Champions League 2009-10

gerd said:
You realy don't get it do you ?
What applies for Barcelona and Kazan also applies for Man Utd and Fulham...loosing against Kazan or Fulham does not change the fact that both (Barcelona and Man Utd) are great teams...

Olympiakos are Greece best team by a mile, so they are a great team...give Olympiakos the same budget as (for instance) Liverpool, Inter or Real Madrid and yes i'm convinced they will play the top in the great leagues...or better: give Liverpool, Inter or Real Olympiakos' budget and they would not come near the top of their league...
Nowadays football is all about money....if you don't have the money, you will never be succesfull
Click to expand...

Sorry gerd, I always read carefully your posts and I respect your opinion, as other people's opinion sure, but at this time I don't agree with you on 2 points.

1. This season Panathinaikos seems stronger than Olympiacos. They have bought great players like Katsouranis and Djibril Cissé so, at this days, I think they are the best team in Greece (plus, they are in the first place right now).

2. Money plays an important roll in football of course but isn't all about it. For instance, look at Manchester City. They are the richest club in the World and look where they are. Without planning any team achieves success. In a final note, let me say that I still think the prestige of a club is also important in modern football. For example, if I were a football player I would choose to play in Real Madrid instead playing in City, even with a worse salary. Kaká thought the same last season.
 
I dont think gerd is comparing greek teams, he is only saying (as I am) that olympiacos is a great team as they compete year by year in the CL (except last year when anorthosis beat them). Surely its possible that panathinaikos is better at the moment but fact is that olympiacos is dominating the greek league for over a decade. I must also add that the CL is not an exciting league for me as it seems to be all around the world. sure, in the group stage its nice to see different teams trying to challenge the big ones like barca or chelsea. but in the second round at the latest we witness the same old boring games á la barca-chelsea. thats why I really like the new europa league with its traditional teams and great fans.
 
Special One, ernestito has replied in my place concering Olympiakos in Greece (and in all honesty, for some reason i too prefer Panathinaikos).

About the money. It's possible that money can't buy you immediate success, it is very certain however that if you don't have money or a wonder generation (Porto, Ajax and they both lost all their good players) you won't have success.

About Man City, the don't have immediate success, but i assure you that if the sheikh will not get bored it is only a matter of two or three season before Man City will be one of the most successfull clubs in Europe...it could go wrong because they don't have enough patience (cfr. the sacking of Marc Hughes).
 
Now everybody talks about Chelsea as a big top team, when 10 years ago no one would really rate them that high (even if Zola was a genious and Flo a great striker, to name a few). So look what money can make. Now Chelsea is one of the most powerful clubs in Europe.

I have no doubts Man City will be a big club if they persist, but the moment the money is gone, they will flop totally. So yes, money plays a the biggest part in it. It's just great that football let's the other smaller parts win from time to time!
 
drekkard said:
So yes, money plays a the biggest part in it. It's just great that football let's the other smaller parts win from time to time!
Click to expand...

I completely agree.
What is disturbing is the fact that the big clubs, the sponsors, FIFA, the national FA's and (less since Platini is at the helm) keep on making rules that make less and less obvious that other things thn money influence the result.
The powerfull clubs are becoming more and more powerfull and they are helped by the rules...in the long term this is a bad thing.

Clubs like Chelsea, Real Madrid (and others) suffer heavy losses and continue to spend tons of money on star players and future stars...in the long term that is disastrous for football. That's why i was happy with last year CL final both Barcelona and Man utd have a tradition of good youth development and have plenty of youth players in their first team.

And about Chelsea and Man City (and i have nothing what so ever against those clubs), once the sugar daddy has become bored and retires his moeny, they will collapse...

And to conclude, i know that lots of people here don't like Platini. To me he is the best UEFA boss ever. Platini has nothing against English clubs, he isagainst th mechanism they use...i may seem contradictory,but i'm convinced that what Platini wants is also in the interest of English clubs (even the big 4). If things continue like this in 10 years time the biggest clubs in Europe will be Russian clubs...and perhaps thre will even be a world cup for clubs dominated by Arabian, Russian and Japanese clubs without tradition...that could be the ultimate consequence if money keeps on being the decisive factor in football.

