Chelsea FC v FC Barcelona | 06 May 09 | Post Match Discussion [R]

Just watched the goal again (and again and again and again). The Pep and Sylvinho bit is just great. Does anybody have a clip of where Pep went up to Hiddink and put his arm around him and was an absolute gentleman? Pure class, he's just like one of the team.

 

It's par for the course for this Chelsea team to whinge and cry and bitch and moan when things don't go their way. They do it ALL THE TIME, and they do it tactically in the run of a game. Mourinho started that, and his players are too dumb that now they do it even when the match is over.

Their game plan meant that they would be on a razor's edge. They didn't have the guts to kill the game with Barca one man down and without their 2 starting central defenders. Let me repeat that - They didn't have the guts to kill the game with Barca one man down and without their 2 starting central defenders.

The British press --other than maybe the guardian -- are a bunch of jongoistic assfaces who don't even understand football. They don't watch other leagues, they don't care to see beyond their navals.

One last thing? The Ronaldo / Messi debate based on these two games is frankly retarded. We are talking about what was essentially a premier game for United, and a true Champions League game for Barcelona. Compare them over the year - in both the CL and the league. We all know who the winner is.

 

lol didnt see that before..hes right tho it was a disgrace. gotta feel sorry for Chelsea.

 

I would also throw in their performances for their national teams, especially in World Cup qualifiers. Just for complete fairness.

 

Yes, yes, yes. We've all said that Chelsea have a right to feel hard done by, so would we had we lost. We would NEVER have reacted like that though. And you don't need to keep coming here and saying it. We heard you the first time.

 

Do not let the english media and EPL fans sour this great victory for us boys.Our team got the job done and we in the final again.

 

Uplifting moment in what was mostly a tense atmosphere.

I watched the game with my dad who isn't familiar with Chelsea, and his reaction to Drogba at the end, was how he was the biggest idiot he's ever seen, it's better coming from someone who doesn't know his reputation.

 

Or the first 30 times. Don't feed the trolls.

 

They be hatin'

 

I think he's now gone like 10 games against English opposition without scoring. Considering his general goal scoring record, that does seem indicative of a bigger problem.

 

It's true that Ronaldo was allowed far more space.

And Messi got it absolutely right on the key play of the game.

 

I'd say it's indicative of the fact that English teams shit themselves when they see Messi lined up against them and stick two or three defenders on him. They will have one guy man marking him the entire time, and then one or two more will collapse on him when he gets the ball. It is hard for anyone to score goals facing that kind of defense.

 

As expected - it's now the norm when they get booted out - the referee has reportedly received death threats. How predictably lame.

Which leads me on to expressing - majority of people won't like this - that although I enjoy football there's much about it I can't stomach.

Cheating plays a major role in the game & has done for many, many years. Of course, there are different levels of cheating & certain cheats offend more than others. Very few are immune to it. It's a "if you can't beat it join it" problem where I see no end to it at all e.g. UEFA & FIFA were going to severely clamp down on diving many moons ago yet how many times do you see bookings for diving/play-acting/exaggeration? As long as the officials fear branding a player a cheat, especially a high profile individual, we can all forget it. Also, apart from the whole tribal bias etc. many supporters are unstable & the media stir up any so-called controversy feeding the paranoia. The cheats are the catalyst & entirely responsible. With this, mass hypocrisy is widespread in the game from fans, players & managers.

I don't care who you are or what shirt you're wearing, if you cheat I call you out.

Anyway, regarding the supposed major incidents (4 big ones the English media are harping on about) that this amateur ref, who's only ever officiated for Scandanavian pub teams, who by the way have completely different rules, played infront of two men & a dog - thus not fit enough to grace thy turf - got woefully wrong.

The frenzied English media will have you believe the Londoners were robbed of at least 4 pens, 2 of which were for handball violations in the penalty area.

Forgive me if the ordering is incorrect.

