Its not fair that you tell us that Chelsea deserves the final, after 180 min of semi finals where the FC Barcelona was a lot better...
Also, yes, I agree, there were a lot of mistakes by the referee, but the mistakes were for both side, and in both matches. If the referee didnt showed the unfair red card to abidal, maybe the 2 penalties of ball-hand never would happened, since both situations could be solved by Abidal. Who knows?. So, Barcelona played with 1 player less thanks to a mistake of the referee. Plus that, the genius of Gus Hiddings, put a defender in the Drogba place... great. None is talking about him right now.
None is talking about the red card of Essien should get by the terrible kick to Iniesta by behind. Or Ballack played by free, after the kicks of the 1st match in Barcelona (And 2 players more easly).
None is talking about the kids hidding the ball when it comes out and barça had to re-enter the ball to the game. Wasting a lot of time!!!. Im pretty sure that Liverpool´s fans have a lot of complaints against the referee too... Or none saw that game?. Come on, its too easy to say that Chelsea deserves to win only by referee... and totally unfair. The semi finals is a game of 180 min and barça played better.
I agree that defend in both matches is a valid tactic. And they lost in their way. Barcelona deserves to be in the final.
I already said that there's no better football but a football I love and prefer. And I'm just glad because Barça defeated a team that plays with the style I hate in the 93'.
Barça got lucky of only conceding one goal, but Chelsea also got lucky scoring so soon and with such a lucky strike (Essien won't score like that again in years). So which one was the luckiest? I won't waste my time on that and prefer to talk about the offensive philosophy reward =)
Omg, seeing Chelsea drop out like that was really frustrating. First off all, what was Drogba doing? He had about three major chances to score the second goal and seal the deal, but he totally blew it. Also, the referee clearly made a lot of mistakes and should have decided for a penalty kick at least one time when Piqué deflected the ball with his hand.
Oh and to all of you who were whining about Chelsea's rigid defense: Soccer (as StarCraft btw) involves a lot of Strategy. Hence, adapting to the enemy's strategy is vital and that's what Chelsea did. Complaining about it is as stupid as complaining about a Terran building a Bunker vs a 4 Pool.
On May 07 2009 06:48 Luhh wrote: Barcelona had pretty much the same team last year and pretty much the same thing happened against united. Rather boring games. However the final Chelsea Manure was awesome.
Barca not doing anything but trying not to lose possession of the ball and United trying to score goals and win the match. Bad games just like this one, and it's not because of Chelsea backing home, they back home because Barca is simply weak against strong players and strong defense.
Barcelona is not really playing attacking football, they very seldom try to get players into scoring positions and in the box, they set up camp on the opponents half, but they don't do much trying to score so I don't see what's "attacking" about that. It's just another form of defensive play, trying to see if they get an opportunity somehow without risking losing possession.
Another person here in the thread was criticizing Alves wasting crosses. Not really. Because you have such a slim chance of scoring if you don't put a lot of power into the cross, otherwise it will simply sail into the arms of the keeper and you can't head it with power. What he's trying to do is a lot harder than simply getting the ball into the box. Take Lahm for instance, a rather overrated full back I must say, since he can't hit drive crosses worth shit, simply lame backspin flops right into the defense.
And finally - YES - to score many goals in modern football you HAVE to hit some long chancey balls or take chances and push more players into the box risking counterattack or take shots from bad angles hoping for rebounds etc etc.
Please don't use Barcelonas record against weaker teams when it comes to scoring goals, like the spanish league, spanish defense in general is plain awful, and barcelona and real are so far ahead of the others in the league resource wise it's not even funny.
Sadly, this makes Manure the best team in the world today, since they know the difference between attacking and passing the ball around, plus the have great defense and are dangerous outside the box as well as inside. They can score on corners, free kicks, counter-attacks, long shots, crosses and what have you.
Longish rant, but I felt it needed to be said looking at some of the posts in this thread.
Barcelona isn't bad, that's not what I'm saying, but they don't really play much attacking football (except against weak teams).
Attractive is subjective so I won't comment on that.
I'd rather say they play ineffective football, their defense isn't world class level compared to (pool, Manure, chelsea), they don't have enough physical strength in the squad imo, and strong headers. They'd probably benefit a lot from new central defenders and a good target player striker.
So much bullshit in this post. How the hell does Barca score 100 goals (United has scored 63 and Inter 60 in their respective leagues, as a comparison) in La Liga if they don't play attacking football?
You clearly underestimate the Spanish League; I watch it every weekend, and the quality of even the bottom teams is really high. Barca are 25 points ahead of the third team (Sevilla) in the standings, which makes it sound like Sevilla has been complete and utter shit, but that couldn't be more wrong. The third team last year (Barca) ended up with 67 points and Sevilla currently have 60, with 4 games left to play. That proves the fact that Barca are the ones who has been fantastic this season, and not the other teams being crappy. They trash really good teams as well, beating Real Madrid 6-2 on Bernabeu, Bayern München 4-0, Sevilla 4-0, Atletico Madrid 6-1, Lyon 5-2, Valencia 4-0 etc. Those are no pushovers, man.
