Man Utd v Barcelona: Champions League Final (with poll)

[Silver Fox]

The two times England have reached a final it was on home turf.

What was the second final? The Umbro Cup?

[papereyes]

The two times England have reached a final it was on home turf.

What was the second final? The Umbro Cup?

lol

[6ft Kerplunk]

what the hell was puyol playing at with those ridiculous dives when his side were comfortably winning 2 - 0? he didnt need to start throwing himself on the floor just because someone touched him.

Was that the one where Ronaldo got booked for basically blocking him ahead of going for the ball?
Or was that the one where Ronaldo brought him down on the edge of United's box?

(Although, admittedly he did get up, realise that he couldn't chase Ronaldo quick enough and went back down )

I did LOL at the look on Ronaldo's face it just said "I have to smile as that's exactly what I do all the time".

[AF1]

Ronaldo also scores goals with his head, which Messi couldn’t do even if they put a top hat on him.

[Row Z Royal]

Ronaldo also scores goals with his head, which Messi couldn’t do even if they put a top hat on him.

[Archie's penalty]

Nigerian Man Utd fan kills 4 Barca fans with busBuzz up!
Digg it
Reuters, Thursday May 28 2009
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, May 28 (Reuters) - A Manchester United fan in Nigeria killed four people when he drove his minibus into a crowd of Barcelona supporters after his team lost the Champions League final, police said on Thursday.
The crowd in the town of Ogbo were celebrating Barcelona's victory after Wednesday night's match when the bus drove into them. A police spokeswoman said 10 people were injured and the driver was arrested.
"The driver had passed the crowd then made a U-turn and ran into them," she said.
Barcelona beat Manchester United 2-0 in what was hailed as a "dream final" between two of Europe's best clubs. Both teams have large fan bases in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. (Reporting by Austin Ekeinde; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Randy Fabi and Farah Master)

Football in causing death shocker.

[Hoop Blah]

I just think that at the heart of it, the moment England play a team that keeps hold of the ball and can play in the usual heat of a major tournament, they'll get beaten. They don't have the disclipline to accept alternative styles of play or accept that they're not the best player in the team anymore. I guess that's why they look better when someone like Barry or Hargreaves is in the midfield ahead of the 'ard axis - there's someone in there playing the simpler stuff, playing a more selfless game. They don't have the mentality to keep the ball if nothing's going, taking a short sideways pass to try and engineer another angle.

I do accept that a very good manager could break this mentality and Capello looks more likely than his three predecessors.

You cite Germany but I think they have as good a first XI as England, they just tend not to play in England so get underrated.

You cite Greece, but they had the discipline to accept a game plan and stick to it. I cannot see English players doing that, at this time.

The two times England have reached a final it was on home turf.

I think you're basically agreeing with there then.

I think we have the potential to be a tournament winning squad but, as you say, that means playing as a team, in a team system, as opposed to the group of individuals that we saw under Sven and then McLaren. That was my point, that we have the resources available but we need to harness them.

Perhaps where we differ is that I think we can get to the point where we have a functioning team as opposed to a set of celebrity players.

Agree on Germany too, although I wasn't saying they weren't any good, just that they didn't have the apparent world beaters every seems to think we need from 1-23 in order to win a tournament (not that they've actually won one recently of course!).

[papereyes]

Perhaps where we differ is that I think we can get to the point where we have a functioning team as opposed to a set of celebrity players.

Yeah, I think it would take a massive change in both the playing style and team management to really do as well as you think they could do.

Its possible but these are players that come from a league where short passing is almost frowned upon.

[papereyes]

Barca are basically the team Arsenal CAN be.....

Both teams are very similar in style of play but Barca just have that extra something, the final touch to take it further!

A proper striker at the front rather than Adebayor or Bendtner? Include van Persie who only plays ~ 50 % of a season and its pretty clear where the problem lies, imo.

I believe that, had Eduardo not been so cruelly injured two seasons ago, Arsenal wouldn't have surrendered their position at the top of the table as easily as they did.

If you think the only difference between Barcelona and Arsenal is the striker at the spearhead of the two attacks, then I must be watching two completely different teams to yourself.

Myself and this journalist, it seems.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog ... ene-wenger

Spain and Barcelona are leading the way in world football and now they have the trophies to show for it, but Wenger will tell himself that he has players with some of the same qualities. Pretty passing in midfield is not enough by itself, however, as we saw when Arsenal went out of the European and FA Cups this season. To overcome United, Guardiola had two finishers capable of seizing the opportunities that broke their opponents' hearts at crucial moments in the game. Wenger may be telling himself that, in Andrey Arshavin, he already has a Messi. What he needs now, apart from time, is a main striker capable of the kind of lethal opportunism with which Samuel Eto'o poured cold water on United's early enthusiasm in the Stadio Olimpico.

I don't quite agree with all of the article, granted, but that paragraph does come to the same conclusion as I did above.

I'd also say that a fit Eduardo and a fit van Persie would probably be the type of players Wenger wants.

[Hoop Blah]

Perhaps where we differ is that I think we can get to the point where we have a functioning team as opposed to a set of celebrity players.

Yeah, I think it would take a massive change in both the playing style and team management to really do as well as you think they could do.

Its possible but these are players that come from a league where short passing is almost frowned upon.

Maybe that's where we differ as well then. I don't think you have to play constant short passes to be effective or efficient at international level, even in the heat of a summer tournament.

