What has happened to the English teams in the CL?

What do you mean merit? They scored more than Milan, tied away and won at home pretty comfortably. You'll have to explain to me your reasoning why they didn't win on "merit".

Barcelona was denied a 100% stonewall penalty in Italy, and gained a cheap, crappy one in Spain, thus evening out the decisions. So please tell what bullshit decision lies in your head so I can figure out why they didn't win on merit. Chelsea were denied 3-4 penalties in England, Arsenal also got screwed by the ref with the VP red card I believe. With Milan, there was no controversial decision that won Barcelona the game or helped them. Truth is you can't admit that Milan isn't anywhere near the same level as Barcelona, and this is the weakest Barca team of their 4-5 year dominance by far.

and yes I don't know what Bayern would do against them.. What do I know for a fact however, is that Bayern wouldn't celebrate a 0-0 as a victory at home like a bunch of pathetic loosers. That's what I do know. As for how they would stack up against them, if both teams makes the final, one can get a better idea otherwise we will have to wait until another year.

Stop trying to make it seem like this Milan did something great in this loss. They tied at home and lost away very convincingly. Other than Looserkusen this year, Barcelona in the KO stages of CL generally ties with Pep and then wins convincingly at home. But keep thinking Milan had this fantastic tie.

 

By far? It's pretty much the same team, people have just gotten used to their dominance.

 

They look weaker this year. Defensively far worse and in attack they are basically more of a 1-man team in a way that they rely on Messi far more than they used to.

Still doesn't mean that they can't win 2-3 trophies though, they're still really good but hopefully not. Besides La Liga, I'd love the Real loosers to flop in the league.

 

We'll see what happens. At the moment I can't see anyone shutting down this Barca team the way Chelsea and Inter did against the 2008/9 and 2009/10 Barca teams. Nor is this Barca team struggling as much in the head-to-head matches with Real Madrid as they did during the second-half of last season. If not for Real Madrid being much better now (as well as Bayern) compared to 2-3 years ago, I think Barca would have won the treble this season. ... They still might.

 

Well they can still win it.. and even if they do, I still don't think they are as good as the past few years imo. Abidal having his problems, Pique nowhere near his usual great form has looked average all season, goalwise Messi has turned more superhuman but the team is far more reliant on him imo and Villa's injury has hurt them since I don't see Sanchez as the best replacement.

and when the 3-4-3 is used, I don't particularly find it as a "safe formation" if I were a Barca fan. But nonetheless, they still might win 1 to potentially 3 trophies.

 

Barca this year look quite shaky at the back. I think Messi has been carrying them this season. When I look at their defence on paper, I shake my head how they manage to not concede more.

If you took out Messi from Barcelona, they would totally cripple them. Messi has scored 50% of most entire teams goals this season. They are becoming almost as bad as Arsenal relying on Van Persie.

Messi is papering over the cracks IMO

 

I guess I look at it another way: This team has managed to cope without their main striker reasonably well because they have more depth compared to previous seasons. The 2008-9 team would've struggled if they had the same # of injuries as Barca has had this season IMO.

 

GOAL.COM

...yeah. It was a real walk in the park for them.

Quoted from Dictionary.com claim to respect and praise; excellence; worth.
2. something that deserves or justifies a reward or commendation; a commendable quality, act, etc.: The book's only merit is its sincerity.


Barcelona did not translate their 'worth' into 'deserved' goals. They were rewarded a penalty(s) with questionable justification and therefor their victory is largely devoid of 'commendable quality'.

You keep harping on the Puyol shirt pulling in Milan making it the basis of you argument. ********ing weak.

I expect a lot of things from Bund fans, but one telling me that Barcelona was denied a "stonewall" penalty (laughable) is ********ing disgraceful.

Man the ******** up.

My man, you are a ********ing hater. I'm glad I'm not you.

How? Statistically they're around the same or better in goals scored/conceded and Messi is on pace to set another goals scoring record. They also added Sanchez and Cesc.

You don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Okay. When you're sitting down eating your shnitzel tonight, keep thinking that Bayern would have made a modicum of difference if they were in the same position.

And then once Bayern gets eliminated I can enjoy more of your pathetic penalty stories.

 

I'm just going to present the unpopular view: Barca's penalties, WERE penalties.

Everyone is droning on about how "refs don't normally give that".

Well this is one case where the "dive" was valid and did it's job. The reason "refs don't normally give that" is because they don't see it clearly. On this occasion, the Barca player was smart and reacted to the infringement. The handful of shirt was noticable and was restricting the players capacity to get on the end of the pass.

This is one of those occasions where "diving" used to be accepted on the continent as it was done as a claim, rather than a fake foul.

The larger point is that Barca outplayed Milan in both legs. I know that we're now so familiar with this team that them getting 65-70% of the possession and 15 to 25 shots per game is passe, but it still amounts to dominance. Milan scored one goal against the run of play while Barca scoring seemed inevitable throughout. Even if they hadn't got that penalty, it wasn't like a goal wasn't coming.

Barcelona saying in a press conference that Milan are a good team and that two away goals would be hard to progress against is part lip-service and part observation. Two away goals against any decent opponent is hard to overturn.

 

I can't blame you, it appears that the Barca cock is covered in nutella...

Please do me a favour, go and kill yourself.

What kind of screwy "European football: A History" are you referencing?

Woah. You must be a very rich man seeing as how you cover all your spreads every week. Life must be so devoid of suspense for you? How do you cope?

If you consider that lip service, you and Equilibrium just paid ********ing oral sex fiesta service to Barcelona that would rival Jenna Jameson's best ************** hits.

