1/4 1L UEFA CL | Arsenal FC v FC Barcelona | 31 Mar 2010 | Pre/During/Post Match Discussion[R]

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Wednesday, 31 March 2010, 20:45, Barcelona Time
Wednesday, 31 March 2010, 11:45, LA Time

Corresponding UTC (GMT) Wednesday, 31 March 2010, 18:45

Click here to convert to your local time

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Where?
Emirates Stadium, London



Capacity: 60,355

Click here for a Google Earth view of the Stadium

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About Arsenal FC

Arsenal Football Club (often simply known as Arsenal or The Arsenal, or by their nickname The Gunners) are an English professional football club based in Holloway, North London. They play in the Premier League and are one of the most successful clubs in English football, having won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups. They hold the record for the longest uninterrupted period in the English top flight and are the only side to have completed a Premier League season unbeaten.
Arsenal were founded in 1886 and, in 1893, became the first club from the south of England to join the Football League. They won their first major trophies—five League Championship titles and two FA Cups:—in the 1930s. After a lean period in the post-war years they became the second club of the 20th century to win the League and FA Cup Double, in the 1970–71 season, and in the 1990s and 2000s recorded a series of successes – during this time Arsenal won a Cup Double, two further League and FA Cup Doubles, and became the first London club to reach the UEFA Champions League Final.

More About Arsenal

From Wikipedia
ESPNSoccerNet
Arsenal's offical website

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Current Form
(in the Champions League ONLY)

FC Barcelona

away DDDWD

Arsenal FC

home WWWWW

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Team Connections

• In addition to their meetings during the 1999/2000 season, the rival coaches also lined up against each other when Wenger was coach of AS Monaco FC and Guardiola was a player at Barcelona.• Guardiola came out on top with Barcelona beating Monaco both home (2-0) and away (1-0) in the 1993/94 UEFA Champions League group stage. Both clubs subsequently lost to AC Milan, Monaco in the semi-final, Barcelona in the final.
• Guardiola held aloft the European Champion Clubs' Cup on English soil as a player when the Blaugrana beat UC Sampdoria at Wembley in 1992. But he won only once in five attempts away to English opponents during his playing days.
• Henry is Arsenal's record league scorer. He hit 174 goals in 254 Premier League appearances, and 226 in 369 matches overall between 1999 and 2007.
• The French international won two league titles and three FA Cups during his time in north London. His first coach when he joined Monaco as a teenager was Wenger.
• Fàbregas travelled in the opposite direction as Henry when he left Barcelona's youth ranks to join Arsenal as a 16-year-old in September 2003.
• Thomas Vermaelen was a colleague of Maxwell and Zlatan Ibrahimović at AFC Ajax, playing with the latter from 2001 to 2004 and the former for another two years until 2006.
• William Gallas played in the Chelsea team that eliminated Barcelona from the 2004/05 UEFA Champions League but then lost to them at the same last-16 stage the next season.
• Mikaël Silvestre appeared as a last-minute substitute for former club Manchester United in their 2008 semi-final win against Barcelona at Old Trafford.
• Andrei Arshavin was in the Russia side beaten 3-0 by Spain in the UEFA EURO 2008 semi-final. Puyol, Xavi Hernández and Iniesta were in the Spain lineup along with Fàbregas.
• Gerard Piqué played once against Arsenal during his four years at Manchester United from 2004 to 2008. That appearance against Arsenal in a 2-1 win at Old Trafford in April 2008 was his last in a United shirt.
• Seydou Keita scored the opening goal for Sevilla FC when they beat Arsenal 3-1 in the UEFA Champions League group stage in November 2007. Daniel Alves also played for Sevilla that night and the future Barcelona pair were involved too in Sevilla's 3-0 reverse at Arsenal two months earlier.
• Carlos Vela is a team-mate of Rafael Márquez with Mexico.
• The second leg takes place on 6 April. The victors will take on the winner of the quarter-final between FC Internazionale Milano and PFC CSKA Moskva in the semi-finals.


