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UEFA Champions League 2015/2016

Soaking up the clock is normal in these sort of matches @Bayern they must of had balls on the pitch at every whistle blown. I think RM played very defensive and was looking to get on the counter, but MCity didn't bring too much to the attacking end. Kevin was not at his best but 1 goal away from a final is the hard pill to swallow .
 
It's just blatant gaming of the system. GKs don't have to come off like outfield players so surprise surprise Oblak and Navas get 'injured'.
They need to stop it by forcing Real/Atletico (in this case) to send one player to the touchline in the GK's place. Only way it'll be stopped
 
zeemeister said:
I don't get the Pep hate honestly.

On topic the real vs Man city game is the worst semi final that I can remember in a long time.

With a route that real had would be a travesty if they win this year
PSG
Shakhtar
Malmö
Roma
Wolfsburg
City
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And one the other side you've got Atlético who have only played domestic champions including the holders of the Champions League as well in Barça. Looking at it, it can't be a co-incidence. Real on one side of the draw, and Bayern, Barça, Atlético and Juve on the other.
 
Godotelli said:
It's just blatant gaming of the system. GKs don't have to come off like outfield players so surprise surprise Oblak and Navas get 'injured'.
They need to stop it by forcing Real/Atletico (in this case) to send one player to the touchline in the GK's place. Only way it'll be stopped
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Mate, your team has been shocking for a while now. The 2 semis you played had me wondering how the hell you lot got this far in the competition and imo is not indicative of the capability of this team.

Things I don't understand:
Resting players who clearly need game time.
Forcing players who clearly need rest and a completely incorrect game plan.
The first leg I looked in disdain as an city tried long raking balls from deep to Aguero, which is ridiculous to try against the like of Ramos and Pepe arguably the strongest part of their game. The only time they conjured up any form of dynamism resulted in a strike against the post.

The lack of urgency was another, they seemed scared to attack until it was too late so complaining about a goalkeepers/ time wasting is a bit of a joke to me, especially considering the ref added a lot of extra, extra - time. No team should have such an easy semi final again.

Imo the away goal rule needs to be changed. It's actually causing teams to play more conservatively rather than trying to score goals and you could fluke your way through.

I want to pep haters to look at how you lot played now versus the changes he will bring. I can't wait to see it.
 
I can't stand that stupid away goal rule. Reminds me of the silly rules we used to make up as kids on the streets. 1 goal is 1 goal. Simple.
 
I don't hate Pep, i simply have doubts...is he that good?
I also love the football his teams are playing. I always defended tiki taka and what he does with Bayern is even better football when they are good.

I'm sure he will also transform Manchester City. But City is a team that always has played rather attractive football, they are a very imbalanced team and need better defenders and DMF's (although Fernandinho and Fernando amazed me in the CL, but against Real Madrid they were simply not good enough).

On the other hand consider this about Pep.
For three seasons now he has been caoch of the team that dominates the Bundesliga. I don't underestimate clubs like Dortmund, Wolfsburg, Schalke and others, but Bayern are a cut above them.

What does Pep do as coach of Bayern?

Three times his Bayern team takes a flying start, dominate everybody and everything but when it's big money time, the team has lost it's momentum...3 times Bayern are at their weakest when things matter most... That is bad coaching...that is not about the style of football (his style of football is great), it's about results.

Resultswise Guardiola failed at Bayern. It is no coïncidence that one of his biggest idols is Marcelo Bielsa...Pep has the same flaws as Bielsa.

Now i'm sure that Guardiola fans with laugh at this comparision, they will say that i should look at Bilsa's palmares and that of Guardiola. That is true.

But wich club teams did Bielsa coach?
Newells Old Boys (a good team but not a giant team in South America, he reached the final of the Coppa Libetadores with then and lost against Sao Paolo).
Athletic de Bilbao (he reached the final of the Euro League and lost after a stunning match). This with a club that doesn't buy non Basque players, a severe handicap. Imagine Barcelona with only Catalans (no Messi, no Iniesta, no Villa, no Eto'o, no Yaya Touré, no Alba for example) or Bayern with only players from the Bayern region (no Robben, no Ribery, no Alaba, no Neuer, no Boateng, no Xabi Alonso, no Thiago, no Lewandowski).

His second European club was Marseille. I would like to see Pep in action at Marseille...current Marseille that is, against PSG and Monaco....

Oh and the football Bielsa played was stunning with both Bilbao and Marseille. Just like with the Chilean national team.

Is Pep a bad coach? No, he is a world class coach.
Did he succede at Bayern? No. Bayern and Pep will both agree with that.
Didhe made mistake while being coachat Bayern? Yes, he made colossal mistakes (the bad form when things matter most and also his team selection in Madrid).

