Champions League 2011/12

Once again lots of bullshit about Chelsea-Benfica.
Let's be clear: as a neutral Belgian who likes Witsel, i wanted Benfica to go through.

I watched the first match and went to sleep after 55 minutes because to me it was utterly boring and i was underwhelmed and disappointed by Benfica. Maybe Benfica played fantastic the last 35 minutes...but if i read the comments i don't think so.

Now about the second leg.

The penalty was a very clear penalty, how dumb can you be as a defender? There is no doubt whatsoever that this is a penalty. The defender never looked at the ball but went for Ashley Cole (oh and Cole is one of the players i like least of all).

The second yellow was very well justified. Once again very dumb from the player, if you already have a yellow you should be more carefull when going for the ball (but missing it royally).Now during the first half Benfica's right midfielder already got a yellow and he kept one playing over the edge and irritating everybody for the rest of the first half. He could have had a second yellow too. This is a litle bit like Ambrosini in the match against Barcelona: foul after foul.

It seems Benfica should have got a penalty, this baffles me...i have seen the whole match and can't really remember anything like that, but as i'm the oldest member of this forum, it could well be that i have the worst short term memory. But, for the sake of argument, lets suppose i'm wrong. Would this have changed the match radically? I doubt it.

Yes Cech played a good match and made some fantastic saves, but as far as i remember he is still one of Chelsea's players. I also remember Artur making a couple of outstanding saves and in the second half Chelsea should have scored 3 or more goals. Somebody here says that Benfica could have scored 5, once again there must be something wrong with my short term memory. For me it is crystal clear, as much as i would have liked Benfica to go through (i considered them my favourite team in this CL after Napoli went out, i think i even wrote that in this thread), it is crystal clear that the best team went though and this without help from the referee. Did Chelsea play a good match? Not at all. They didn't need to. I agreewith Matherto that if Chelsea play like that against Barcelona, they will get a thrashing. IMO Benfica should be glad not to play Barcelona, because if they play like this, Barcelona would have humiliated them.

I also don't get the hype about Cardozo. 7 or 8 times now, and i don't get all the fuss around him...to me he is a rather static striker. He is scoring lots of goals in Portugal? Maybe that is because the Portugese league isn't the one with the best defenders. Put this guy in the EPL and he is like Andy Caroll...inept.

I partly understand Benfica supporters: Benfica can be proud about their CL canpaign. Quarter finals with a modest budget is very, very good. On the other hand the reactions remind me of the reactions after EURO 2004 and the two defeats against Greece...sour grapes. It never hurts to be gracious in defeat.

As for the people who are once again seeing conspiracies: why do you keep on watching football if you are convinced that it's UEFA who decides which team will win. Same goes for Mourinho, if he is convinced that Madrid cannot win the tournament, well why not forfeit it...why bother?

Mourinho is doing two things with his talks about conspiracies:

1 he hopes to get Bayern nervous
2 he knows bloody well that Bayern are a strong team and is already doing damage control anticipating a possible elimination by Bayern.
 
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beachryan said:
What is Jose on about:

""Let me be honest, I don't think the final will be a Real Madrid v Chelsea final. It could be Bayern or Barcelona, I just don't think it will be Real Madrid v Chelsea and we know why."

Hrm.
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lukas_rod said:
Well, bebo thinks its a insult saying Chelsea can win Barcelona. What he thinks of that then? :P
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If , I`m wrong and Chels do win, I`ll eat the humble pie serve to me. I was wrong about Newcastle and have no problem admitting such. Chels can`t afford to sacrifice in league nor Cl. Playing FCB can drain your stamina :LOL:
 
With 2 yellows

REAL MADRID: Marcelo
BARCELONA: Puyol, Mascherano
BAYERN: Gustavo, Alaba, Muller, Kroos, Boateng
CHELSEA: Ivanovic, David Luiz, A.Cole
 
Until a few weeks ago Bayern as a team were not good.
Since the match against Offenheim they are doing very well.

I think it may help that Van Buyten is injured. I still think the central defense is their weak point...

Airjorca, your comment about "that scumbag referee" is disgusting. Do you really think this guy starts a match with the idea to take decisions against Benfica? Anyway, there wasn't much wrong with his performance yesterday, the only negative thing i can think of is the fact that Bruno Cesar only got one yellow card.
 
hm fouls 16-11
cards 3-6
half of benfica's cards where for moaning, e.g. their CAPTAIN got a yellow when complaining about the penalty (and was later sent off). chelsea got not cards in similar occasions.

To me and everyone who was watching with me it was clear he was favouring Chelsea, for which ever reasons.

Nevertheless, Benfica failed to create more than a few chances from their superiority as well.
 
