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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
Europa League Final is tonight? :S Bit early isnt it!
Oh well predictions time.
Athletic Bilbao vs Atletico Madrid in Bucharest’s Arena Națională stadium. Kick off 7:45 BST 8:45 CEST 2:45 EDT
Side note: First ever european cup final in Romania, good luck to Bucharest, hope it all goes well 
Ateltico Madrid -
since sacking Gregorio Manzano and replacing him with club legend Diego Simeone, Atletico have battled their way up the table of La Liga, where they currently sit in fifth place with 53 points. Los Colchoneros have breezed through knockout play in the Europa League, defeating Lazio (4-1 aggregate), Besiktas (6-1), Hannover (4-2) and Valencia (5-2) to book their spot into the final. Radamel Falcao is third in La Liga’s Pichichi with 23 goals; only Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have put the ball in the back of the net more frequently.
Athletic Bilbao -
Marcelo Bielsa sends Athletic out in a formation that is probably best seen as a cross between a 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, and a 4-5-1. Along with a back four (anchored by Javi Martinez and Fernando Amorebieta) that is constantly moving (especially the full-backs Jon Aurtenetxe and Andoni Iraola bombing up the flanks), Athletic employ two holding midfielders, usually Ander Iturraspe and Oscar de Marcos. Ander Herrera plays in front of the duo and distributes balls out to the flanks, where Iker Muniain and Markel Susaeta are stationed on the left and right respectively. Last but certainly not least is Fernando Llorente; the quintessential ‘number 9′ is extremely strong and clinical in the air. With his mix of skills combining with his 6-foot-5 frame, he is one of the most dangerous target men currently in world football.
Possible Line Ups;
A.Madrid
Courtois
Juanfran, Miranda, Godin, Filipe
Suarez, Gabi
Adrian, Diego, Turan
Falcao
A.Bilbao
Iraizoz
Iraola, Martinez, Amorebieta, Aurtenetxe
De Marcos, Iturraspe, Herrera
Susaeta, Llorente, Muniain
![[image loading]](http://this11.com/boards/abCB8YVamG.jpg)
Very hard to call this one, both teams have fantastic cases to win. Bilbao for there sheer work rate and great tactically aware coach, and Madrid for their huge attacking potential. So close, so hard to call!!
Poll: ATLETICO MADRID vs ATHLETIC BILBAOATHLETIC BILBAO (9) 56% ATLETICO MADRID (7) 44% 16 total votes Your vote: ATLETICO MADRID vs ATHLETIC BILBAO (Vote): ATLETICO MADRID
(Vote): ATHLETIC BILBAO
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I really wants Athletic wins this. They dont have any international tittle because almost all his national tittles (23 Spanish Cups and 8 Ligas) are before european tittles existed.
But I dont know, Simeone Atletico is a hard team. I expect a great match.
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Hoping for Bilbao win. I dislike all the Madrid clubs. And Bilbao are just awesome.
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On May 09 2012 12:20 Rebs wrote:
Infact I can even point out a certain someone who earlier in the year claimed that they loved crisp passing football and then proceeded to bash Barcelona's playstyle as boring because all of a sudden when it was being done to their team. It wasnt so fun anymore. This forum has a lovely search function and it takes 2-3 minutes to use. But that has nothing to do with this. I have to get my cheapshots in. Im like that sorry.
Right...so you are talking about me because my first post in this thread was praising crisp passes. And I was also praising Messi and Xavi as players, and you somehow assume I was praising tiki taka football? Christ, you could try the patience of a saint, you know that? I WASN'T, always hated tiki taka always will.
When I said crisp passing football as opposed to dribbling as being my favourite expression of the game, I am talking about movements that take 3-4 passes to score a goal. High tempo. Perfectly timed passes, no tempo killing back passes. RM scored a goal like that early in the season where the commentators were saying it was a '100 million pound' goal because only like 3 players touched it and they were all the expensive ones. The Crouchie goal is a prime example of what I like to see...ruthless efficiency...not even touching the ground before being hammered into the net. Long ball from the keeper to Drogba, he turns the defender, he scores a beauty. Not 3083574059437593857349587 passes before you work into a one on one with the keeper.