I would like to see Pep with clubs like Bilabo, Marseille.

In fact i wonder how Guardiolaa would have done with Leicester...we will never know of course...

And then to conclude, my friend zeemeister. Stop with calling people haters if they are critical of the people you like...it is stupid to hate people you don't personally know..i'm not stupid. No hard feelings.
 
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zeemeister said:
Mate, your team has been shocking for a while now. The 2 semis you played had me wondering how the hell you lot got this far in the competition and imo is not indicative of the capability of this team.

Things I don't understand:
Resting players who clearly need game time.
Forcing players who clearly need rest and a completely incorrect game plan.
The first leg I looked in disdain as an city tried long raking balls from deep to Aguero, which is ridiculous to try against the like of Ramos and Pepe arguably the strongest part of their game. The only time they conjured up any form of dynamism resulted in a strike against the post.

The lack of urgency was another, they seemed scared to attack until it was too late so complaining about a goalkeepers/ time wasting is a bit of a joke to me, especially considering the ref added a lot of extra, extra - time. No team should have such an easy semi final again.

Imo the away goal rule needs to be changed. It's actually causing teams to play more conservatively rather than trying to score goals and you could fluke your way through.

I want to pep haters to look at how you lot played now versus the changes he will bring. I can't wait to see it.
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I'm not using it as an excuse. I've already said we lost it in the 1st leg imo, in particular when Silva went off injured. I don't disagree that we were poor, the tactics were shocking etc. I've been counting the days for when Pellegrini and a few of the players leave for a while now. The last 18 months of Pellegrini's reign has been shocking. The only bright sparks have been the LC win, Iheanacho and the appointment of Pep

I'm just pointing out how it needs looking at in general..
 
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gerd said:
I don't hate Pep, i simply have doubts...is he that good?
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IMO it is not a given that Bayern win Bundesliga every year. This year's Dortmund would have been champion most years for example.

How do you think Bayern consistently stomped the league for three years, no matter who was on the field? They didn't before him and I'm quite confident they won't when he's gone.
They seem to win almost every game so comfortably, teams started collecting yellow cards on purpose so their players would be banned against Bayern. Losing even before kick-off is unheard of to me on this level.

Up until the 2nd half of this season Guardiola had a different game plan every week, greatly adapting to each opponent, setting up his team to exploit weaknesses and suppress strengths. Often his ideas did not work too well and he adapted within 20-30 mins and if necessary again and again.
Bayern don't just control games by default.
Opponents need to be strangled. Your own players need to be put in a position to succeed. Other than maybe Robben nobody in that squad is going to win you the game if you just let them play.

Obviously he did not achieve perfection. As you said, Bayern tend to lose form in spring and important players seem to get injured unusually often, especially this time of the year. May be Pep's fault, may be someone else's, may just be bad luck, I don't know.


Is there another coach up there with him as far as consistently winning games over multiple seasons, though? Can only think of Simeone (who might just be even better). Maybe Allegri at Juve also?


That is only talking about success and not even mentioning what he offered to football as a whole. Memorable & historically dominant performances vs Roma, Juve & now Atleti for example. Tactically he build an unrivalled counterpress and invented new roles to make use of his players' strengths, like SB/DM-hybrid-Lahm & half-space-Libero-Alaba.
I'm confident by next year I won't be the only neutral Bayern watcher who's gonna miss him. Pep games were always interesting. Often I watched even though I knew the outcome. Let that sink in..


gerd said:
Did he succede at Bayern? No. Bayern and Pep will both agree with that.
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I'm not so sure they'd actually agree, especially Pep himself.


edit:
I'm not even sure why I wrote this post. I disagree with evaluating coaches by points/achievements. Performance is more indicative of goodness/quality to me.
 
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Didn't buy Bayern rather comfortably win the league the season before Pep got there? Hell, LVG won the league with Bayern, and he can't manage his way out of a bathroom at the moment.

Pep and Jose will always be colored with the 'you've only managed the best team in the league/world' brush until they do otherwise. Is it easy to take that Barca squad and win the treble? No. Is it easier than taking Valencia and doing the same? Of course.

If Jose does come to United, than he'll be taking over a team that will have come 7th, 4th, 5/6th in their league, so if he can win with that, it'll be more impressive imo than winning La Liga with Real.

I think Pep will win the league with City next year because City have the best squad this year and will undoubtedly fix a few of the areas that need tweaking. Pelligrini has hugely underperformed given the players he has, and Pep will remedy that just by being someone new.

