I guess its time for this again. I'll post some crucial info soon. just wanted to get the thread I guess

arsenlol appear to be through to the group stage gettin in good shape after first leg

[Edited on August 18, 2009 at 4:36 PM. Reason : f]

8/18/2009 4:35:28 PM

If you're going to make a thread about a niche sport at least have some enthusiasm. Using 'I guess' multiple times doesn't get anyone excited.

8/18/2009 8:57:16 PM

^^Yeh that sucks! I was hoping Celtic would win.

8/18/2009 9:08:09 PM

8/18/2009 9:16:23 PM

^LOL! It isn't that big of a deal to me, but I am just sick of seeing 3 English teams in the simi-finals every year. European soccer is like ACC basketball, it's a snooze fest with the top talent in the world.

8/18/2009 10:08:37 PM

Quote :

"If you're going to make a thread about a niche sport at least have some enthusiasm. Using 'I guess' multiple times doesn't get anyone excited."

LOL.

i guess "niche sport" = "most popular sport in the world"

and plenty of people are excited.

8/19/2009 3:13:54 AM

just an aside (speaking of niche sports) - I am watching hurling at 4:30am (sober) and it is awesome!

8/19/2009 4:36:39 AM

PUMPED AS SHIT FOR THIS

8/19/2009 7:50:13 AM

five more games today to finish up the first leg, then the round will finish up with the second legs taking place on aug 25/26. i think the group draw takes place on the 27th.

obligatory go chelsea.

8/19/2009 1:12:45 PM

Arsenal v. Chelsea round 2 tomorrow

8/25/2009 3:00:40 PM

Quote :

"Arsenal v. Chelsea round 2 tomorrow"

WAT?

8/25/2009 3:14:21 PM

chelsea will be wearing their blue and highlighter yellow hoops jersey

[Edited on August 25, 2009 at 3:32 PM. Reason : f]

8/25/2009 3:31:58 PM

They play again tomorrow night, this time at Emirates Stadium.


Cesc Fabregas is out for this match.



Live on FSC at 2:45

[Edited on August 25, 2009 at 3:35 PM. Reason : add]

8/25/2009 3:32:17 PM

They play Celtic, not Chelsea.

LOL

8/25/2009 3:54:41 PM

ah crap.. hahaha i didn't even realize i wrote Chelsea. It must have been completely subconscious.


let me try this again


Arsenal v. Celtic, round 2, 2:45 FSC

8/25/2009 3:59:50 PM

c'mon Celtic

you'z my bhoys

[Edited on August 25, 2009 at 4:23 PM. Reason : poor apostrophe placement]

8/25/2009 4:17:51 PM

celtic are just getting butt raped in this tie...eduardo with the dive of the century to give arse a 1-0 lead on a pk

8/26/2009 3:12:57 PM

epic dive there.

blah

8/26/2009 3:14:30 PM

you right

8/26/2009 3:15:04 PM

celtic shouldve tied it just then. not sure why that forward was standing offsides the entire play before he got the pass...terrible awareness

8/26/2009 3:25:39 PM

Arsenal advances 5-1 on aggregate. Group stage draw tomorrow.

8/26/2009 5:20:09 PM

Now I have two reasons to hate Eduardo. He's a diving piece of shit and he's one of those mercenary assholes. Croatian my ass.

8/26/2009 11:36:20 PM

haha shit I just saw the video of the dive..

I'm surprised Boruc could hold back from punching either Eduardo or the referee

8/27/2009 8:00:12 AM

what's sad is that UEFA won't do shit about it and it's an obvious dive.


what's also sad is that the only other british team I support in the UCL got dumped out too early because a shit draw

8/27/2009 8:22:17 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txfbXpozBpo

That is one of the worst dives I have ever seen. Then he runs to the camera celebrating like he did something great. It's disgusting.

8/27/2009 9:49:54 AM

aaaaand United and Arse get byes to the next round

Quote :

"GROUP A- Bayern Munich, Juventus, Bordeaux, Maccabi Haifa GROUP B- Manchester United, CSKA Moscow, Besiktas, VFL Wolfsburg GROUP C- AC Milan, Real Madrid, Marseille, FC Zurich GROUP D- Chelsea, Porto, Atletico Madrid, APOEL (Cyprus) GROUP E- Liverpool, Lyon, Fiorentina, Debreceni (Hungary) GROUP F- Barcelona, Inter Milan, Dynamo Kiev, Rubin Kazan (Russia) GROUP G- Sevilla, Rangers, VFB Stuttgart, Uniera Urziceni (Romania) GROUP H- Arsenal, AZ Alkmaar, Olympiakos, Standard Liege "

8/27/2009 1:42:18 PM

interesting e-mail on F365, does anybody know if this is actually true?

Quote :

"I think I read somewhere that they do this in the German league but if I dreamt it I am happy to claim this as my own idea...!! Taking last night's events as the freshest example, Eduardo goes down in the box and appeals for a penalty. Referee then takes Eduardo on one side and quickly asks him if he was brought down and if it really was a penalty. If he then confesses that it really wasn't, it is put down as a rash 'spur of the moment' act and a free-kick is awarded to Celtic and no further action is taken. If Eduardo said he was brought down by the goalkeeper then the penalty is awarded but with Eduardo knowing it will be looked at after the game. A panel of referees look at the footage and if Eduardo was found to have lied to the ref on the pitch then he gets an automatic five-game ban. If it inconclusive or he is right, no further action taken. Lets start testing the honesty of the players and putting the burden on them rather than the overworked officiating team."

8/27/2009 2:01:24 PM

triple post from hell


I didn't think about United's long trips they'll be making, so at least there's that. Arsenal's free pass is totally inexcusable for a team that fucking had to play-in to the group stages though.