Aside from that shit ^, I think ATLETICO will take this match. Athletic may be up for it but Atletico are a better side and they have 4 players who already won it a few years ago.
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Sorry but i cant not go there..
The englishman seems to like kick'n'rush. What a surprise xD
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Hoping for a Bilbao win. Should be a great match either way.
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I remember the amazing stat two seasons age when they played Fulham was that Atl. Madrid reached the final without winning a single match in regulation time. That Bilbao team just looks brilliant, though that analysis called De Marcos a defensive midfielder was quite wrong, no actually, it's completely wrong.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
On May 09 2012 20:58 Surrealistic wrote:
I remember the amazing stat two seasons age when they played Fulham was that Atl. Madrid reached the final without winning a single match in regulation time. That Bilbao team just looks brilliant, though that analysis called De Marcos a defensive midfielder was quite wrong, no actually, it's completely wrong.
Sorry, ill post my source in a sec. I used some spanish website i think it was xD thought must be pretty accurate.
Cant find the website now ;; was some spanish one
Found a pretty formation picture though :D
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New Malaysian investors of English (Welsh actually) 2nd division (Championship) team Cardiff City are about to change the Team's traditional Kit from blue to red. They also propose a change from the traditional Bird crest of the traditionally called "Blue Birds" to a red dragon, LOL.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-18001917
I for one hope the fans will tell them where they can stick their new kits. You can't just take a shit on over 100 years of tradition.
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On May 09 2012 21:20 SACtheXchng wrote:New Malaysian investors of English (Welsh actually) 2nd division (Championship) team Cardiff City are about to change the Team's traditional Kit from blue to red. They also propose a change from the traditional Bird crest of the traditionally called "Blue Birds" to a red dragon, LOL. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-18001917I for one hope the fans will tell them where they can stick their new kits. You can't just take a shit on over 100 years of tradition.
Omg, thats so McPhail.. why cant they just be hands off like the Arabs. They want your money not your ideas !
+ Show Spoiler +http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_McPhail
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Totally rooting for Bilbao, I find it pretty awesome how they only use Basque players.
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Would you say there was "rich" competition in any leagues this year ? I didnt say see any, at least not as far as title races were concerned. Its been entertaining but certainly not rich. Rather, one could say a league where you might get relegated even if you are at 40+ points is pretty rich competition.
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On May 09 2012 21:33 Sated wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 12:20 Rebs wrote:While I agree with you Sated this would be more believable if the same people not using European performance as a metric now and using things like I dont know uhh. viewership figures or even styles of play they enjoy hand changed their tunes as soon as it turned out European performance didnt favor them. Because thats what they started out with. I remember a lengthy analysis of English performance in Europe over the past decade as evidence the last time this same argument went down. + Show Spoiler +Infact I can even point out a certain someone who earlier in the year claimed that they loved crisp passing football and then proceeded to bash Barcelona's playstyle as boring because all of a sudden when it was being done to their team. It wasnt so fun anymore. This forum has a lovely search function and it takes 2-3 minutes to use. But that has nothing to do with this. I have to get my cheapshots in. Im like that sorry. That having been said Ill just leave it as a warning rather than put people on the spot. I can pretty easily pull some Jon Stewart shit and start linking them if anyone would like but thats a can of worms best left open for another day. Its the lack of consistency that annoys me. People seem to have really short memories about what they say and that makes it difficult to take them seriously because clearly the metrics they prefer are changing to the nature of their position. Not vice versa. You could after all be consistent in what you "like" right ? Which leads to people with actually sense in this thread either remaking the same reasonable claims they have been all year or others just getting driven away because they cant stand it anymore. I'm pretty consistent with what I like: I like leagues were there is rich competition. My opinion on this has never changed and never will change. I've stated before in this thread that I dislike La Liga for the same reason I dislike the Scottish Premier League: Whilst the quality of the clubs is miles apart, the competition in both leagues is a total farce. However, that's just my opinion. Although I can back it up with stats, it's still only one way of choosing a favourite league. Another person may prefer La Liga because it has the best performing players and teams (which can also be backed up by stats). They may prefer Serie A because they like the style of football Italian teams play (subjective). They may prefer League One because the fans are more passionate (less "phony" fans, also kinda subjective). Or they could prefer the league with the richest teams, most fans, most money or most viewers (all backed up by stats)... Which of these things is the most important is a very individual thing. And nobody has the right to tell someone else that the thing they find most important is wrong, because it is entirely subjective.