Some players who played for both teams


Petit, Overmars, Henry, Gio Van bronkhorst and Sylvinho


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Previous meetings

• Barcelona came from behind to defeat Arsenal 2-1 in the 2006 UEFA Champions League final at the Stade de France. Samuel Eto'o (76) and substitute Juliano Belletti (81) scored in quick succession to overturn Sol Campbell's 37th-minute opener for an Arsenal side reduced to ten men by goalkeeper Jens Lehmann's 18th-minute dismissal.





• The full lineups for that match on 17 May 2006 were:
Barcelona: Valdés, Oleguer (Belletti 71), Márquez, Puyol, Van Bronckhorst, Deco, Edmílson (Iniesta 46), Van Bommel (Larsson 61), Giuly, Eto'o, Ronaldinho.
Arsenal: Lehmann, Eboué, Touré, Campbell, Cole, Pires (Almunia 20), Gilberto, Fàbregas (Flamini 74), Hleb (Reyes 85), Ljungberg, Henry.


• The clubs also met in the 1999/2000 UEFA Champions League group stage, drawing 1-1 in Barcelona before the Catalan giants won 4-2 at Wembley.


• Current coach Josep Guardiola captained Barcelona in both matches while Henry appeared each time as a second-half substitute for Arsenal. Carles Puyol was on the bench for the game at Wembley.

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Match background

• Arsenal will look to maintain their impressive run of home form, having recorded five straight wins in this season's UEFA Champions League, play-off round included. Arsène Wenger's men took their home goals' tally to 16 in five games when beating FC Porto 5-0 to overturn a 2-1 first-leg deficit in the first knockout round.
• Arsenal have fared well in two-legged ties with teams from Spain, winning five and losing just one.
• The Gunners overcame Spanish opponents at this stage of last season's UEFA Champions League, beating Villarreal CF 4-1 on aggregate with a 3-0 second-leg win at home.
• They have a less enviable history when it comes to meeting Spanish sides in major finals, however. Besides their 2006 defeat by Barcelona, they lost UEFA Cup Winners' Cup finals against Valencia CF (1980) and Real Zaragoza (1995).
• While Arsenal are chasing a third semi-final appearance, Barcelona are looking for their 11th.
• The holders are undefeated on their travels in this season's UEFA Champions League with one win and three draws. They held VfB Stuttgart 1-1 in the first leg of their last-16 tie in Germany before a 4-0 home win.
• Barcelona's last away defeat in the competition proper, qualifiers excluded, was in the 2007/08 semi-final at Manchester United FC.
• Barcelona's most recent meeting with a Premier League team came in last year's Rome final where they defeated United 2-0 through goals from Eto'o and Lionel Messi. That was their second major final against United, who beat them 2-1 in the 1991 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.
• The Spanish titleholders' last visit to London in May 2009 was high on drama as Andrés Iniesta's 93rd-minute goal earned them the 1-1 draw at semi-final opponents Chelsea FC that carried them into the UEFA Champions League final on the away-goals rule.
• Barcelona have won eight and lost nine of 17 previous two-legged meetings with teams from England.

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Please right click on photos and click on view image to see the full sized images

General Stats



Scoring Times



Player Stats



Visca el Barça

I think I cracked a rib celebrating when Belletti put in the 2nd.

He's out for 10 days...

Well, at least Xavi is back!

Repent! Watch the Stanford Bridge game twice and post 3 times in the Iniesta thread. Go in peace, and may the Pale One have mercy on your soul.

Hmmm, I'm kind of leaning towards a Serge B appearance as DM with Yaya and Xavi in front of him. Although the home team will probably come out of the gate with guns blazing (no pun intended) and I can already see a Serge B backpass of some sort going awry. But Yaya + Serge B worked well against Stuttgart in the last CL game.