Champions League 2010-11

Confirmed teams for R16:

Spurs
Inter
Schalke
Lyons
Man Utd
Valencia
Barcelona*
Bayern*
Chelsea*
Marseille†
Real Madrid*
Milan†
* = confirmed 1st place; † = confirmed 2nd place

Still possible:
1 from: Kopenhagen / Rubin Kazan
1 from: Roma / Basel
2 from: Shakhtar / Arsenal / Braga
 
Roma v Shakhtar
Milan v Spurs
Valencia v Schalke
Inter v Bayern
Lyon v Real
Arsenal v Barca
Marseille v Man Utd
Kopenhgn v Chelsea
 
Real got one of the worst possible draws for them, French teams in the first 2 knock-out stages are extremely uncomfortable.
 
I think Real got the best one. First of all, it's an incredible opportunity to break the curse of the round of 16 Futhermore, as the French call, is an opportunity to Revenge.
 
Roma got really lucky there. They have a chance with Shakhtar while they could have easily been eliminated by the other teams.

Arsenal screwed again.
 
Roma-Shakhtar - %50
Milan-Spurs - Milan
Valencia-Schalke - %50
Inter-Bayern - Bayern
Lyon-Madrid - Madrid
Arsenal-Barça - Barca
Marseille-Man Utd - Manu
Kobenhavn-Chelsea - Chelsea
 
Arsenal vs Barcelona derby of Champions league. Chelsea easy to win like Mancehser. Others match is very hard to play.
 
It would hilarious to see plucky Lyon beat Real yet again in the CL. 3-0 in 2005/06, 3-0 in 2006/07 and knocked them out last year.
 
Sky Sports stereotypes from today:

Milan are old (average age of around 27, when Chelsea is around 28 and United almost 27)
Milan play defensive, like all Italian teams. (44 league goals in 25 games this year, and 4-0 win on Saturday. Spurs have scored 37 in 26, but have a better defence than us because we play with 3 strikers)
Zlatan is overrated and egoist (13 assists and 13 league goals)
 
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YoungGun_UK said:
:DD I like the fact they've spread the games over instead of having them all on the same day.
Click to expand...

Yeah GREAT idea!

Some of the matches weren't getting the proper attention before when there were so many in one day. Even at this level and with every team being a good one.

This is much better!
 
Stef, i only see Milan in the CL and once again i'm underwhelmed.
Yesterday they played a decent second half, but no way this team can go far in the CL. Maybe they can eliminate Spurs (a good and spectacular team with a very weak defense), but they 'll have to get stronger if they want to progress further than this.
I can't understand how it is possible that this team is the best in Serie A.
 
Yup, that was a great moment.

Raul on his first trip back to Spain and he's causing Valencia problems again. They must hate him! :LOL:

Great goal by the LEGEND! :WORSHIP:
 
Nah I'm with Gerd, I'm not impressed by Milan either, I saw them a few times on ESPN and never really thought much of them. Quite liked the looks of Abate right enough.

Mind you Italian teams are mostly getting owned by English teams anyway, Roma got a terrible result yesterday to against Donetsk.


FD
 
Oh and Arsenal did really well to come back, they got lucky several times with some poor refereeing decisions, kinda glad though as everytime and English team gets beat or goes out of a tournie the ref is to blame.

Thought Koscielny (sp?) and Wilshere were outstanding, not sure though if they can get the result in the Nou Camp though as Barca look fantastic there and I heard something along the lines that Barca haven't won away from home in the knockout stages? Doesn't sound right, but I caught something along those lines.


FD
 
Oh, half of all first matches of 1/8 Champions Leagues has ended only, but to become clearly that struggle will be very entertainment in each match. I can congratulate Arsenal and Shakhtar with so good, but heavy victories over Barcelona (!) and Roma accordingly. I hope in return matches they will show the same game and will pass in quarterfinals of this remarkable tournament. Special congratulations I give to Arsenal forward Andrey Arshavin. In fact, after his goal on 83 minutes and Arsenal won terrible Barcelona. Though he did not easily give the game to Arsenal, but I hope that Arsene Wenger, seeing such progress Arshavin, will again be releasing it in the starting lineup.:D
 
Champions League Final Ticket allocations:

86000 Total
50000 2 x finalists
11000 neutrals
25000 to corporates

No wonder they have to charge minimum £176 per ticket! They are giving away nearly 30% of the seats.
 
F'n Howard Webb. People are criticizing Busacca's performance but from what I saw, he did much worse in the Shakhtar vs. Roma game.