But for either to be considered true greats, imo they need to take a team and build it up. You could definitely point to Jose's Porto (jammy f*ckers) but Pep has never had to do that. I'm sure at some opint he'll want to.
 
beachryan said:
If Jose does come to United, than he'll be taking over a team that will have come 7th, 4th, 5/6th in their league, so if he can win with that, it'll be more impressive imo than winning La Liga with Real.
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This logic never made sense to me.
To win a league you don't need to reach a certain treshold of goodness, you just need to be better than the 2nd best team. If you wanna win Serie A, you gotta be better than Juve, Ligue 1 - PSG, Bundesliga - Bayern, La Liga Barca & Atleti. To win the EPL you have to be better than... :?
All those teams would be instantly title favorites if they played in the EPL. Winning La Liga with Real IS harder than winning EPL with United because United don't have teams like Barca & Atleti in their League who gobble up close to the max amount of points. There is less room for error.
 
Chenghis.Khan said:
This logic never made sense to me.
To win a league you don't need to reach a certain treshold of goodness, you just need to be better than the 2nd best team. If you wanna win Serie A, you gotta be better than Juve, Ligue 1 - PSG, Bundesliga - Bayern, La Liga Barca & Atleti. To win the EPL you have to be better than... :?
All those teams would be instantly title favorites if they played in the EPL. Winning La Liga with Real IS harder than winning EPL with United because United don't have teams like Barca & Atleti in their League who gobble up close to the max amount of points. There is less room for error.
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That's crap right there. In a weak league in a sense you're right - it comes down to 2 matches a season as with La Liga most years. But in a stronger, more balanced league - especially this year in the prem - about 15 of the teams on their day are genuinely good.

Do you really think when there are about a dozen matches a year in La Liga with scorelines at about 8-0 that the bottom teams are any good?

Barca and Real have squads that are so superior to about 15 teams in their league as to render the matches meaningless. That's not hyperbole, look at how often they lose to those teams. It's often literally 1 in 25 years. That's not competitive.
 
I'm not sure if the EPL is a stronger league than La Liga and the Bundesliga. This year the EPL was more balanced but is that because the league grow stronger? No, because the top teams underachieved. Makes this a league stronger? No.

In the end what i will write now is easy because nobody will ever know, but i have a feeling that in the current EPL Bayern would win the league 9 times out of 10.

Is it hard to win the CL? For most clubs it is impossible. The clubs who can win only have to elimnate each other. About which clubs am i talking? Well: Real Madrid and Barcelona, Juventus (the last two seasons) and Bayern Munchen. Perhaps also Atletico who seemingly keep punching above their weight, but maybe that is not true, maybe they are already among the really big sides.

All the other clubs would be surprise winners, Manchester City and PSG included.

The CL also proves that one can't really buy into success.: PSG won it never, City neither and Chelsea won it once and that was kind of a freak win.

I think that traditional power houses (and the clubs i mentioned who really can win it are all traditional power houses) have a bigger chance to win it than the nouveaux riche clubs. I'm also talking about clubs like Manchester United (currently not, but they will be there in acouple of years), Liverpool, Dortmund, Porto and Benfica now and then...

Those clubs are also rich and on top of that they still have universal appeal to all good players...

If Pep can win the CL and the EPL with City, that will be very strong. IMO City are still a long way off being contenders for the CL win because since Mansour took over, they Always had a very unbalanced squad (just like PSG and Chelsea). If Pep could win the CL with the current crop of players at City, then he is a god...but you will see a major overhaul in the summer...
 
Godotelli said:
The PL would gobble up PSG
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Possibly. With Verratti fit, I don't think so. Difference of opinion is where this hypothetical should end, probably.

beachryan said:
...in a stronger, more balanced league - especially this year in the prem - about 15 of the teams on their day are genuinely good.

Do you really think when there are about a dozen matches a year in La Liga with scorelines at about 8-0 that the bottom teams are any good?

Barca and Real have squads that are so superior to about 15 teams in their league as to render the matches meaningless.
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Do you know the bottom half teams in the PL & La Liga well enough to judge their strength? I know I don't. I just believe Barca (& Bayern) are that much stronger than any English team. I believe they'd get some of those 7-1, 8-0 type results in any league. I know the BL lightweigths actually defend well against Bayern, the difference to CL teams like Atleti is that they almost never manage to break free and threaten on the counter (or dare to press high and force Bayern into mistakes like Juve & Gladbach did this season).


gerd said:
...a very unbalanced squad (just like PSG and Chelsea).
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You think PSG have an unbalanced squad this year? To me this squad is great. They could do with a better 2nd CB, left sided forward & backup for Verratti & Motta, though.
 
PSG: imo they only got one decent defender (Thiago Silva) and a second that is underused (Marquinhos).
Without Veratti, their midfield is vulnerable.
Zaltan won't last for years any more.
Trapp is nothing special.