 

^^ haha... there was an Italian at the bar where I watched the Barca v Milan second-leg, and that's pretty much what he looked like for the full 90 minutes.

Well, pretending for a second that there is no-way Barca could ever deserve more goals than they actually score, that still leaves at least 2 Barca goals which were deserved and Milan only got 1 goal which is no less than they deserved (heck, it was their only shot on target).

So based on that and the definition which you nicely provided, Barca advanced on merit.

 

Lol, totally going to steal that gif for future use.

 

the match was decided by the red card and penalty. milan played twice as well in both the camp nou legs than the ss ones. barca were potentially rocking and there is no way the referees will allow this. like the rvp red card, or the ronaldo dissallowed goal last year, the pep reds, the chelsea 09, the milan 06, the arsenal 06 , the chelsea 06 and the referee and riykard in 05 etc etc. it goes on forever. add to this, another set of rounds where barca get the home legs second all 3 ko rounds. wow. its like the odds of 50/50 suddenly become irrelevant in the world of uefa 'random' draws.

and, btw, im not anti barcelona, this is the same crap that we see week in and out in the epl, serie a, probably la liga if i could be bothered to watch it anymore, football is crooked. we know this, we still watch it. its just usually things are done a little more discreetly by domestic fas than what uefa or fifa seem capable of pulling off.

 

GIFSoup

 

Now people are getting butthurt because the ref rightly gave two penalties to Barcelona? I guess reffing correctly is being biased and helping Barsa now

 

You're not anti-Barca?

Yet you wheel out a bunch of examples, ignoring decisions that went in the opposite direction. Abidal being sent off in that "infamous" Chelsea game (in which Chelsea were home for the second leg btw). Barca having a valid goal disallowed against Inter, eliminating them from the competition. Penalty decisions against Arsenal at the Emirates last season. A penalty decision vs Milan this season.

This is why these claims are bollocks. Like the EPL, La Liga and all those other things you can't be bothered watching, because they're "crooked", you see what you're looking for. If Man United don't get a decision in their favour, it's barely mentioned by anybody who doesn't work for or follow the club - and then we're just a bunch of whiners and Fergie usually gets a pitch-side ban. They get a penalty or a late goal, based largely on the fact that they spend much of their home games attacking, they're corrupt, get favours etc.

Interesting that Dalglish uses the term "conspiracy" with not a dickie-bird from the FA.

 

got any examples of the times that refeees have either worn the shirts of barca opponents the night before a match, or been caught out at half time having chats behind closed doors with barcas oposing teams managers? would love to hear these exampls for a 'balanced' debate. no? you cant find any examples. shit, i guess we had best not say anything at all then, wouldnt be fair otherwise , according to you.

anyway, please dont take this response as a desire for a conversation with you, i honestly try to avoid reading your posts as they look like quotes from the sun.

 

This would be the linesman who was stripped of his duties and missed the final as a result?

Hardly supports your case does it? I doubt any ref who is hell bent on swinging a game in Barca would undermine himself by wearing their shirt and UEFA pulled him anyway.

I'll ask you again, why would a ref, biased towards Barca, send off Abidal when he could have gotten away with not doing so? Why would a ref biased towards Barca, having already given them an advantage by sending someone off over Busquets dive, then go on to rule out a perfectly good winning goal?

You want to insult me because I don't agree with you? Funny how you've repped me in the past when what I post suits your position.

 

wrote a long response but couldnt be bothered to reread and check it, so i deleted it, ill leave this one paragraph :

as has been pointed out before, rigging matches is a complicated balance of trying to make the macro disciplinary stats for the match to up to a 'fair and balanced' refereeing display whilst at the same time making key decisions to ensure the 'correct' result. overbo was probably uefas poorest example of a crooked referee to date (in the modern era), i cant explain all his actions.

 

I've always thought the same. If there was a fix, it doesn't seem the purpose of it was to allow Barcelona to win. It was likely done to guarantee a specific scoreline, in this case, a 1-0 win for Chelsea.

If you look at it from that point of view, most of his actions in that semifinal make sense. From the moment Chelsea scored their goal, he would have needed it to remain exactly as is.

 

But that's not the only example. For every "crooked" decision you cite as favouring Barca, there are ones that go against them.

The games may be rigged, but simply listing some incidents doesn't support the claim.

Also, your position is less, as Jitty often theorises, the fixing of scorelines and/or in-game events for the purpose of betting and more that UEFA, La Liga, FIFA and any number of other bodies is out to usher Barcelona to success.

I've listed events that might imply the referee didn't want Barca to win, or that might (shock, horror) imply that the ref favoured no team over another and just made some crap calls.

It's also worth noting that based largely on the difficulty of 100% accurate refereeing, combined with technology providing the public with fast, often conclusive evidence of a correct/incorrect decision, we are shown repeatedly that calls are blown frequently.

I could posit that the FA tried to give Liverpool the title a few years back, due to the number of red cards awarded against their opponents. That's a lot less popular of a view however, than Manchester United are rigging games. Why? Because Liverpool aren't successful.

Can anybody explain to me why this sudden favouring of Barcelona by UEFA has largely coincided with them objectively having the most effective football team on the planet? And I base that not on results, but on years where regardless of opponent, they have routinely posted over 65% of possession and more than 15 shots on goal in most games they've played?

Could it be that dominance breeds contempt, which in return causes every controversial event from which they benefit, to be highlighted?

 

Couldn't you say that about every poorly officiated match though? Maybe last night's ref bet "under 1.5" on the over/under for Wigan v Man Utd? Clear penalty denied, a nice goal waved off for no apparent reason, strong red card appeal ignored.
Everything seemed in-line with keeping the score low.