Yes, this edition of Barca is truly a serious candidate to ''Best team ever''. Milan in the early 90's that went 52 games without losing is another hot candidate. If Barca win the league (which they will), the Cup (which they should) and CL (which they might), it will certainly put them up there.
And look at the players; the offensive trio consisting of Messi (best player in the world, 36 goals and 17 assists this season), Eto'o (32 goals) and Henry (26 goals). That's like 94 goals made by three players. Insane. Equally impressive is the midfield with Xavi (with 5 assist in El Classico, god knows how many in total), Iniesta (who outshines Messi every now and then, made 3 assist and a scored a goal in the game I went down to earlier this season) and Toure/Keita as the defensive anchor. Perfectly balanced. Dani Alves is the best full back in the world with his magical crosses (though not today), ridiculous lungs (he can run up and down his flank constantly in an unprecedented way) and great defensive/offensive skills. Puyol, Marques and Pique are all formidable centre backs. Abidal and Sylvinho do a good job on their flank. Victor Valdes in underrated as hell. He used to make some really retarded mistakes, but that is a thing of the past. The bench is great as well.
Chelsea did a fantastic job with the defence (I'm a fan of italian football, so I appreciate that type of shit :D) and the referee was a dick, which makes the victory a little bitter, but I think all in all Barca deserved to go through. Looking forward to the final!
On May 07 2009 07:18 Liquid`Drone wrote: well chelsea were clearly robbed in this game, no question about it. they shouldve gotten at least two penalties but oh well barcelona should also have had one in the first and it wouldve created an entirely different second leg..
to comment more on the general state of the games though.. I understand people who prefer watching la liga over the premier league, there are more goals and more high class technical details. however, what I don't get is this notion that barcelona played "better" or more offensive football in these two games.. they hardly created anything. in the first game they went like 80 minutes without a goalscoring opportunity, this game they went 92.. that's not quality offensive play.. possession is worthless, and I don't get whats entertaining about watching teams pass the ball between midfield players. this is where barcelona excelled over these two games, they held possession a large majority of the time. but they were not attacking with a lot of players (until the last 15 minutes), and aside from iniestas awesome shot and some off target shots, they created nothing..
so well, as impressive as barcelona has been in the la liga this season, the impression I'm left with after these two games is that this says just as much about la liga as about barcelona. Their offense is not good against a truly good defense. liverpool and united are both far more capable of scoring against this chelsea defense.
I haven't seen many actual games of barcelona this season - only a lot of highlights. im not sure whether barcelona was sub-par in these games or if chelsea made them sub-par, but I just don't get where the notion that barcelonas way of playing is more offensive than chelseas way of playing.. it doesnt create any more chances, it's just that barcelonas way of defending is to keep the ball in their team.
finals are gonna be fun as hell tho. but based on these games, united are clear and obvious favourites - what they showed against arsenal was several levels above what either chelsea or barcelona showed in these two games. anything can happen though, there's quite a lot of luck involved in 90 minutes of football.
yeah those two games have been far worse but have you forgotten the entire season before that, including champions league as well? united almost lost against porto in the quarters. barcelona defeated lyon 5-2 home. isnt that offensive football? they defeated a strong bayern münchen 4-0 home, isnt that offensive football? it's like, when they have the lead, they contintue to attack. that's the beauty. yeah both united and chelsea have a better defense than barcelona, but i don't think they come close to the total football that barcelona has shown this season.
even dynamo kiev or some random team could play with extremely defensive and put like 6 defenders and make it almost non-playable for ANY team in the world. they just need to put 1 tall striker at front and play long passes to him , i promise if the ball goes to him it will be dangerous. Im just glad playing football won today and Valdez despite criticism in big games was arguible the best player just below Iniesta. Like I read : Barcelona are a better football team than Chelsea. They proved that by limiting the Blues to containment and damage limitation. And Chelsea are not a third thier-team they are a team of multi-million euro footballers and international captains and coaches.
and just remember that all these "dangerous" plays could had been shut down if Barca had their real defenders not a last minute change of roles in players Also without Henry barca isn't the same, Iniesta plays a LOT better in the midfield and Busquets i consider not Barca main squad material. We'll see how they do against Man.U without Alvez and Abidal
lyon and bayern munchen are much worse than top english teams, uniteds games vs porto were during uniteds bad period this season and they played extremely bad compared to games vs arsenal.
I'll accept that barcelona, to a greater degree than united and chelsea (not necessarily than liverpool or arsenal though.), is a team that continues attacking after they take the lead. however, what they have been truly great at this season is demolishing (relatively) bad teams.
but in these two games, I do not accept that barcelona played more offensive than chelsea. they played more possessive, but they didn't create any more goalscoring opportunities, and only during the last 15-20 minutes of the game when they desperately needed a goal did they attack with a lot of players. in the first leg barcelona was passing the ball for long periods of time and then attempting to create chances using a couple players while maintaining perfect defensive stability, while chelsea was attempting to hinder barcelona's ability to find space between their players while trying to counter attack using a few players. neither is more offensive than the other, just that one focuses on controlling the ball a lot while the other doesn't care about possession.
