Right now I'm imagining Messi on the team bus on the way to the airport looking out the window at the London cityscape. This defeat was on him. You know he's feeling that, even if it's not true. He gave up possession on the play that led to the goal. He tried to force something that simply wasn't on. And Chelsea took ruthless advantage. Messi is going home tonight. He's going to stew over that play over and over. And on Saturday he's going to be electric. And then again on Tuesday when he has a chance to redeem himself vs. Chelsea, you know he will. This was the worst thing that could ever happen to LPB and Chelsea. Messi is now out to prove a point. And he now has two ideal stages on which to do it. Watch out.
I like your optimism but I disagree with the bold part. It didn't just come down to that one strange incident. It also was about poor finishing on the part of Barca and inability to break down a compact defense. And there were definite warning signs there during most of the match against Levante too (which I mentioned in that thread). This wasn't an isolated/one-off thing. But, yes, chances are very high Barca will get a goal in the first 90 minutes next Tuesday. And probably at least 2 goals if you give them 120 minutes. It's about keeping a clean sheet.
Really??? I think his general play was very good (other than his 2 occasions), he always found himself in good positions and set up Alexis with a sitter. And let's be real, Iniesta on the wing is a better option than Pedro has been this season. And it's not like Iniesta was hugging the touch line through out the game, he moved around a lot.
Yep, we need someone other than Messi to score some goals for us. We had so many chances yet somehow contrived to miss them all. I was dissapinted with Fabregas, he seemed to play the game as if we were 5-0 up, I keep expecting a big performance from him but it hasn't arrived yet. Having said all that, if we don't beat this Chelsea team by 4 goals next week then something is seriously wrong
The team played good, the rain and slick field should have benefited us, but a rare mistake from messi which lead to the goal was the only thing Chelsea did. Macherano is to blame more than anything he always does the same thing, never looks to see whos making the run behind him.
Of course his general play was poor. He played a great ball to Sanchez and he was in good scoring positions even though he missed them but his passes were sometimes very poor( under hit and mispass) which generally disturbed our rhythm.
We can't rely on Messi to bale us out in every single game, someone else has to take responsibility. Fabregas missed 2 glorious chances, Sanchez missed one and right at the end Busquets missed yet another, it can't just be Messi who scores all our goals.
Actually sanchez missed 2 But that wasn't the point i was making, he said Cesc mishit some passes which he felt interrupted the flow of the game for Barca atimes. And my reply was that it was the case for almost every Barca player out there tonight, even Messi. But with that said, i think Barca is being too reliant on Messi to score otherwise no one else does, which isn't a good thing at all.
Ha, ha, that's a good one. This isn't sour grapes, but I thought Drogba's behaviour during the game was a disgrace.
We should have scored, but I still haven't changed my opinion. This is not a particularly good Chelsea side and we should beat them comfortably in the second leg, but some other than Messi needs to start scoring on a regular basis.
You are right, the same can be said about many players tonight but usually they rarely miss the ball. But Fabregas does this in every game and he is one of the player that mishits the pass in our midfield, that's why I wanted him to be subbed out as it was not one of those games for him but one of those every game.
I have a hard time being critical of the team or coaches. Chelsea were stalwart and I underestimated their experience and calmness. Terry, Lampard, Cech, Obi Mikel, Cole and others played well in defense. Drogba flopped like a b*tch, but he held the ball up well and converted his one chance. I'm not sure why some of the Barcelona fans on here (non-regular posters) are so negative. It was a dominant performance apart from finishing. This has been the story for much of the year -- apart from Messi, the finishing has been inconsistent this year. There were probably 8 or so golden chances that the team flubbed or hit the post or were saved well by Cech. Chelsea had exactly 1 great chance. In a CL semi-final that is pretty good. I thought Iniesta was definitely fouled but outside the box. Cesc did not have a great game, but he created a few great chances and just missed on a few others. Alves had a few bad crosses, but did some nice things too and was good in defense. Valdes can not be blamed for the goal. I think it is 50/50 at the Camp Nou. I predict that Pep will play with more of a true winger, Pedro or Cuenca, at home.
Cesc was rubbish tonight. apart from missing two golden opportunities, he was ponderous on the ball all night. almost every time it came to him, he seemed to take a relative eternity to work out what it was he wanted to do with it. Cuenca should've come on for him at HT. I also think Valdes hardly covered himself in glory with their goal. the dive was so half-hearted.
Well guys, I had a feeling it was going to be tough. We haven't been playing great. Chelsea parked the bus and a train today. Obviously they had to score on the one single chance they had. Lucky aholes. I would hate for my team to play that way, but there is nothing wrong with it. It's their choice and they clearly feel it's the only way to win. I've been saying it for weeks now that our finishing has been poor. In a day like today, where the clear chances were always going to be few and far between, we had to be sharp. Don't mind Alexis miss, but really disappointed at the chances Fabs threw away. This is when we miss Villa's finishing. Not scoring an away goal is bad and we'll need to be really careful in the return leg. I am still optimistic, but it ain't going to be much different than this. Chelsea will park a bus, a train, and a boat next week.
