O k, tonight's the night, Mesdames et Messieurs !!!!! Place you bet, and may the best win. I just hope monaco will not start to understand theu are in a semi-final of a CL and will play like they know. It's gonna be tough tho. English teams, are not really our thing, so if we get eliminated, i just hope it will be fair and square, not on a dodgy goal. Allez MONACO.
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread Good luck for tonight, mon ami. Hopefully you're going to need it. How do you think Monaco will approach the game? I'm kinda hoping you come out all guns blazing and it's an open game. It'll be more entertaining and we're pretty good on the break. That lad Giuly looks a bit useful. Why isn't he in the French team more?
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread He's playing in France at the wrong time, for the national squad is a bit crowded these days. He's an excellent player, but i wouldn't pick him over a Zidane, Pires, Makelele or a Viera if everybody was fit, of course. Anyway about Chelsea, i'm afraid it's not going a very open game, the 1st leg anyway. Both teams do not have a lot of experience at this level, i fear Monaco will feel the pressure more and more on them and will finally realise that this is a semi-final, plus our record against english clubs is not that great. We always ( almost ) fail when we think we got a good team. I remember PSG against Arsenal in 93 and how we were eliminated after we had got rid of.......... Real Madrid. Well, let's hope History doesn't repeat itself. Good luck to you too by the way ( but not too much, hee hee. You always seem to have more than you share of luck against us )
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread That was in '94, by the way, but we still eliminated Real Madrid that year too...( in 93 we lost to Baggio's Juventus ).
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread You may already know this but fellas to look out for from our lot are... Frank Lampard - 25, sometimes England midfielder, good on the ball, takes people on and has a tremendous shot. Also gets a foot in and tackles well. John Terry - 23, sometimes, (usually, now Rio Ferdinand has been banned for 8 months), England central defender. Great 'heart', launches himself, (sometimes literally), into the game. Often pops up with a goal on corner kicks because he's tremendous in the air. Team captain, (even at 23), when Desailly isn't there Desailly and Makalele you know already. Marcel's getting a bit long in the tooth to be honest and probably wouldn't be playing if it wasn't for fact that William Gallas has got the flu, (stupid prat), which has also taken out the Irishman, Damien Duff, our best winger - ho hum... Eidur Gudjohnson - 24, The 'Iceman', (cause he's from Iceland, duh), Tricky centre forward, good on the ball and is big and strong. Good in the air. Joe Cole - 22, Often called the worst secret in English football. Can be absolutely brilliant sometimes. He can take on 3 people in as many yards but hasn't yet learnt when to release the ball and often makes poor decisions. If he's gets on and plays well, though, watch out. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink - 30, 'Jimbo' has one of the hardest shots in the EPL but can be a bit clumsy and lose the ball. Good in the air but not as good as John Terry on corners. Wayne Bridge - 23, England left-sided defender. He scored the goal in the last couple of minutes against Arsenal that got us here. Good defender who maintains his position but can also take people on and crosses very accurately. Veron and Crespo I'm not sure are going to be playing but you probably know about them anyway. Something I've noticed is that the French league doesn't really 'do' corners in the same way that the EPL does. Actually I'm not sure any league does to be honest. You might find yourself facing lots of corners with big fellas coming up from the back like Terry and Desailly. How are your lot on defending headers in the box?
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread I suppose if you go and lend out players to the opposition it will come back to bite you in the arse at some point. Is that arrogance or what? I'm a bit afraid of the boy Morientes. Good in the air and tricky on the ground. What's his work rate been like for you lot? It couldn't be much less than it was at Madrid where he often looked distinctly uninterested, to be frank. Oh, almost forget. Our keeper, Ambrosio. Italian reject and is, in fact, our third/fourth string keeper. He's a accident waiting to happen. Having said that he's been good in this competition so far.
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread I like both Ranieri and Deschamps, so, this is a difficult one. However, given the fact that European distraction may allow Monaco to slip up in the league, and that such slip up might benefit PSG, let's hope for whatever result tonight that will provide the most distraction or Monaco in the league; problem is, I'm not sure if that result is a win or a loss...
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread Well, with the players you just cited, it's no wonder you're top of the league with Arsenal and Man U. I don't know which face all those players will show, but let's hope for Monaco that it won't be the best. What do you mean when you say " Desailly has been long in the tooth". That's an english expression i don't understand. How do Monaco do in corners ? Well that's something i never noticed to be honest. But with players like Morientes, Prso, Evra and co we should be ok. Actually we haven't conceded a goal from a corner kick recently. But we haven't played against specialists yet so.......... Our players to watch : - Giuly of course: His name often come back for best player of the year in France with Drogba ( Marseille ). Let's hope he'll keep up the good work, and keep chelsea's defence busy. - Morientes : Oh i wish French clubs were richer just a bit more to be able to afford more players like him, cause when you got such a class player that plays cleverly with the ball, knows when to dribble, when to pass and is able to score when it matters ( see his 2 goals against Madrid ), life is simply easier. - Rothen : great crosses, remind me of Beckham sometimes, even if i think Becks is more consistent than him and a better player as a whole. But Rothen is the future left defender of the French team after LIzarazu - Prso : Scored 5 goals against La Coruna in probably the craziest match i've seen with the liverpool uefa final match 2 or 3 years ago. I find that he's always perfoming well in great occasions. Should be entertaining anyway. Allez MONACO.