Srna got clattered in the face with De Rossi's intentional and cynical elbow and he got a yellow for play-acting! :D
 
mmm, i think busacca is much more to blame than webb honestly.
u see, webb didn't judge the situation properly (de rossi should have been red carded obviously) because he didn't see the elbow. and we can't even blame him for not seeing the elbow as the whole thing happened when the ball wasn't nearby the players.
sure that's a mistake, a wrong call by the ref and his assistant, but what happened in barcelona was far worse.

busacca saw the action, he was absolutely aware of what happened and judged what he saw. and his decision making in that specific situation was absolutely unacceptable.
collina once said "refereeing is not just about applying the rules. applying common sense to the rules is much more important. u don't hand red cards or second yellow cards in important cup matches and elimination rounds unless it's absolutely inevitable. in theese type of matches u have to change your style to make your presence on the pitch as invisible as possible. the ref's decision don't have to interfere with the course of the game, and that especially applies to this sort of games as the margin of error is even smaller".

a second yellow card in a champions league eight final 2nd leg, is a match-changer event. u hand it if the player does, say, what de rossi did yesterday. but if a player simply ignores the whistle and takes a shot (because he didn't hear u, or because he pretended not to hear u)... u just go there and talk to him. there's not a possible scenario where handing a 2nd yellow card in that situation is an acceptable decision.

webb made obviously a mistake, but we can't blame his decision because he just didn't see de rossi's elbow (and sure he couldn't send off de rossi just coz srna told him de rossi attacked him!).
busacca instead had a perfect picture of the situation.... and judged it in an absolutely unappropriate way.

also webb decision had pretty much no impact whatsoever on the game. roma was already losing the game and never looked as if they could possibly win yesterday (no matter how many men they had on the pitch), plus they needed 3 goals to make it to the quarters.
busacca's decision instead completely killed the game. barcelona was already winning the match.... but arsenal only needed 1 goal to change the situation in their favour.... and having to play without your offensive go-to-guy deprived em of any chance whatsoever to try and score. infact we might well say that yesterday busacca had a much bigger impact on the game than messi, iniesta and xavi.

i'm not questioning barca's victory obviously. the only thing i'm questioning is busacca's terrible decision making yesterday. he completely ruined the game with that decision... and, as a neutral, i was fuming when he sent van persie off, because it was a great game between arsenal and barça yesterday, right until that moment.
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as for the de rossi elbow, what a class act lucescu is! :WORSHIP: sure if i were srna right now, i would be pretty mad at my coach, but he sure showed some class in that post-match interview.
however what lucescu said obviously doesn't change the fact that de rossi (just like gattuso 2 weeks ago) still deserves a serious ban, no matter what srna said to him
but, in daniele's defense, we can say it was classy from him not to hide himself behind insults or provocations (even affter lucescu outed srna, daniele didn't say a word about srna provocations) and take full responsibility for his loss of coolness. fair play :))
 
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Hi Ben, i don't agree with you on Busacca. I agree that this was harsh for a second sending off.
But i don't think you can see this as an isoloated incident (in that match of course) concerning Van Persie. After the incident with Abidal, Van Persie clearly lost it.

Now i think concerning shooting after a referee's whistle, players should always have the benefit of the doubt...IF they deserve that, i.e. if there are no immediate precedents that the players have lost their calm. This was clearly not the case with Van Persie yesterday evening.

If i was an Arsenal fan i would be very mad with Van Persie...i even think he is more to blame for the first Barcelona goal than Cesc (who made the actual "mistake"). Until then Arsenal were defending very focussed, then came the incident with Abidal and immediately afterwards with Dani Alves. Both times Van Persie had to be calmed down (and i'm not saying both Barcelona players were not to blame) by Fabregas...i think Van Persie took away the concentration of his team mates...I'm pretty sure Wenger was furious with Van Persie (but he will never admit that publicly).
The only thing the ref could have done is have a litle talk with Van Persie: "my friend you already have a yellow and the way you behave you are very near a second yellow...".But who says that he did not do this at half-time? We don't know that.

I think generally people (me too) are too harsh with refs. Refs need more help. Don't forget that with incidents like those with Van Persie and Abidal or Dani Alves. The ref is all by him self against maybe 10 furious players...There are arguments enough to give those 3 players a red card for what happened there...but then the ref will be criticized for destroying the match.

In short, it was Van Persie who ruïned the match and not the ref (because are we sure that Van Persie actually did not hear the refs whistle? No we aren't.That's were the benefit of the doubt comes into play and i've already talked about that).

But i was also gutted that Van Persie was sent off, just when the match became fascinating.
 
But why people did not post with anger when we were disallowed a perfectly right goal in the first match, and not given a clear penalty at the Emirates that would have been also a red for Kocielny? I mean, we were already 0-1 in that match and any of those 2 ref decisions could have been a lot more pivotal to the overall round.

About the yellow being strict: it is. But players not hearing the referee is simply a pathetic excuse. I was at the stadium, and even being amongst all the fans, I perfectly hear the whistle every bloody time. What I would do is apply the same rules as in handball. Once the ref whistles, any opponent who touches the ball under any circumstance is penalised with a 5-minutes sending off. And every yellow card is also a 5 mintues sending-off.

This way, players would think twice about being a twat (that goes for Barcelona players too, of course!).
 
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