So just to clarify, the only way Chelsea moves ahead is if they win and Juventus loses to Shaktar, correct? If that's the case, why not just wait until that game is played to fire Matteo? I mean, does the team really think they can get a better performance from an interim manager in this game?

11/21/2012 1:20:23 PM

There was war in the locker room, they've lost like 5 straight and he was being a fucking idiot benching all of the strikers. Even in the big picture, the team was on a downward spiral from in the premier league.

Quote :

"Rescue club in turmoil, win Champions League against all odds, add on FA Cup for the hell of it, get sacked 6 months later"

I thought drogba left for money

[Edited on November 21, 2012 at 1:30 PM. Reason : k]

11/21/2012 1:29:00 PM

drogba left because it was a fucking disgrace

11/22/2012 11:37:02 AM

lolol

11/22/2012 3:00:09 PM

Downing is playing left back for Liverpool in their Europa League game. He doesn't look terrible.

11/22/2012 4:33:46 PM

I think Henderson is playing right back as well. Pool are passing the ball pretty nicely.

11/22/2012 4:41:30 PM

I like young boys.

11/25/2012 4:37:06 PM

god Arsenal is so terrible

12/4/2012 4:34:51 PM

City throws the match to make sure they don't have to play in the Europa League. Fails to win a single match. lol.

12/4/2012 4:43:29 PM

12/11/2012 6:18:19 PM

Round of 16
Galatasaray v Schalke 04
Celtic v Juventus
Arsenal v Bayern Munich
Shakhtar Donetsk v Borussia Dortmund
AC Milan v Barcelona
Real Madrid v Manchester United
Valencia v Paris Saint-Germain
FC Porto v Malaga

12/20/2012 7:39:46 AM

u mad united?

12/20/2012 9:02:02 AM

OMG, this is tough...

12/20/2012 9:32:36 AM

i like it! Go ManU

12/20/2012 9:34:11 AM

Galatasaray Schalke and Porto Malaga

12/20/2012 9:52:08 AM

Pep to Bayern in the summer

1/16/2013 11:45:54 AM

Shows how far German football has come really. Its a good hire for Bayern. A real test for Pep as well. Bayern is a very talented team but surely not as talented as Barca and Dortmund should offer them some great competition. The Bundesliga is very underrated and the La Liga is so overly hyped. FIFA making the world XI all La Liga players is a freaking joke. I absolutely despise the La Liga and their 'beautiful' football crap.

1/16/2013 12:00:12 PM

Sick and tired of Pep Guardiola talk. I hope Bayern miss out on CL

[Edited on January 16, 2013 at 12:12 PM. Reason : next year, obviously]

1/16/2013 12:09:19 PM

Bundesliga is really good. Anytime I've watched it I've been impressed. I just don't speak German and its harder to get into it when not many other people watch it.

1/16/2013 5:19:08 PM

mouth-watering Round of 16 Matches 2 through 7 are all going to be bad ass.

And any Man U fan bitching about having to play Real Madrid (though to be fair, I haven't heard any doing so) should reflect that you guys always get ridiculously easy groups while Man City has to play likes of RM, Bayern Munich, Dortmund and Napoli in their group stages.

I'm particularly looking forward to taking a closer look at Paris St. Germain...I haven't watched much of Thiago Silva, but I saw a quote from Ibra in which he called him the best defender in the world (lthough Ibra comes off as a bit of a bullshitter, admittedly)

also, Shakhtar v Dortmund should be phenomenal. I'm tempted to lay $50 on Dortmund winning the whole Champions League, although they'd have to have a good day to beat Barcelona.

1/25/2013 1:15:47 PM

^

United get easy draws in the group stages because of seeding, which rewards teams who have performed well in the CL for the past x years.

1/25/2013 1:45:55 PM

I guess you are right...here are the four pots.

POT ONE CHELSEA, Barcelona, MANCHESTER UNITED, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, ARSENAL, Porto, AC Milan.

POT TWO Valencia, Benfica, Shakhtar Donetsk, Zenit St Petersburg, Schalke, MANCHESTER CITY, Braga, Dynamo Kiev.

POT THREE Olympiakos, Ajax, Anderlecht, Juventus, Spartak Moscow, Paris Saint-Germain, Lille, Galatasaray.

POT FOUR Celtic, Borussia Dortmund, BATE Borisov, Dinamo Zagreb, Cluj, Malaga, Montpellier, Nordsjaelland.