Whatever overall, 1-0 in London is a good result. No way this ends the same at Camp Nou. And Chelsea were lucky. 2 posts. And yeah, I really don't want to hear Chelsea fans complaining about Barca diving ever again.
At least we're not blaming anybody for our loss. We had a lot of chances and fail to score, just unlucky. Not our day today. We'll win 2-0 at Camp Nou. However, the little whiny moaning translator and the crybabies at Madrid were all blaming everybody but themselves after they lost to Bayern. Their fans were even blaming shoes for the defeat. You'll have to understand 90% of their fans are teenage girls, or people who just started watching football a couple of years ago when chrissy arrived at the club. I've traveled around the world and quite frankly the vast majority of the Madrid fans I've met have been brainless moron crybabies who all they do is whine about not being able to win la decima!
What a horribly frustrating match that was! Good god I don't know how we didn't score I came in at the 40 minute mark since I was in class and my stream kept cutting out so from the time I watched we dominated them and held the ball for 70% with 550+ passes or some ridiculous number around the 70th minute and Chelsea had one shot and got the goal Speaking of that goal, it should have never happened. There were 4 Barca players in the box when Ramires crossed it and Masch really screwed up by first running towards Puyol instead of Drogba and then slipping and completely whiffing on the clearance leading to Drogba's goal. Oh, it didn't help that Adriano was half-assing it for some reason(probably thought Masch had it) Since I came in late can someone tell me how we did most of the first half? the highlights made it seem like we dominated but missed several chances in particular the Sanchez early chip and a couple from Cesc. I didn't see the penalty but heard someone talk about it but if we did get a no call I'm not surprised. The last thing a ref wants to do is award Barca a penalty in London and get shit for it for the rest of his life. Chelsea were utter crap at times but they did what they needed to and got some luck on this day. Again how did we not f****** score! Two posts and a bunch of close misses I said before the draw I didn't want to play Chelsea and this is exactly why. Yes I know they didn't play well but they always give us a tough time and now we have to play really well at home. I really missed Villa this game. You could tell Messi needed help and he was being triple-teamed but nobody else seemed to step up. We need someone who can shoot from long range. The first 2 free-kicks were wasted and when Chelsea is putting 7 guys in the box you have to shoot from 25-30 yards out I got stuck in the union next to Chelsea fans especially this douchebag who I would love to punch in the face. Sorry just had to vent. I haven't been this angry about a loss since the one to Inter in 2010 or to RM in the Copa last year. Drogba was the biggest bitch on the pitch tonight. For a guy that's supposed to be a battler and a physical player he sure goes down a lot. I didn't think it was possible but my respect level just went up again for Puyol. The guy exudes passion and leadership. You could see that he gave it his all and was trying to get the team going every few minutes. It'll be a sad day when he stops donning the Blaugrana colors.
Again I don't see this as a big deal especially considering Barca had many many chances to score. 1-0 away is not a big deal and Barca already know that Chelsea played their defensive asses off today so tactics will be changed. A big MEH from me regarding most of the game.
I haven't read any of the posts yet, but that was incredibly frustrating to watch. Any other day and it would have been 4-1 as the minimum for us. Fabregas missed two (including one that he chipped when maybe a shot would have been better), Sanchez two (I thought the chip was going in for sure), Pedro hit the post....I'm not sure how many shots we had, but make no mistake Chelsea were incredibly lucky to get a result today. Puyol's header was saved by Cech. Man we had so many chances, so I don't buy the fact that we didn't break down their defense. We did, we just didn't finish. Drogba flopped around like a jellyfish all game, and I thought Robben and Di Maria were bad, but that guy takes the cake. If Chelsea play the same way on Tuesday then we'll have our chances for sure.
I noticed that they overall play was slow from the first minute. I thought immediately that Pep told them to play the tempo down to "rest" for the Clasico. The passing was slow, the rhythm was slow and players didn´t seem to want to take go 1 on 1. We still dominated the game, controlled the tempo and created multiple chances but we also blew those chances in a remarkable manner at some points.
I think we've won every second leg that we've played in any tournament under Pep. Mind you the sample is quite small. I'm talking about Sevilla in the CDR a few years ago....we lost 2-1 at home and we knocked on their door all match and won 1-0 in the second leg. Against Inter we won the second leg 1-0. Too bad we didn't get that "required margin" you spoke about. That's the problem if they score first, it would be hard to score three times with them sitting back all match. However, we could keep a clean sheet and only need one to send it to extra time. It's quite possible. Especially if they have one or two chances like today. Edit: Oh yeah the Chelsea defenders played pretty well, they made a lot of last ditch blocks....particularly on Messi shots.