I personally think that uniteds 3-0 goal vs arsenal yesterday was as beautiful as an attack as you can possibly get, and I was certainly more wowed by that than I was by any of barcelonas goals vs say, bayern munchen. not that barcelona isnt a worthy finalist, they certainly are. they're a magnificent team with several of the best and most entertaining players in the world, but they become overhyped because la liga in general has much slower pace than the EPL, and barcelona isnt able to attack the way they normally do against truly competent defense..
seriously ilj.psa.. barcelona has been demolishing team after team 4-0 or more this season.. you think any random top 40 team in europe could just defend to a draw if they play defensively? that's absolutely ridiculous, the reason why barcelona rapes all the other spanish teams is that they play at a higher speed than their opponents are able to keep up with. then they face chelsea, whom are used to playing at barcelonas pace and suddenly barcelona creates less than 5 decent goalscoring opportunities over 180 minutes..
certainly agree with a lot of your points drone. there is no doubt that chelsea and united have the best defence out there, and they certainly made barca worse these games.
but overall, barca could definitely have made a couple of goals the first leg, as well as chelsea could have made some more this. but here is what dislike about the football philosophy in most teams. they stop attack. hiddink takes out drogba and puts in another defender for the last 30 minutes. they have a home field, one more guy on the field, and play defense. oh well.
i guess we have diffrent preferences when it comes to football. im not disagreeing with the fact that the speed is higher in PL than La Liga. and that the top teams like chelsea united and liverpool have a lot better defence compared to any spanish team. after all we are talking about the top teams in the world.
but looking at both games, i can't honestly say that chelsea deserved to advance. but the fact that barcelona did score with 10 man against 11 in away field in a semi-final is an impressive feature.
On May 07 2009 06:48 Luhh wrote: Bad games just like this one, and it's not because of Chelsea backing home, they back home because Barca is simply weak against strong players and strong defense.
What does this even mean? If a team is simply weak against strong players it is one shitty team isn't it? Now I don't know what players are "strong", they've beaten teams with stronger individuals then Chelsea has. They just demolished Real, what are you even talking about. You can probably say that Chelsea has really deep and destructive midfield that will shut down any creativity, especially playing on their small home field( one guy stated that already and it was a really good point) Barcelona couldn't play as wide as they used to also that goal that Chelsea scored in the beginning completely changed the game plan. Suddenly Chelsea was able to sit back and play on counterattacks for 80 minutes. When you have such destructive midfield and athletic defense you really can make any team look helpless. They always had at least 6-8 people in the box, the only thing that Barca had to do were long shots which they couldn't even come up with. Saying that they bad vs good is absolutely meaningless.
On May 07 2009 06:48 Luhh wrote: Barcelona is not really playing attacking football, they very seldom try to get players into scoring positions and in the box, they set up camp on the opponents half, but they don't do much trying to score so I don't see what's "attacking" about that. It's just another form of defensive play, trying to see if they get an opportunity somehow without risking losing possession.
Do you make this up on your own? If you don't mind explain how you came up with this. If Barca isn't playing attacking football then who is?
On May 07 2009 06:48 Luhh wrote: And finally - YES - to score many goals in modern football you HAVE to hit some long chancey balls or take chances and push more players into the box risking counterattack or take shots from bad angles hoping for rebounds etc etc.
Indeed, Chelsea destroyed Barca in front of their box, no questions asked. I said before the game that it will be really hard for Barca just because Chelsea is probably the worst team for them to play against. But you have to consider that they defended with 8-10 players all the time, they simply left no space to fill up. If not that lucky goal they scored in the beginning, they probably wouldn't be feeling this safe.
On May 07 2009 06:48 Luhh wrote: Sadly, this makes Manure the best team in the world today, since they know the difference between attacking and passing the ball around, plus the have great defense and are dangerous outside the box as well as inside. They can score on corners, free kicks, counter-attacks, long shots, crosses and what have you.
size of camp nou 105 metres (115 yd) x 68 metres (74 yd) size of stamford bridge 113 x 73 yards (103 x 67 metres)
taken from wiki! blaming anything on stamford bridge being smaller than camp nou is absolutely ridiculous lol.. and besides, its not like barcelona was able to create much on camp nou either.
EPT![[image loading]](http://estaticos04.marca.com/albumes/2009/05/06/chelsea_barcelona/1241643098_extras_albumes_0.jpg)
but based on these games, united are clear and obvious favourites - what they showed against arsenal was several levels above what either chelsea or barcelona showed in these two games. anything can happen though, there's quite a lot of luck involved in 90 minutes of football. 
