FC Barcelona Thread

Im sure it has, but yeh I agree it would be boring and the whole media would have the "revenge" angle which would annoy me. Manchester United and Barcelona are the 2 best teams in the world. Barca get more credit than us which IMO is wrong seeing as were a more succesful side.
 
It only happened once and it wasn't 2 consecutive games. It happened in 1956 and 1959 (according to this site http://www.europeancuphistory.com ) so it would be a first time ever, but after seeing barcas match i am pretty positive for the chelsea game. If only Puyol and Marquez were available..
 
I wouldn't be so confident.

Chelsea are much, much, much better at defending than Real, and they won't allow you to have the same time on the ball.

Plus Drogba and Anelka were brilliant yesterday, and can easily exploit your makeshift defence.
 
i agree, Chelsea will win if they play anything close to their normal level.

However they will need to score a few as I think Barca will get a cruical away goal.
 
Chelsea are much more of a solid unit than Real. Add Hiddink into the equation as well and Barca will have their work cut out if they are to get to the final.
 
Well, although Chelsea is a more solid side than Real Madrid, comparing the Barça x Chelsea and the Madrid x Barça game is a mistake.

First of all, different competitions, championship and 2 leg cup competition.

Chelsea played at Camp Nou with one simple task in mind: not losing. They had 4 defenders, and 5 midfielders that were defending more than anything else.

Madrid had a do or die game, they needed to win no matter what, they only had 2 midfielders with defensive duties.

Again, to me Chelsea is a more solid team than Madrid, but many of you seem too confident on their defensive abilities. Surely they can't play with 10 men behind the ball at home, and Barça will have more space to work with.
 
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Nuff said
 
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airjoca said:
Well, although Chelsea is a more solid side than Real Madrid, comparing the Barça x Chelsea and the Madrid x Barça game is a mistake.

First of all, different competitions, championship and 2 leg cup competition.

Chelsea played at Camp Nou with one simple task in mind: not losing. They had 4 defenders, and 5 midfielders that were defending more than anything else.

Madrid had a do or die game, they needed to win no matter what, they only had 2 midfielders with defensive duties.

Again, to me Chelsea is a more solid team than Madrid, but many of you seem too confident on their defensive abilities. Surely they can't play with 10 men behind the ball at home, and Barça will have more space to work with.
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completely agree with u mate :))

real madrid defence performance cannot be judged as the whole defensive line performance was effected by juande's gameplan.
and we can't even blame juande, as this was the only possible gameplan for real madrid.

it's always deceptive to judge a team by just a couple of performance.
i mean both chelsea and liverpool are great in defense.... but if someone would judge them by their recent champions league matchup... well that guy would probably say liverpool's and chelsea's defensive lines are absolutely awful :))

youngGun said:
Well IMO the defence's in La liga aren't all that good to be honest
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true. but to be honest epl isn't better than la liga in this department.
and however the real point is in spain the "midfield filter" is much weaker than in any other league. that's the real difference between la liga and the other leagues. the spanish defensive lines get much less protection from the midfield than the italian and english ones.
and it's not a matter of coaching skills or players ability.
it's a matter of mentality. this is their school. this lack of ball filtering at midfield is definitely a "weak spot".... but it's also the main reason why this league is such a fun to watch. :))
 
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^ Totally agreed, and midfield is weaker deffensively because spanish midfielders are oriented to offensive skills. The best passers out there tend to play in La Liga or be spanish nowadays.

The reason why Barcelona lacks a bit of strength and aerial power in midfield is the same reason why we have the best passing and creation abbilities. You can't have everything, son Barcelona chooses skill over strength.

But I would add something important in my opinion. They say deffense is the weak spot of Barcelona and they say Chelsea defended better in the first match... barcelona shot 19 times and had 6 clear chances of scoring while Chelsea had only 3 shots overall and only 2 good chances.

Besides, Barcelona averages better numbers in goals conceded both in the domestic title and european competitions.

And I ask you: Who was really better at defending?
 
That's completely wrong mate! They didn't attack because their gameplan was not to be shot, yet barcelona could have scored a couple of goals easily if they had only a little luck! Barcelona had four 1 vs 1 with Cech... to me that's awful defending. If you have 10 men defending and your opponent shoots almost 20 times you're doing something wrong.

On the other side, barcelona put the defensive line in the midfield and went all attack, yet Chelsea only managed to shoot twice? That's outstanding defending in my opinion. Any other team doing this would be destroyed on counterattacks.
 
Good luck tommorow. My head says Chelsea will win but a Man Utd V Barca final would be the the best 2 sides going at it.
 
I'd prefer Barca to be honest. A repaet of last years final kind of cheapens the competition. Plus, you're so good to watch that if you beat us it wouldn't be as bad as getting beaten by the 'bully boys'. (although it would be great to see Terry squawking again)
 
I honestly think Barcelona and Man Utd are by far the best teams in Europe right now. And anyone who loves football would want this to be the final. But it will be difficult today, we need to score in the first half. If Chelsea has to open its game, they're finished.
 
and if that happens, i hope the outcome will be more like the last time that 'almost happened' (2005, 2007) - the other team wins the trophy.
 
Good luck tonight! Hoping for an early goal to 'force' the issue, could be a great game. Hiddink has shown Chelsea can play great football. I wouldn't be surprised if his latest strategy is all out attack - no one would see it coming!

I think 3-2 to Chelsea...
 
I just want to see goals tonight, I think whoever goes through will be formidable in the final so it doesn't matter to me who wins.

Although admittedly I've been a Barca 'fan' since I was six and got my first shirt on holiday, plus you do tend to play better football than most, so maybe it'd be a better final if you get through.
 
That's probably the best goal I've seen in years. Rooney's on Newcastle, Zidane against Leverkeusen...and that strike. Good lord. Worthy of winning any game.

Someone needs to tell Barcelona that to score will require them to shoot at some point. Have they tried that yet? Chelsea are comfortably seeing this one out.
 
How lucky was that shot? -.-'
They are just doing what i feared the most, attack until they score one, then put 10 men behind, 3 marking messi and drogba pressing the defence for the error and pass to Anelka/Malouda for the counter... predictable but the formation that pep is using is really bad, toure as a CB, Keita where toure should be, Busquets in the mid too, etoo in a wing. If we keep it like this, we won't score. Pep should really sub Busquets and put some1 like Bojan/Gudjohnsen, put etoo back in the middle and stop that switching with iniesta, instead he should switch with messi and keep etoo in the middle.
Why do i keep getting a feeling of the last years game against Manchester..
 
We are there, but i have that taste in my mouth that feels like we shouldn't be there, but if we play like that against Manchester we will lose.
But honestly some of those pens were absolute divings and that hand on pique and keita were ball>hand not hand>ball.
We reached the final, but it was a bad game for us and an unfortunate day for Chelsea.
 
and that red card for abidal was completly wrong Anelka own-stepped on his foot and slipped. to me we dont deserve to be there but we won it... and lets prepare for United cause They are going to do the same thing chelsea have done and the same thing united have done that got us out last year.
 
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