I only see 3 world class players: Zlatan (fading), Veratti and Thiago Silva (maybe Marquinhos).

With the current squad, PSG will never win the CL.
 
You don't rate Matuidi (absolute world class to me, love this guy) & di Maria? Wow. Do they even suffer much whenever Zlatan doesn't play? Awesome player but not sure he's that valuable. I do also like Pastore & Moura as bench guys. All the SBs seem decent. Motta (with Verratti) & Cavani (as CF) are good. Don't really have an opinion on Trapp, Marquinhos & Rabiot. I think Thiago Silva's extreme excellence often makes up for his partners' deficiencies (but yeah, he should get a better partner).
 
Matuidi is a very important player, always active and helping teammates.
against City, usual midlefied was missing, the 3 players are in the top 10 of pass success % in Europe
(Matuidi suspended, Verratti injured, Motta too)
 
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Chenghis.Khan said:
You don't rate Matuidi (absolute world class to me, love this guy) & di Maria? Wow. Do they even suffer much whenever Zlatan doesn't play? Awesome player but not sure he's that valuable. I do also like Pastore & Moura as bench guys. All the SBs seem decent. Motta (with Verratti) & Cavani (as CF) are good. Don't really have an opinion on Trapp, Marquinhos & Rabiot. I think Thiago Silva's extreme excellence often makes up for his partners' deficiencies (but yeah, he should get a better partner).
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I think Matuidi is a good player but he's more an important player within a system than a world class one in his own right. Bit like Fernandinho.

Di Maria is one of the most overrated players I've seen in football. His form in Ligue 1 means little. He's had only a few months at Real where he was consistently playing at a high level. He was abysmal in England.

I tend to agree with Gerd on this. T. Silva and Verratti are class. Haven't seen enough of Marquinhos. Zlatan was top class at least. Hard to judge him when he plays in Ligue 1, was about as useful as a chocolate teapot vs us, so I hope he comes to the PL so we can find out

I don't rate PSG very highly and think they would find it tough in the PL. A poor City team with injuries, ageing players, poor form and a dismal season had an easy time of it over both legs, only conceding from an offside goal and basically booting the ball in our own net. It was 3rd gear stuff. Against a really poor Chelsea the score was only 2-1 each time too.
 
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PSG have no back-up striker apart from two youth players (Augustin and Ongenda, who both aren't really strikers). Cavani and Ibrahimovic are both starters but they have no one apart from them. With Ibrahimovic leaving, I wonder who they'll go after.
 
Damjan said:
PSG have no back-up striker apart from two youth players (Augustin and Ongenda, who both aren't really strikers). Cavani and Ibrahimovic are both starters but they have no one apart from them. With Ibrahimovic leaving, I wonder who they'll go after.
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Lukaku?
 
I think they could very well switch to a 4-3-3 with Di María and Lucas (perhaps Hazard if they sign him, would make sense) on the wings. Zlatan has been playing very deep this season, almost more like a number ten. Put Cavani in his native role upfront, it should work.

I don't know if Lukaku would fit in PSG's system, atleast not as a starter. For a team as dominate as PSG is in Ligue 1 he needs to be able to link-up well as Godotelli pointed out.

Will be a very interesting summer. United, City, Chelsea, PSG and who knows, maybe even Arsenal investing big.
 
The best team lost the final.
Real's goal clearly was offside.
In the end the final was won by Ronaldo who imo once again proved he is not a big match player.
Gutted for Atletico.


Perhaps Simeone could have started the match more offensive.
 
Cristiano Ronaldo was injured, he had only participated in two trainings before the match, as I read somewhere during the week.

For me, both teams could have won this year's Champions League.

Atletico's journey to the final was something exceptional.

Real Madrid's statistics were impressive, as well.


Oblak made a great match but his performance on penalties seems to be bad. Juanfran's penalty hit the post and Simeone lost another final, maybe because Real Madrid is generally better on penalties. That's all.
 
Happy Real won, especially if I see Simeone's behavior once again. The worst was during penalties at the fans, that is simply over the top. Oblak did a great match, but he seems to not have a clue about penalties (at least during shootouts...Müller :CRY:).

In general I have to say this was one of the more boring finals of the last years. Still feel like the next years won't be any different in terms of semi-final contestants... :/
 
Ramos man of the game ? Did you see Gabi ?
Ramos goal offside.
No PK on Torres.
Ramos should take a red card after the foul on Carrasco

So mamy mistakes
 
Ronaldo, Bale, Marcelo, ... I was impressed to see how much they was tired but with great mental, they continued to play and finally scored their PK
 
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I was impress by Bale and Casemiro. I think Carrasco pulled a Pardew celebration.
I like Cholo but he`s a lil crazy loon :LOL:
 
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