Rant over and i'm sorry...i've must have said this a hunderd times...
 
Last edited:
Oh... Such big discussion about Olympiacos. I am happy to see most people know Olympiacos is the best side in Greece. We are the boss in the Greek championship, which of course is an average one, if not shitty.

But as someone said, top teams are based on money. Olympiacos was known before Chelsea because of his fans, history and European success. But
Chelsea suddenly bought many players and they now have he most chances of winning a trophy.

About Russian clubs, the whole world knows that the UEFA CUP of 2009 and 2008 was fixed in order for Zenit and Shakhtar to win it. Zenit's sponsor is Gazprom and Shakhtar has Achmetof for president. If Olympiacos had e.g. for president the owner of Adidas, we would also have won a trophy in Europe.

P.S. Panathinaikos indeed became strong this year but they are first because of referee help. They have won at least 5 matches because of "wrong" referee decisions.
 
Yeah he's definitely a douchebag. Always has been. :(
Very good player though. And although now definitely past his prime (Even at Barca he was past his best, PSV period r0cked!), the fact that he's still very effective and a really important part of a team like Bayern tells you how much ability/leadership he still has.
 
Shitty performance by us last night. We didn't deserve the draw at all. We're playing poor right now, hope we win on the 2nd leg. If we continue playing like this we are not going to be title contenders for sure.
 
Maybe it was just a very, very good performance by VFB?
Why do big clubs fans always talk about bad performances of their own team and never about the fact that the other was actually good?

I started to watch the match as a Barcelona fan. Barcelona play the second best football in the world (after Arsenal, but with better results) and i've always liked the club and what it stands for (Catalunya as opposed to Madrid and Castilia). But after about 20 minutes i supported Stutgart more and more...they have a couple of very good players. I really liked them.

All in all Barcelona have a good result and will progress easily i think.

PS: Ibrahimovic is not a good player for Barcelona...Eto'o suited them much more...Zlatan can do fantastic things in league matches, but until now he never made any difference in Europe against big teams...i still think he's a fine attractive player, but he is not good enough for Barcelona...from what i've seen yesterday Cacau is much better forward than Zlatan.
 
gerd said:
Maybe it was just a very, very good performance by VFB?
Why do big clubs fans always talk about bad performances of their own team and never about the fact that the other was actually good?
Click to expand...

My fault, I thought I had stated clearly that Stuttgart played very well and deserved victory, but I see I didn't! Congrats to them for a great performance.

That said, it's also true that Barcelona played really bad, worst match in 2 years. And that contributed to let Stuttgart grow and grow during the game. So I would say both things happened at the same time, Stuttgart playing very well and Barcelona badly.

Cacau is a good player, I still remember the long range goals he used to score in the bundesliga, but I wouldn't rate him at the same level as Zlatan. It's not the same playing counterattack than playing positional attack as Barcelona does.

Ibra has many good things appart from scoring, he's done already more assists than etoo in the full last season. Though I would prefer to have both Etoo and Ibra in my squad.

PS: I also love Arsenal for the way they play. I lived some months in Elphinstone road, 50 meters away from Highbury, some years ago. There it began my love for the club... Seaman was still playing there!
 
drekkard, although i said that in responser to your post, i was making more of a general remark.
Most fans say that their club played bad when other's teams have won: look at the Arsenal thread after they lost to Man Utd and Chelsea...nobody mentioned the fact that "perhaps" Man Utd and Chelsea played well.

After the final last year, Man Utd fans said their team played bad, nobody said that Barca was very good...so if a team looses it's always because their own failure and never because the other team plays well.
 
It's very rare though Gerd you get two top teams against each other at their best. I'm sure if Barcelona where at their best last night they would have slowly picked of Stuttgart but they weren't and Stuttgart were very good.
 