8/27/2009 3:04:38 PM

anyone have a feed for the Aston Villa match?

8/27/2009 3:06:12 PM

http://www.justin.tv/mt602

8/27/2009 3:11:58 PM

damn its blocked at work

8/27/2009 3:26:37 PM

2-0 villa...playing well against a pretty good Rapid team. should be 3-0 (young missed PK)

8/27/2009 4:31:09 PM

fuckin A. 2-1...we have to score 1 more goal in the next 10 mins to advance to Europe. as it stands its 2-2 in the aggregate

8/27/2009 4:36:58 PM

i like that post about the german league thing. i have no idea if thats true, but that would certainly cut back from the diving in the box...unless the panel is filled with idiots

8/27/2009 4:43:16 PM

Quote :

"I think I read somewhere that they do this in the German league but if I dreamt it I am happy to claim this as my own idea...!! Taking last night's events as the freshest example, Eduardo goes down in the box and appeals for a penalty. Referee then takes Eduardo on one side and quickly asks him if he was brought down and if it really was a penalty. If he then confesses that it really wasn't, it is put down as a rash 'spur of the moment' act and a free-kick is awarded to Celtic and no further action is taken. If Eduardo said he was brought down by the goalkeeper then the penalty is awarded but with Eduardo knowing it will be looked at after the game. A panel of referees look at the footage and if Eduardo was found to have lied to the ref on the pitch then he gets an automatic five-game ban. If it inconclusive or he is right, no further action taken. Lets start testing the honesty of the players and putting the burden on them rather than the overworked officiating team."

That would be awesome if that was implemented. As a soccer fan, it is the one thing I hate about the sport at the pro level.

8/27/2009 4:43:27 PM

that was a fuckin abortion. villa out.


way to miss a PK in the 1st.

8/27/2009 4:52:44 PM

pwntzrd...

8/27/2009 4:53:18 PM

I am all for a rule like that. Would be fantastic. That sort of shit comes close to ruining the sport for me, and I say that as a die hard Arsenal fan who loves Eduardo (perhaps a little less so now). It makes me just as mad if not madder when I see a player from my own team do it as it does when Gerrard, Ronaldo, etc do it.

8/27/2009 9:30:25 PM

Bayern Munich signed Arjen Robben

8/27/2009 10:10:09 PM

^5 i agree completely.

8/27/2009 10:33:29 PM

That rule is completely untrue. I'm telling you right now. The officiating crew is not overworked. They should be able to discern whether that was a penalty or not. Unfortunately the angle was such that the AR had no position to call it and the head referee would have had to work very hard to be in a position to make a correct call.

Unfortunately, this is part of the game. A call like that is very hard on the referee. There is really nothing he can do because the only angle he is given on the play looks like a foul. The only real action that can be taken is Eduardo gets a 5-game ban for deliberately deceiving the referee as a minimum. If he was completely removed from the Champions League I would have no problem with that either, to be honest. I'm a referee myself and that is a completely professional dive that is almost impossible to interpret correctly. Only by punishing the players at a later time will FIFA be able to eradicate this bullshit from the game. I sincerely believe a season long ban from the CL would be completely justified.

As a side note, this is another example of Arsenal being a team of complete bitches. I hate them with every ounce of my soul. They can sometimes put on a good show and I can appreciate it when they do that, but they are by far, the worst top team in Europe as far as pushing the limits of the law is concerned. Arsene Wenger should be shamed into exile for what he encourages his players to do. It's absolutely disgusting.

8/28/2009 4:40:55 AM

Sorry for the double post, but I'm hoping someone else saw this game and I don't know where else to post this. It was the Houston Dynamo CONCACAF Champions League game in Panama tonight? They walked out of there with a tie but only because the referee completely Jewed them on the game. 5 red cards total from a T&T referee in Panama. The calls were completely ridiculous. I'm just hoping this will motivate CONCACAF top officials to re-evaluate how shitty the crews from smaller countries are, because this happens to USA 100% of the time. I doubt it will but one can always hope.

8/28/2009 4:47:46 AM

Quote :

"I sincerely believe a season long ban from the CL would be completely justified."

I agree with most of your post but this is a bit overboard. A 5 game ban is plenty.

8/28/2009 7:55:24 AM

He's up for a possible 2-game ban:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=671413&sec=uefachampionsleague&cc=5901

8/28/2009 8:07:44 AM

Quote :

"As a side note, this is another example of Arsenal being a team of complete bitches. I hate them with every ounce of my soul. They can sometimes put on a good show and I can appreciate it when they do that, but they are by far, the worst top team in Europe as far as pushing the limits of the law is concerned."

This is such bullshit

8/28/2009 10:11:54 AM

lolduardo.

8/28/2009 2:41:40 PM

UEFA Super Cup on now.

8/28/2009 2:45:33 PM

just my $0.02...

i don't fault the referee at all for calling the Arsenlol PK. from his angle, i can see how it would appear as though Buroc extended his arm and tripped up Eduardo after he beat the keeper to the ball. if that's what you see, you've got to award the PK. we have the benefit of instant replay and slow motion with multiple angles and we could see it was a blatant dive. but it looked to me like Eduardo was ready to go down regardless if there was contact or not provided he was the first to the ball. he already had his mind made up. i think a season long CL ban would be a bit overboard, but i'm not opposed to the 2 game CL ban being charged by UEFA. i think 5 games even would be reasonable.

8/28/2009 3:59:49 PM

agree.com

8/28/2009 4:12:18 PM

Eduardo's appeal on the 2-game ban was successful.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=676166&sec=uefachampionsleague&cc=5901

9/14/2009 2:21:34 PM