That's like saying you don't watch bw cause of Flash or sc2 cause of koreans in general. But you do don't you? Busted, xP. We all just wanna watch the best. You guys are just lying to yourselves in some subconsious level, lolol.
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On May 09 2012 21:43 Rebs wrote:
Would you say there was "rich" competition in any leagues this year ? I didnt say see any, at least not as far as title races were concerned. Its been entertaining but certainly not rich. Rather, one could say a league where you might get relegated even if you are at 40+ points is pretty rich competition.
Dutch competition was pretty exciting up until about 4 weeks from the end. Although the level is lower, of course, there were 6 teams within 5 points of each other going for the title at the beginning of March.
40 is a bit above the average which seems to be 35-36 for the 3rd from bottom team (for 38 games played). Not a huge difference though. But you could say the Spanish league is the toughest at the bottom right now.
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On May 09 2012 22:35 Sated wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 22:27 Steveling wrote:On May 09 2012 21:33 Sated wrote:On May 09 2012 12:20 Rebs wrote:While I agree with you Sated this would be more believable if the same people not using European performance as a metric now and using things like I dont know uhh. viewership figures or even styles of play they enjoy hand changed their tunes as soon as it turned out European performance didnt favor them. Because thats what they started out with. I remember a lengthy analysis of English performance in Europe over the past decade as evidence the last time this same argument went down. + Show Spoiler +Infact I can even point out a certain someone who earlier in the year claimed that they loved crisp passing football and then proceeded to bash Barcelona's playstyle as boring because all of a sudden when it was being done to their team. It wasnt so fun anymore. This forum has a lovely search function and it takes 2-3 minutes to use. But that has nothing to do with this. I have to get my cheapshots in. Im like that sorry. That having been said Ill just leave it as a warning rather than put people on the spot. I can pretty easily pull some Jon Stewart shit and start linking them if anyone would like but thats a can of worms best left open for another day. Its the lack of consistency that annoys me. People seem to have really short memories about what they say and that makes it difficult to take them seriously because clearly the metrics they prefer are changing to the nature of their position. Not vice versa. You could after all be consistent in what you "like" right ? Which leads to people with actually sense in this thread either remaking the same reasonable claims they have been all year or others just getting driven away because they cant stand it anymore. I'm pretty consistent with what I like: I like leagues were there is rich competition. My opinion on this has never changed and never will change. I've stated before in this thread that I dislike La Liga for the same reason I dislike the Scottish Premier League: Whilst the quality of the clubs is miles apart, the competition in both leagues is a total farce. However, that's just my opinion. Although I can back it up with stats, it's still only one way of choosing a favourite league. Another person may prefer La Liga because it has the best performing players and teams (which can also be backed up by stats). They may prefer Serie A because they like the style of football Italian teams play (subjective). They may prefer League One because the fans are more passionate (less "phony" fans, also kinda subjective). Or they could prefer the league with the richest teams, most fans, most money or most viewers (all backed up by stats)... Which of these things is the most important is a very individual thing. And nobody has the right to tell someone else that the thing they find most important is wrong, because it is entirely subjective. That's like saying you don't watch bw cause of Flash or sc2 cause of koreans in general. But you do don't you? Busted, xP. We all just wanna watch the best. You guys are just lying to yourselves in some subconsious level, lolol. What? How stupid are you? "Koreans" are not one entity, competition exists between those Korean players. Just watch the Korean Weekly if you don't believe me, top pros are getting beaten by "no-name" players all the time. There is loads of competition. As for BW, I don't like BW.