Sure it can help at times, but so can running the opposition ragged, and we have the options in midfield to be able to rotate a little bit and keep the players fresher than we have in the past (eg Lampard/Gerrard instead of Lampard&Gerrard).

[papereyes]

Maybe that's where we differ as well then. I don't think you have to play constant short passes to be effective or efficient at international level, even in the heat of a summer tournament.

But then you have to be prepared to play without the ball for great lengths of time.

Greece went for a 9 man man marking system.

[Hoop Blah]

You certainly have to have defensive quality and a midfield that is willing to defend as much as attack.

I think we have that *IF* the players are organised and disciplined, but we have enough quality to mean that we can also play our football as well.

Obviously you need to know when to keep the ball and take the sting out of the game, but I think we have the players with the know-how and the experience to do that as well but for the most part we need to play to our strengths a bit more, again, much like Germany did under Klinsman.

[Silver Fox]

Obviously you need to know when to keep the ball and take the sting out of the game.

Basically you've got to hold and give but do it at the right time yeah?

[TBM]

Obviously you need to know when to keep the ball and take the sting out of the game.

Basically you've got to hold and give but do it at the right time yeah?

Yeah but you can be slow or fast but you must get to the line

[Victor Meldrew]

Listening to Talksport on the way home where they are still talking about the game I was thinking if there has ever been a worse performance in a European Cup final before by an English team.
Villa and Forest both won theirs,Liverpool have won 5 but those that they lost they have never been embarrassed,Chelsea and Arsenal weren't too bad in recent times,and before tonight Man Utd had only ever been in 3 other finals and won them all.

Surely talk of this being the best ever Man Utd team now looks like a load of hype.
FWIW I think the 1968 side was the best and that win was so much more convincing than the spawny results v Bayern Munich and Chelsea.

From a few weeks ago when Giggs was made player of the year talk now is about how it's time to move on from the old boys in Giggs,Scholes and Neville-how quickly people's views change.

One other point about Chelsea-they probably should have won the 2nd leg but people forget the first game when they were run ragged and were very fortunate to get a draw let alone the blatant penalty not given on Henry.

Barcelona have been a real breath of fresh air this season and fully deserve their treble with so little change in personnel from last season when they struggled and in particular Henry struggled.
As a keen viewer of Spanish football I am so pleased that Iniesta is now spoken of in such glowing terms both for club and country and he really has only been a regular for the past two seasons-both he and Xavi have a fault (despite the love-in now by the British media) in that they aren't great tacklers but normally the excellent Ya Ya Toure is there putting his foot in,something that they didn't have last night (when they didn't need it) nor in the 2nd Chelsea game (when they did).

One very last point-the commentators last night were going on about Spanish clubs' poor record v English clubs generally and in particular this season.
Didn't Villareal (about the eqivalent of Everton in league standing) draw twice with Man Utd in the group stages and then lost v Arsenal when key players like Senna were unavaiable?
Also it's not so long ago that Romario and co stuffed Man Utd 4-0 at the Nou Camp.

Oh well next season's competition will soon come around again when Man Utd will try to get near Liverpool's record again and Liverpool will try to make it twice as many as Man Utd.

[Victor Meldrew]

Anybody know a good welder?
They're looking for one in Manchester to put the roof back on the bus.

[rabidbee]

Obviously you need to know when to keep the ball and take the sting out of the game.

Basically you've got to hold and give but do it at the right time yeah?

Yeah but you can be slow or fast but you must get to the line

First time I've LOLed at Hob Nob for a while.

[rabidbee]

The differences in approaches to football go down to the way kids learn football in this country. What I've read about kids' football suggests that the emphasis is put on results over technique at too early an age (I think in the Ajax system, kids don't even play proper matches til their 14), and we put too much emphasis on physique rather than skill. Consequently, kids learn to kick and rush rather than to play with the ball. Sadly, the FA always ducks out of seriously reforming our youth system, thanks to the oxf*rd albatross that is Wembley.

EDIT: Thinking on this some more, wasn't there an FA technical director of the late 70s/80s, who argued that the majority of goals scored came from moves of four passes or fewer (nods to Dirkers)? Hence, the mad dash to long ball.

[papereyes]

The differences in approaches to football go down to the way kids learn football in this country. What I've read about kids' football suggests that the emphasis is put on results over technique at too early an age (I think in the Ajax system, kids don't even play proper matches til their 14), and we put too much emphasis on physique rather than skill. Consequently, kids learn to kick and rush rather than to play with the ball. Sadly, the FA always ducks out of seriously reforming our youth system, thanks to the oxf*rd albatross that is Wembley.

EDIT: Thinking on this some more, wasn't there an FA technical director of the late 70s/80s, who argued that the majority of goals scored came from moves of four passes or fewer (nods to Dirkers)? Hence, the mad dash to long ball.

Charles Hughes. Working off the research of Charles Reep, iirc.

I'd also suggest that the 1966 world cup win convinced England that their method and manner was right.

[Hoop Blah]

There does need to be some tweaking of the way we bring up our kids playing football, but I think the most significant thing would be to improve the quality of the surfaces they play on. It's difficult to perfect your touch and technique when your playing on the majority of the pitches in this country.

That certainly doesn't help to develop skillful players.

As for the dutch system, it certainly seems to work in terms of producing technical players, but on the flip side you could also argue that as a footballing nation they don't have enough in the way of something, be team spirit, togetherness, will to win, killer instinct etc etc as they've woefully underperformed in terms of winning tournaments considering the talent they've produced over the years.