The Guardian: said:
The Slovenian referee Damir Skomina stood on the edge of the centre-circle after blowing his whistle for half-time, waiting for the players to depart down the tunnel and Jorge Jesus, fingers jabbing in disgust, to retreat after them. This was the highest profile game to date of the 35-year-old's Uefa career, and he had appeared to lose control of what had hardly been a spiky contest early on, flashing five yellow cards, plus two for Pereira. Mikel John Obi became the eighth after the interval. Arsène Wenger faces a three-match touchline ban for expressing dismay at Skomina's performance in Arsenal's 3-0 victory over Milan last month, after which he claimed Uefa had transformed referees into "untouchable icons". The official was plain touchy here, with a quartet of Benfica's bookings appearing to be for dissent. Imagine how many players would be left on the pitch if he was asked to officiate a Barcelona versus Real Madrid final in Munich?
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Seems more like he was protecting his own ego rather than favoring Chelsea. I like the last line about him officiating an El Clásico, that match would surely be abandoned with him refereeing :P
 
This Slovenian ref from yesterday is very very weak. I wouldn't go as far as saying he has something personal against Benfica. it's just he's a terrible referee.
The penalty on Cashley Cole was clear. But an experienced and better ref would have dealt better with the complaints after that. Every team complains after a penalty is given, but some fuckers can't swallow their pride at least a bit and appreciate the temporary frustration of players. So he went on to hand yellow cards to 2 or 3 players and that took its toll later. It ruins the game when the ref is card-happy, so in perspective I do think Pereira's sending off was harsh.
I hate disciplinarian refs who maybe are too insecure and have to reafirm themselves by showing cards to any player who questions what he's doing.
So I wouldn't call him a scumbag who is out to rip one team off deliberately. He's just incompetent and he's a pussy too - Wenger wanted a word with him after the match against Milan and he stormed away yelling "don't touch me", then he wrote a report that got Wenger a 3 match ban (not that UEFA would need that much, I think one funny look from Wenger to the fourth official sometimes would do the trick).
 
gerd said:
The penalty was a very clear penalty, how dumb can you be as a defender? There is no doubt whatsoever that this is a penalty. The defender never looked at the ball but went for Ashley Cole (oh and Cole is one of the players i like least of all).

The second yellow was very well justified. Once again very dumb from the player, if you already have a yellow you should be more carefull when going for the ball (but missing it royally).Now during the first half Benfica's right midfielder already got a yellow and he kept one playing over the edge and irritating everybody for the rest of the first half. He could have had a second yellow too. This is a litle bit like Ambrosini in the match against Barcelona: foul after foul.

it is crystal clear that the best team went though and this without help from the referee. Did Chelsea play a good match? Not at all. They didn't need to. I agreewith Matherto that if Chelsea play like that against Barcelona, they will get a thrashing. IMO Benfica should be glad not to play Barcelona, because if they play like this, Barcelona would have humiliated them.

I also don't get the hype about Cardozo. 7 or 8 times now, and i don't get all the fuss around him...to me he is a rather static striker. He is scoring lots of goals in Portugal? Maybe that is because the Portugese league isn't the one with the best defenders. Put this guy in the EPL and he is like Andy Caroll...inept.

I partly understand Benfica supporters: Benfica can be proud about their CL canpaign. Quarter finals with a modest budget is very, very good. On the other hand the reactions remind me of the reactions after EURO 2004 and the two defeats against Greece...sour grapes. It never hurts to be gracious in defeat.

As for the people who are once again seeing conspiracies: why do you keep on watching football if you are convinced that it's UEFA who decides which team will win. Same goes for Mourinho, if he is convinced that Madrid cannot win the tournament, well why not forfeit it...why bother?
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Oh Gerd, it really hurts to disagree with you my friend but I have no choice this time.

Let's be clear at this point. No one is complaining about the penalty. As Beachryan said, harshy penalty but still a penalty (oh yes, it was a dumb decision but keep in mind that Javi Garcia is a midfielder so he's used to play that hard on his natural position. Again, our 4 cb's were out).

As for Maxi’s first yellow, I found a bit odd how a captain receives an yellow card just because he discusses with the ref on a certain decision. Natural thing, if you’re a captain and if you disagree on a certain topic it is perfectly accepted that you have to talk with the ref. I’m amazed how quick he was showing that yellow!

After all, people are blaming the criteria not yellow nor the penalty. During the halftime I had the opportunity to read some European sports papers and, just to quote you an example, commentator at Marca website was wondering how was it possible that Chelsea had less yellow cards than Benfica when they were playing hard ball.