So I guess it's no surprise that City got a tougher group than United.
Still, Braga, Galatasaray and Cluj make for a mighty soft group, even for a top seed. And United seem to get soft groups/knockout stage draws pretty frequently, at least in recent years.

1/25/2013 2:19:36 PM

We've got almost all the teams in the pots mentioned above. And FWIW, we've gone out to those "tough" teams too...

1/25/2013 2:47:47 PM

yeah, you could probably handle Valencia, PSG, Celtic, etc w/o too much trouble...but at least the victories wouldn't be gimmes and you'd have to work hard for your qualification

I'm just saying I'd like to see Man U in a group that looked something like Benfica. Juve. Celtic...that would be refreshing

with all the power and talent that Man U have, it's sort of disgusting to see them get easy draws

1/25/2013 4:10:22 PM

Spends a billion pounds on current team, still can't make it out of the group stages.

1/25/2013 4:19:43 PM

I think the seeding is done with all European competitions as the greatest weight. I think that's why Porto is so high up because they won the Europa League and usually make it to the knockout stages or so in CL. Maybe taking the Euros seriously is can be a good idea for clubs looking to challenge the top teams.

1/25/2013 4:28:14 PM

Quote :

"with all the power and talent that Man U have, it's sort of disgusting to see them get easy draws"

wat

ginjaninja already explained why united draws the groups they do


they also consistently perform and make quarter, semi, and finals.... can't get upset at them being placed in pot A because they perform. no different from Bayern or Barca - and no one complains at their groups, filled with 'cupcakes' of equal stature to those united get.

1/25/2013 9:50:08 PM

My point is that Man U have, often of late, gotten lucky even from the perspective of a top-seeded team (which place I don't dispute they earned)

Here are this season's groups:

Bayern Munich
Valencia CF
FC BATE Borisov
LOSC Lille

Barcelona
Celtic FC
SL Benfica
FC Spartak Moskva

Man U
Galatasaray AS
CFR 1907 Cluj
SC Braga

The last group, Man U's, is pretty clearly the easiest. It's got not one, but TWO teams that I (and maybe you) had never even heard of before this season; and Galatasaray aren't particularly strong either, compared to Valencia or Celtic/Benfica.

If it was just this season, I wouldn't even have mentioned it; but Man U seem to have gotten a lot of easy draws of late. So after that, it's nice to see them get a bitch of a draw in the Round of 16, that's all

1/26/2013 12:57:00 AM

if you haven't heard of a team then you're really not in any position to judge the strength of that team, are you?

1/26/2013 12:20:17 PM

^
tomorrow morning, Chelsea will play Brentford in the FA Cup.

Who do you think is going win that game?

Have you ever heard of Brentford? No? Then what makes you think they won't beat Chelsea?

1/26/2013 12:47:30 PM

yes, i have heard of brentford. any team in england from the premier league to league one i've most definitely heard of. past that it gets sketchy.

but comparing lower league teams in england to european teams that earned their places in the champions league is apples and oranges.

1/26/2013 12:57:29 PM

^
I disagree

Brentford obviously come from a shit division in England football and have never made it to the Premier League in all the years I've been watching it, so it seems pretty likely that they suck

similarly, CFR 1907 Cluj obviously come from a shit league in European football and have never popped up on my CL radar in all the years I've been watching (although admittedly they seem to have made it in 08-09), so it seems pretty likely that they suck

in certain contexts, you can judge a team based on whether you've heard of them or not. those judgments aren't always accurate, but in their essential truth (whether a team sucks or not) they usually are.

and w/ ref to Cluj I mean "suck" by Champions League standards, of course.

[Edited on January 26, 2013 at 1:26 PM. Reason : hwktjek]

1/26/2013 1:24:31 PM

i would say the only time you can judge a team based on whether you've heard of them or not is if they're playing a major side like ManU, Madrid, etc. in this instance i would agree that the bigger club should win.

but you make it sound as though a team like Celtic should trounce a team like Braga simply because you've never heard of Braga, and this just isn't the case. Celtic come from a shit league where their only competition just got tossed down to the third division. the only reason you've heard of them is b/c they used to be somebodies.

[Edited on January 26, 2013 at 1:34 PM. Reason : .]

1/26/2013 1:32:22 PM

Quote :

"a team like Celtic should trounce a team like Braga simply because you've never heard of Braga,"

that's not the impression I'm trying to convey (although I guess my Brentford comparison might have suggested that it was)

what I do mean is that I'd much rather have Braga in my group than Celtic or Benfica or Lille. because I've heard of all those other teams, which means they've made multiple appearances in the Champions League in the past, and are therefore probably going to be harder to crack than Braga will. sometimes the obscure teams will be better than the teams with some history; but that's very much the exception.