Why resort to such bm as this? That means I'm right and you got heated.
As for the meaning of my observation. You have 6 foreigners in your signature. Yet you watch sc2 inspite that they keep dominated by koreans, that's what I meant.
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On May 09 2012 22:55 Sated wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 22:49 Steveling wrote:On May 09 2012 22:35 Sated wrote:On May 09 2012 22:27 Steveling wrote:On May 09 2012 21:33 Sated wrote:On May 09 2012 12:20 Rebs wrote:While I agree with you Sated this would be more believable if the same people not using European performance as a metric now and using things like I dont know uhh. viewership figures or even styles of play they enjoy hand changed their tunes as soon as it turned out European performance didnt favor them. Because thats what they started out with. I remember a lengthy analysis of English performance in Europe over the past decade as evidence the last time this same argument went down. + Show Spoiler +Infact I can even point out a certain someone who earlier in the year claimed that they loved crisp passing football and then proceeded to bash Barcelona's playstyle as boring because all of a sudden when it was being done to their team. It wasnt so fun anymore. This forum has a lovely search function and it takes 2-3 minutes to use. But that has nothing to do with this. I have to get my cheapshots in. Im like that sorry. That having been said Ill just leave it as a warning rather than put people on the spot. I can pretty easily pull some Jon Stewart shit and start linking them if anyone would like but thats a can of worms best left open for another day. Its the lack of consistency that annoys me. People seem to have really short memories about what they say and that makes it difficult to take them seriously because clearly the metrics they prefer are changing to the nature of their position. Not vice versa. You could after all be consistent in what you "like" right ? Which leads to people with actually sense in this thread either remaking the same reasonable claims they have been all year or others just getting driven away because they cant stand it anymore. I'm pretty consistent with what I like: I like leagues were there is rich competition. My opinion on this has never changed and never will change. I've stated before in this thread that I dislike La Liga for the same reason I dislike the Scottish Premier League: Whilst the quality of the clubs is miles apart, the competition in both leagues is a total farce. However, that's just my opinion. Although I can back it up with stats, it's still only one way of choosing a favourite league. Another person may prefer La Liga because it has the best performing players and teams (which can also be backed up by stats). They may prefer Serie A because they like the style of football Italian teams play (subjective). They may prefer League One because the fans are more passionate (less "phony" fans, also kinda subjective). Or they could prefer the league with the richest teams, most fans, most money or most viewers (all backed up by stats)... Which of these things is the most important is a very individual thing. And nobody has the right to tell someone else that the thing they find most important is wrong, because it is entirely subjective. That's like saying you don't watch bw cause of Flash or sc2 cause of koreans in general. But you do don't you? Busted, xP. We all just wanna watch the best. You guys are just lying to yourselves in some subconsious level, lolol. What? How stupid are you? "Koreans" are not one entity, competition exists between those Korean players. Just watch the Korean Weekly if you don't believe me, top pros are getting beaten by "no-name" players all the time. There is loads of competition. As for BW, I don't like BW. Why resort to such bm as this? That means I'm right and you got heated. As for the meaning of my observation. You have 6 foreigners in your signature. Yet you watch sc2 inspite that they keep dominated by koreans, that's what I meant. I'm not a glory-hunter. The players and teams that I support have no bearing on whether or not I find the scene entertaining and competitive. By your logic, everyone should support Barcelona Chelsea (kekekeke).
Where did I mention anything about supporting. You don't have to support MMA or MVP to watch the GSL finals am I right?
Let me prove it to you, you do watch the clasicos every year right? And I won't believe you if you say otherwise.
And you watch them because you want to see the best, doesn't matter that you don't support either of them.
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EPT