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread Long in the tooth... yeah, sorry. It means he's no spring chicken, er... he's seen better days, er... He's old. Anyway, the EPL has been interesting this year. You're right, we're second but Arsenal have had to do something nobody has ever done in 150 years which is go the entire season, (well, so far, anyway), unbeaten to beat us. Also when we've played them they beat us 2-1 both times and, of their 4 goals in those 2 league games one was from a free-kick that deflected into the other side of the net when the keeper had dived the other way... one was from a goalkeeping error from Cudicini, our number 1 keeper otherwise known as 'Mr. Reliable'... and yet another was from another keeping error from our back-up keeper, Neil Sulivan when Cudicini was injured. I'm not saying we should have won either game necessarily but we probably should have had at least a draw from one of them or probably both of them. Having said that we'd still be 3 points behind and they've got a game in hand but it would look more respectable. Like I said, they've done incredibly well this year. I'm not sure I caught the Deportiva match where your lot scored 8. What the hell happened there? Was it just a case of everything going right on the night or was the defense all over the place. The Spanish league's defending can be a bit wayward sometimes.
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread Well, you missed quite something that day. To be honest, this match was a bit of both of the things you mentionned. Monaco produced a dream football, while deportivo sunk at a depth even the Titanic wasn't able to reach. You know the kind of match you play when you're a kid when everything you do is a potentialchance, when every chance you you take is a goal. Well that's what happen. Every ( and you have to take that word litteraly ) chance a team was taking was a goal especially during the first 35 minutes. Monaco rapidly took the lead in an incredible way to score 4-0 in the first 25 mns, then Deportivo came back in game and played at last sensible football and scored one. This match was so crazy i feared we would lose at 4-1 seeing depor outplaying us in the game. I thought ok, we had our 25 minutes, they'll have theirs now. Then 4-2.....and 2 chances where i almost did on myself. Then the rest is history. But there were some great goals, everything went Monaco's way, and Depor looked like amateurs in defence really cause i've never seen a team even in ligue 2 or inferior to that play that way. A glorious night for french football, cause at the same time Lyon won against Munich away. Glorious. Will you be watching this in england ? Do you get all the champions league matches over there, or only the ones where english teams are involved ?
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread Sounds a bit like when we played Lazio in Rome and beat them 4-0. Sometimes everything just works, doesn't it. Yes, We get all the matches. Well, I do with the satellite package I've got. You can actually flick between up to 8 matches, (in the earlier rounds), at one time just by selecting the relevant number, 1-8. Actually, that's the problem - I haven't got 16 eyes and 8 heads. Will I be watching it??? - Is the pope a catholic.
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread is rothen a left winger and evra the left back? from memory i always thought i saw rothen playing in the midfield. also you forgot to mention morientes didnt even play against deportivo. i remember watching that game, i wonder if they showed in it the USA? it was amazing. and after morientes 2nd goal where he dribbled through a bunch of ppl in the box i was sure deportivo had just been unlucky and would come back. in the end though if i remember correctly, monaco could of had more goals, as could of prso who could of broken the record.
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread did you watch the game highlights or see photos??? it was that jerseys deportivo were wearing. they looked disgusting. although only sharing one color with monaco they looked somewhat similar which may of caused confusion. the win tho to me was a result of many different things. if my memory is correct the first goal came quick and from the left. a result of rothen i think, maybe a chip? sometimes a quick goal can really hurt a team's mentality throw in a little good luck (monaco) and bad luck (deportivo) a quick second goal results and deportivo quits playing because they are depressed, shocked, or whatever. i am not trying to take away from monaco saying it was luck. without luck they would still have been the better team. they played superb and deportivo played sh!t!!
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread Actually that's something I've noticed about Spanish sides for a while. If they go behind they have a tendency to let their heads drop, as we call it. Is that another one I'm gonna have to explain?
Re: Monaco/Chelsea Thread I don't know if you can say that. Deportivo is a strange team. Every year they are in a game in which they get pummeled (UEFA Cup a few years ago 6-1 loss to Arsenal, last season 4-0 to Milan at home, this season 8-3 loss to Monaco). But then they also can come away with some amazing results as well (4-0 win versus Milan, 4-3 versus PSG a few seasons ago in which they were down 3-0 at halftime). So I think that Deportivo is just a strange team, probably the most unpredictable team in Europe.
Starting line-ups Monaco F. Roma H. Ibarra J. Rodriguez G. Givet-Viaros P. Evra L. Giuly L. Bernardi V. Zikos J. Rothen F. Morientes D. Prso Nonda starting on bench. Chelsea M. Ambrosio M. Melchiot M. Desailly J. Terry W. Bridge S. Parker F. Lampard C. Makelele G. Geremi H. Crespo E. Gudjohnsen
Mi-temps. Good football, high intensity. Chelsea has been dominating for most of the second half, I hope Deschamps brings in Nonda to create some opportunities.