[Edited on January 26, 2013 at 1:53 PM. Reason : pko]

1/26/2013 1:38:12 PM

Braga have a higher UEFA coefficient (a measure of results from european competition) than both Celtic and Lille.

1/26/2013 5:36:21 PM

Also, you're completely disregarding the fact that teams like Braga and Cluj have to fight their way through qualifying rounds every year to make it to the group stages - and they do it consistently, year after year.


Teams like Braga and Cluj are actualy UCL regulars - there's new money teams in the competition like Malaga who were absolute ASS before 2 years ago and would've gotten their asses handed to them by Braga, Cluj, or Galatasaray.


And honestly a Gala - Malaga game wouldn't be cut and dry today, even with Malaga playing as well as they are

[Edited on January 26, 2013 at 6:11 PM. Reason : .]

1/26/2013 6:10:00 PM

i just want to add that i'm not trying to say that ManU didn't have one of the easy groups, they did. but i don't think there are any games that a big team is going to win just by showing up anymore. everybody plays everybody hard, unless you're ManCity. in which case you tank against Dortmund in your final game b/c you think you're too good for europa league.

1/26/2013 6:20:03 PM

Quote :

"Braga have a higher UEFA coefficient (a measure of results from european competition) than both Celtic and Lille."

Hmm...a very good point. Still, Celtic qualified in what was probably a tougher group than Braga's (though they haven't made it to the knockout stages nearly as consistently.) (I won't argue Lille; they pretty much sucked this year, and they seem to have sucked

But your point about obscure (to me) teams from obscure league being able to hold their own against better-known sides stands (since I picked a random team in ManU's group that I figured probably sucked at European competition, and they turned out not to suck.) You win.

Quote :

"teams like Braga and Cluj have to fight their way through qualifying rounds every year to make it to the group stages - and they do it consistently, year after year."

This appears to be quite true...Cluj have made it to the group stages four out of the five past years, and Braga two of the past three.

Quote :

"but i don't think there are any games that a big team is going to win just by showing up anymore. "

I have to agree with this as well...teams like Nordsjælland that everybody else just runs over seem to be pretty rare these days.

Yay for Man U having to play Real Madrid, though. If they win, I will give them much more props then I gave them, for example, for beating Schalke in the Semis two years ago. 'Cause Real Madrid are much more famous than Schakle, so they must be way better.


[Edited on January 26, 2013 at 8:56 PM. Reason : qr]

1/26/2013 8:41:52 PM

Quote :

"teams like Nordsjælland..."

yeah...cus it's the exceptions that prove the rule, isn't it?

1/26/2013 9:52:43 PM

I think I got unlucky with Kluj...but whatever.

1/27/2013 12:09:10 AM

Look, the bottom line is that it's called the Champion's League for a reason.

1/27/2013 10:20:01 AM

But some champions are better than others, blah blah...still, on the whole I agree. Every team is pretty damned good and no one is likely to downright run-over somebody else, except in fairly rare cases.

1/27/2013 1:44:33 PM

Galatasaray sign Sneijder AND Drogba in the same week. Wow.

1/28/2013 10:59:37 PM

ANYONE know how I can find out if Barcelona is playing between August 10th-24th range as I will be visiting!?

1/28/2013 11:03:30 PM

Based of this year's fixture list, they played on the 19th (La Liga) and 23rd (Super Cup) of August.

They might have a friendly the week before starting the season.

1/28/2013 11:12:07 PM

I just read that Bayern have conceded ONE goal at home all season.

That's just ridiculous.

2/4/2013 2:51:19 PM

AC Milan's VP calls their own Ballotelli "negretto di famiglia" or translated from Italian "the family's little nigga." WTF mate?

2/6/2013 10:17:05 AM

2/11/2013 1:03:55 PM

Quote :

"Valencia have not lost a Champions League home game since September 2010 (1-0 v Man Utd) - a run of nine fixtures."

Valencia vs. PSG today at the Mestalla

2/12/2013 8:02:36 AM

2-1 PSG. Ibra has a knack for CL goals

I'm a bit intrigued by Celtic/Juve. Juve is clearly the better side, but I think they would take a draw in a second today knowing they'll win in Turin and go through.

2/12/2013 9:30:13 AM