those low standards suggest a healthy contempt for the human race

A Rant:

After a great weekend of football, both league and cup, yet again, all the media seem able to talk about is whether Ashley Young dived (he did) or whether Mata's goal crossed the line (it didn't). These are talking points and do inevitably reinvigorate arguments about goal-line technology and cheating in the game but it's an old argument we've all made our minds up about it anyway. And it doesn't eclipse the real issues of the weekend: why did Spurs capitulate in the second half of the game/final third of the season? Would an FA Cup be enough to keep Di Matteo in the Chelsea job? Where would Man City now be in the league had Tevez not gone walkabout? Does Carroll's goal mean he's turned the corner at Liverpool? Is the title race still on?

End of rant.

The worst thing was not sending Cech off. As if in that situation Chelsea can lose a player, or a goal, but not both. That was ludicrous.

Everyone's talking about Ashley Young now, which will probably prod him into stopping diving. A few years ago people were giving Drogba a ton of shit for diving and he's (largely) cut it out since then. Im looking forward to the next game where he gets legitimately fouled and then gets booked for diving.

Place your bets!

Bayern München wins, though it won't be easy.

I really can't see anything but a Real win. Reading reviews of Bayern recently they seem to have had a bit of a drop in form and regardless of quality, Mourinho sides are always really difficult to beat. Can't wait for the game, though. They're showing it at a local pub so I'll definitely watch it.

i'm more excited about this game than barca chelsea

Me too. Definitely.

bayern played a sort of exhibition game against mainz on saturday, with few of its starters, and tied 0-0, effectively giving the bundesliga title to dortmund, so i hope they will be well rested today. if they play like they did against dortmund last week, they're fucked.

So has Mourinho tried any of his Jedi mind tricks on Heynckes yet?

... obviously not.

Great game. I think Bayern just edged it, but reckon Real's away goal could prove pivotal in the second leg. It's not difficult seeing Bayern score again (Gomez was great) but Ronaldo seemed really quiet tonight and I can't see that happening again, given that Real will now have to go forward and Bayern look really good on the counter. So everything seems perfectly in place for a bit of an epic, next week.

profeta

it was odd up until minute 89 that madrid dominated the first half but munich scored, and then the 2nd half it was the opposite. but fuck! it was a tense game. glad to see bayern win.

the 1st half bayern was playing backwards, couldn't find any spaces to attack--fucking annoying!



oh ha ha


cristiano ronaldo is a fucking pussy, though he kicks beautifully. still, fuck him, the bitch.

not sure about what reviews you read (from above) but bayern was still a mess today, gomez really out of it most of the game, schweinsteinger playing meh, he's been recovering from an injury. glad to see mueller came in to save the day. robben was out of it also, he had some great plays but didn't connect with everybody else. sure, credit goes to the madrid defense, but they had chances with the ball all alone and fucked it up.

the alaba-ribery pair was the most fun thing for me to watch during the game, they organized some great attacks together. amazing understanding between the two, and alaba is a workhorse on the attack, in spite of being a defender he spends a ton of time on the offense.

the thing is that real madrid plays barcelona on the weekend for a monster death match, whereas bayern will be facing werder bremen who are 22 points behind them, so yes, they will play in the santiago bernabeu next week, but what team will be more tired/injured/spent come match day?

You've seen Bayern more than I have so you're better placed to put their performance in context, but I thought they did well against an obviously difficult side. Kroos I thought was excellent and Ribery and Alba and I really thought Gomez was very good, especially as the game went on. Him and Kroos seemed in the middle of everything, although I totally agree about Robben. It was a very to-and-fro game for me and there were definitely periods where Bayern seemed under the cosh but on the whole I'd say Real definitely seemed more below par and as Gomez and Kroos grew further into the game, Ronaldo, Ozil and Benzema seemed to fade. You're right about the midweek fixtures potentially having a bearing on things, especially for Real.

Classic Mourinho post match quote: ‘I don’t criticise the referee, I accept his decisions. They scored a goal which should have been disallowed but that doesn’t give me any reason to criticise.’

ha ha, if anything, the ref should have booted out marcelo.

the thing with gomez you see he's the bundesliga's top scorer, he's got 25 goals in 30 games, he's got more goals than robben and ribery combined, but both against dortmund and in most of this game it's like he wasn't there-- he was present at the end of the game fortunately, but he's usually very active in other circumstances, he plays really close to the goal. i didn't see the mainz game cuz it was boring, but he didn't start in it, though i read he played the last 30 minutes, but that game ended 0-0..

still, i hope he's in full form for the next game. see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n3grYl8jJw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8ap1lBZFMM

From those clips, Gomez is obviously superb but to be fair Bayern were playing (and beat) a side that's probably the only one able to rival Barcelona for sheer quality right now. Mourinho sides are great at stopping the opposition from playing how they want to and while that's partially what happened last night, I think that tactically Heynckes did a better job than Mourinho, with more Real players being isolated than Bayern ones. I'd still put Real as favourites to go to the final but I imagine right now that of the two clubs, it's Real that'll be the more nervous about next week's fixture.

Try and see the Chelsea Barcelona game if you can. It'll be a big grudge match for a lot of the older Chelsea players after Barcelona dropped them out of the CL a few years ago thanks to some very dodgy referee's decisions. Again, Barcelona will undoubtedly be at least a little bit distracted by the weekend's game against Real and Chelsea do seem to have hit some real form under Di Matteo, but I think the outcome ultimately depends on how good Barcelona are. If they play to anything like the standard we expect it could be a bit of a landslide but as we've seen in La Liga, they can be beaten by opponents that on paper seem quite inferior. But I still don't rate Chelsea's defence, even under DiMatteo, and against Barcelona that's always gonna be a concern.

oooh fucking shit!!!

good game to watch, fucking frustrating for me, but eh! hats off to cech, who's a wall of a goalkeeper; and cole and drogba and the motherfucking goalpost.

It was like a trip down memory lane. I havent seen Drogba roll around on the floor that much since 2007.

Same sarcasms here; he was in top form to run along the pitch, lie down in pain, get up, run to another part of the pitch, lie down, and so on and so forth...
More of an athlete that any player who'd stay up.

Busquets wasn't himself, in that regard...

Great performance.
Ramires' cross at that moment of the game, when Chelsea had stopped seeing the opposite goal, was a real surprise. I thought he'd shoot. He was more clever than I was. And Drogba was rewarded for his hard work (unrelated to what's above).

barcelona totally bossed the match but they should have scored so they cant complain. if you have 70% of the possession and cant score then you gotta wonder why. i cant see it being the same way on the return leg. but credit to drogba and his ability to fall over.

I thought Chelsea did a job tonight. It wasn't pretty and Drogba's diving was an embarrassment but I thought defensively they were superb, especially Cole. They rode their luck a bit but I think that'd be true of any team that gets a result against Barcelona.