1. Malouda's pen claim: I've seen this same scenario a half a million times before. It's totally played out. Attacker is ushered tightly & attempts to beat his man with a Cruyff turn only to screw it up giving possession away & then desperately tries to con the ref by flopping down after completing the turn trying to punish the defender who is correctly marking the attacker positioning himself between the attacker & the route to goal. It's like they expext the marker to just roll out the red carpet say "carry on!" yet, ontop of that, possession is up for grabs as the con-merchant lost control & in this particular case the crime wasn't even committed in the box. The initial contact, or the moment a clueless Malouda without ball at feet looked at his marker only to then be KO'd by his staredown, was at best on the line. Stud marks showed this. Only the momentum after the assault took these marks slighty over the line.

2. Drogba's pen claim. This is basic. Attacker running direct on goal, has another one of his typical heavy-touches towards the oncoming opposing goalie, thinks all is lost then decides to, a few secs later, dive face forwards because they may have felt their upper garment was pinched slighty in a pulling motion thus legitimizing the complete shutdown of their lower body. Kinda goes against physics, but hey!

3. Pique's handball: this was fortunate though clearly accidental. It's irrelevant that Anelka most likely would've botched his attempt to hit the back of the net but there's still a major grey area with this law.

4. Eto'o's handball: this one was laughable. Striker hits a garbage last-ditch shot at goal, defender turns his back, funny how so many still do this, with arms held at their side in a natural position, then ball clatters of the back left shoulder of defensive player. It was barely an arm ball let alone hand plus he wasn't even watching the strike. This one fails on all grounds.

There was also the phantom foul which got Abidal sent-off. Way more harsh than Fletcher's from the previous night. Also, as was pointed out, Ballack's behaviour towards the official merited a straight red.

The bottom line is that Chelsea have too many cheats in their squad. In particular Drogba, Anelka & Malouda who I'd all class as serial offenders. History overwhelmingly proves this. It is they who created the controversy, which spills over into the knuckle-draggers in the crowd, heightened by the, at times, crass, biased media accumulating in death threats & the like.

Fans still allow themselves to get utterly hoodwinked by these rotten antics.

 

Well he's getting tripled covered against teams that actually can afford quality defenders and holding midfielders. Let's not get it twisted....if Messi did play in the EPL he would still run all over anyone who is not Man U, Liverpool or Chelsea. He hasn't figured out how to deal with those defenses yet, but look how young he still is, he will eventually be able to deal with those defenses.

The other difference is no teams triple cover CR7. Arsenal didn't do it. We didn't do it. I'm not taking away anything from CR7 either....they just don't give him as much attention as they do with Messi.

 

The goals will come, don't worry about that, he has played well against Englsih opposition, in last seasons semi against Man Utd the english press were all hailing him as being better than Ronaldo and before that he had played well against Chelsea. Lest we forget he is only 21 and hey, what better time than to score your first goal against english opposition than in the final in Rome.

I believe C. Ronaldo has a poor goal scoring record against teams from La Liga.

 

I don't care so much about Messi scoring when he's triple teamed, but if he is triple teamed someone else on our team ought to be able to find the net far more easily, which wasn't really the case last night.

 

CRonaldo has never scored against Spanish opposition in 6 tries?
Maybe one of them will break their duck in the final!

 

Talking of which but ETO seems to be having a dip in form lately, obviously that is relative given that he has scored 26 goals, but I forgot he was on the pitch yesterday.

 

The ref had to be smuggled out of the country.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=644051&cc=5739

 

After the way they behaved, I have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever. Along with the English press this is probably the most disgraceful actions I've ever seen.

 

Disgusting.

My opinion of England and their football has plummeted.

 

We've been here before, the tabloid press in England launched a similar campaign against the swiss ref who officiated the Portugal v England game at euro 2004, I believe one tabloid even printed his e-mail address which led to him receiving loads of death threats. They even launched a hate campaign against C. Ronaldo because he winked at the the Portugese bench during Portugal's game against England at the 2006 world cup, as if that is what got Rooney sent off rather than because he stamped on Carvallio's nuts.

 

Perfectly put.