You have been very harsh on Cardozo too. He hadn’t his best game yesterdar nor last week but he’s a top class cf. I always have this type of discussion in some of my benfiquistas’ friends who hate Cardozo. Guy may be slow, static, inept, etc but when the ball goes to him he barely fails.

Oh, and Portuguese league cb’s (talking about the Portuguese League, we have surpassed France in the battle for the 5th place on UEFA’s ranking) they are better, way better than EPL defenders imo.

That said, do you really think Chelsea were the best team? Imo, it was crystal clear that Benfica (and Napoli first) were way better than the Blues.

Bottom line, Jorge Jesus said in the postgame: “Today we played against Chelsea and the referee”. Lifetime ban I suppose? Nevermind, it’s Easter so he will be back on Sunday. :P

Honestly, I've never been a "conspiracy theory guy" but I've witnessed some odd things lately. Las brujas no existen, pero que las hay... las hay.
 
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The_Special_One said:
As for Maxi’s first yellow, I found a bit odd how a captain receives an yellow card just because he discusses with the ref on a certain decision. Natural thing, if you’re a captain and if you disagree on a certain topic it is perfectly accepted that you have to talk with the ref. I’m amazed how quick he was showing that yellow! [/I]
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Well at least there's some consistency with the Barca game. Seedorf calmly spoke to the referee in Dutch (ref was Dutch) about that ridiculous 2nd PK, and got a yellow card. Clarence never raises his voice and is very peaceful.
 
All Milan fans should be happy they don't have to see that piece of crap referee Kuipers every week. And he isn't even our worst referee.
 
gerd said:
Airjorca, your comment about "that scumbag referee" is disgusting. Do you really think this guy starts a match with the idea to take decisions against Benfica? Anyway, there wasn't much wrong with his performance yesterday, the only negative thing i can think of is the fact that Bruno Cesar only got one yellow card.
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There was a lot wrong with his performance. The goddamn captain has the right to talk to the referee, that's what the armband is there for. Some teammates have said Maxi Pereira didn't say anything disrespectful towards the ref and I believe it.

He probably doesn't understand a word they're saying and his way of solving that is to show everyone yellow cards.

That's why I like English refs so much, they understand players can get a bit steamed in the heat of the moment, but they're usually always calm, and speak to players with demeanor, and players respond positively to that. It's not like Benfica players were running towards the ref after every foul against them.
 
I agree with you that the captain should not get a yellow for speaking to the ref.
So that first yellow could have been a mistake. But still, the second yellow was very dumb.

It certainly wasn't the best ref, i agree with that, but IMO he did not influence the outcome of the match.

André, about Cardozo, i already said i haven't seen a lot of him...so i could be wrong. But frankly, over both matches i was disappointed with Benfica.
 
I had no problem with the ref yesterday in terms of bias - he was just a bit crap. There was no consistency in terms of his yellows (Mikel and Lampard both had fouls far worse than most yellows he dished out) nor was there consistency in his foul calling up. Sometimes, a light touch would be given, other times full contact would be waved away.

As I said earlier (maybe we could have a whole thread on refereeing?) different refs are different - that's fine - but when they're inconsistent within their own decision making I find it very annoying.
 
gerd said:
I agree with you that the captain should not get a yellow for speaking to the ref.
So that first yellow could have been a mistake. But still, the second yellow was very dumb.

It certainly wasn't the best ref, i agree with that, but IMO he did not influence the outcome of the match.

André, about Cardozo, i already said i haven't seen a lot of him...so i could be wrong. But frankly, over both matches i was disappointed with Benfica.
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Oh ok, I see. Yes, I was very disappointed with Cardozo as well. He looked tired, not only in this matchup but also against Braga last weekend. Hopefully he will get better monday against Sporting. After all, he's known to be the Sporting killer. :P

PS: Gosh, I have to update the Portuguese League Thread. Interesting games this weekend as Braga faces FC Porto and 'O Derby de Lisboa'. :D
 
Wow, it does look like we're finally gonna have El Classico in a Champions League final. This is unmissable!! :D
UEFA should appoint their favourite referee Damnir Skomina :LOL:

But yup it looks like El Classico in the final, pretty much.
No offence to Bayern München. (sorry Chelsea fans, but yes, you're gonna be steamrolled by Barcelona).
 
:LOL: Stop it already. Still trying to get over it! :D

I am rooting for Chelsea from now on. Can you imagine after all those years and coaches Roman has put if Di Matteo would be the one to get him the CL? He'd still sack him though.
 
If it is a Classico final, I'd strongly recommend they get in an English ref. Or else it'll be a trainwreck. Those two teams bring out the worst in each other, and if you had a ref like the one in Chel/Benfica there won't be enough players left on the pitch by half time to continue the game.

Could do worse than Howard Webb, to be honest.
 
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