Stuttgart played really well, in fact as a team they have been transformed since Gross took over, with pretty much the same squad as Babbel had. One thing about Stuttgart is they play a very good system which suits the players they have exceptionally well. Pogrebnyank is a fine striker, his has a superb physcial condition, holds the ball up really well, is superb in the air and also has a good touch on the ground for a man of such height. Playing quick balls up to him, they are able to use fast support attackers like Cacau, Kuzmanovic, Khedira and Marica (depending on who is playing) to big effect.
 
Milanista said:
Forza Chelsea!!!!! I'm still a huge Ancelotti fan and hope for the best! He is still greatly loved by us Milan fans!
Click to expand...

According to what Milanista said and also what I have seen in the European press, all Italy is against Inter.
Personally, though I like Mourinho I'm rooting for Chelsea.
 
I long for the team who seeks victory and attacks all time. Hope to see a good match before trying my newly bought heavy rain...
 
My bet is that you will be playing heavy rain before the match ended. It will beone of those chess games. Mourinho will play a 0-0, even at home. He will bet on a counter at Stanford Bridge.

YoungGun...why are Chelsea cunts? This is so cheap and childish.
 
I started to play Heavy rain BEFORE the match, completely forgot about it and now see Inter won. Actually Heavy rain won by a large margin. Stamford bridge will decide.
 
Well i've seen the match, it was much better than i thought it would be.
I think Chelsea will be unhappy, because they were by far the better team, but still lost.
 
Strange...
The pundits on the channel i looked also thought that Chelsea was the better team by far.
I think you're really speaking like an Italian now Stef, Inter were lethal and took their chances well...that's true.

But:

Chelsea had the better part in the game.
And when Mourinho played with 3 attacking players (brought on Balotelli and Pandev) this did not result in more goals (Mourinho clearly wasn't happy with the result at that point...otherwise he would not have played more offensive).

From Chelsea point of view the defending was awfull on the first goal and they had a litle bit of bad luck on Cambiasso's goal. I agree that it was a good goal, but Cech was off balance due to the blocking of Cambiasso's first shot and the fact that the ball (luckily) came back in his feet.

I enjoyed the match and i'm not saying that Inter's win was undeserved.
All in all it's a good result for a cracking return match...may the best team win.
 
i thought it was a pretty nice match to watch.. chelsea was quite dominant in the first half, but inter hung on and never lost the grip on the match... (saying that chelsea's overall performance was far better than inter's is a bit of a stretch though).
given that inter should have been given a penalty, i guess a draw would have been the most appropriate result, but i can't even say inter didn't deserve to win either. having said that, a chelsea win would have been just as fair as an inter win.

gerd said:
And when Mourinho played with 3 attacking players (brought on Balotelli and Pandev) this did not result in more goals (Mourinho clearly wasn't happy with the result at that point...otherwise he would not have played more offensive).
Click to expand...
he didn't brought them in to score more goals, but to decrease chelsea's pressure on inter's defensive line.... with 2 more offensive threats on the sides, chelsea had to back off a bit and that allowed inter's defensive line to regain some meters and move center of gravity of the team (and the possession line) higher. i guess it worked.

it would have been most important for inter to win this match without having chelsea to score.... that away goal will make the second leg tricky for the nerazzurri.... but it will also make the match much more interesting for us neutrals :))
 
Last edited:
gerd said:
Never saw it that way Ben, but i guess you are right. It makes sense.
Click to expand...

well, mine's just a guess, of course. i can't tell what's on mourinho's mind.....actually i can't even tell if there is something on mourinho's mind, most of the times :P
 
Last edited:
346365040032epicfail.jpg
 
there`s some truth about Ronaldo`s comments though. Madrid will be in charge at the stadium , They`re hosting the Final :LOL:
 
Last edited:
Lyon's win over Real Madrid is fantastic for football.
Now and then (rarey) there are teams who demonstrate that money isn't all in football.
Well done to l'OL!
Also great for French football. I hope Lille have a good result against Liverpool too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom