose the game. On the subject of numbers from my calculations thats now won 4 lost 5 for english sides in the champions league, sounds average but it could very easy be 1-8. For some reason even thought the english sides dont seem to really turn it on in the finals they seem to get the results and hold their nerves in penalty shootouts which account for 3 of the 4 english wins.

I have heard a few people say chelsea have won it through great tactics over the last few games, I cant really agree with this, its certainly been heroic defending but I dont think great tactics can result in so many scoring opportunities, corners and a couple of penalties and relying on great players to not take advantage. It was a very "English" defensive display and was certainly effective. However its not the ultimate defense perfomance as some have said as there is more to defedning than blocking and last gasp tackles. Defence is also about keeping the ball and stop the opposition having the chances in the first place, if you dont do this like chelsea your relying that deflections saves are going to bounce in your favour, chelsea got the luck but better to be a lucky winner, than an unlucky loser.

As said previously I am in the minority but dont think this should guarantee RDM the job, he has certainly lifted spirits at the club, however assuming chelsea arent as lucky next time round (pretty safe assumption) then the results are likely to go the other way. A cup can aways be a little deceptive in terms of the best side not winning, I think chelsea need a man proven over the longer league format.

As for Bayern the players must be kicking themselves, they were unlucky losing a key man in ribery but really threw the game away. I do have some slight concerns that some of the german players may be getting used to just falling short, a bit like Ballack always used to do. Thats now 2 out of 3 second places in champions league finals and 2 consecutive times that they have missed out on the final. The national team have also finished 2nd and 3rd in the last 2 international tournaments. Winning tends to become a habit, but just missing out can also cause doubts. I think if the national team just miss out again in the euros this could increase those doubts. I get the feeling the players should need that first big win to explode. Germany have very good players but I think they need a player to shine as a top 5 world player to push them over the line. I look at Zidane 98, Ronaldinio/Ronaldo 02, Pirlo 06, Xavi/Iniesta 10. In the likes of Goetze and Kros the potential is there but potential is one thing, delivery is another.

[kaosmark2]

I thought Kroos was magnificent yesterday, playing a lot deeper than usual, but he tackled well, and provided a really nice link between the defence and wingers. He and Schweinsteiger showed how two attack-minded playmaker type midfielders can cooperate in terms of balancing who's attacking and who's defending. It's a long time since that sort of discipline has been shown by English attacking mids of equivalent stature.

[strummer77]

On the subject of numbers from my calculations thats now won 4 lost 5 for english sides in the champions league, sounds average but it could very easy be 1-8. For some reason even thought the english sides dont seem to really turn it on in the finals they seem to get the results and hold their nerves in penalty shootouts which account for 3 of the 4 english wins.

Edited May 20, 2012 by strummer77

[kaosmark2]

Please lets not separate CL finals from old European Cup finals! I hate this post-Sky revisionism... It's not a new game, it's a new name. Even if the competition changed format, its changed a few times since but the finals haven't!

[strummer77]

It's changed since it became the "Champions League" as well. Gone down to one group stage.

Edited May 20, 2012 by strummer77

[kaosmark2]

The name's a bit of a misnomer now. There used to be seperate European tournaments for winners of different trophies (Cup Winners Cup), while now it's not for "Champions" in any way. Another petty moan, but it still seems ridiculous that teams that finish 4th (or even 5th or 6th) can be considered "Champions". Not that I'm saying the winners of the Serbian league should get in ahead of the Spanish runners up....

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

It's to do with branding though isn't it? The name "top three/four in each of the major coefficients , unless a team wins the previous edition from your league" league doesn't have nearly as much branding power as CHAMPIONS LEAGUE.

It's interesting looking at the gulf in figures between second and third, and third and fourth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficients#League_coefficient

Edited May 20, 2012 by thesecretingredientiscrime

[kaosmark2]

I don't see what was wrong with "European Cup" as a name.

Well it's not that surprising, Spain have 2 stupidly dominant teams, but they both always do incredibly well, with their other teams often having good Europa League runs. England's been strong in terms of getting to lots of teams to quarters+semis for the last few years. Bayern Munich are the only German team who tend to get really far, but their other teams (and which they are varies quite a lot), do reasonably well. Italian football's been struggling to retain the same strength since the last match-fixing scandal.

[strummer77]

It's to do with branding though isn't it? The name "top three/four in each of the major coefficients , unless a team wins the previous edition from your league" league doesn't have nearly as much branding power as CHAMPIONS LEAGUE.

[kaosmark2]

Agree. But that's essentially what I mean, it's just the European Cup. Let's not treat the rebranded competitions as completely new entities unless we're going to do so at every change to its format.

Mind you its not as bad as those treating the Premier League as new, which is my biggest bug bear. I hate these '20 seasons awards'. United haven't really won 11 or 12 Premier Leagues, they have won 19 league titles. The 7 or 8 before were more or less in exactly the same format so why treat it differently just because some money men came in and rebranded the whole thing (which they've changed a couple of times since 1992).

If my local changes its name but its essentially exactly the same inside, it would be stupid to treat it as different!

[lharris92]

great day yesterday for us hammers, we played badly 2nd half, possibly should have lost but we took the chances that mattered.

as for bayern, well they only have themselves to blame for not taking their chances.