UEFA Champions League 2018/19

[rich 1990]

This is the greatest thing I ever witnessed on the forum! Rich 1990 hard trolling the place! Yupp it must be frozen in hell!

Not trolling. That's for plebs like Jury.

 

[blaze_of_glory]

Well, it's not because if you're getting to numerous CL finals, logic indicates you're probably good enough to win one eventually. Wigan have won the FA Cup and been relegated, same with Portsmouth and we haven't kicked on from winning 3 of the ****ers. If domestic cups come along, fine but progress in the league and CL is what I want and I don't really care what you people thinking.

1 CL final loss>3 FA Cup wins.

Well you prefer what you want. I want CL too, but I see losing the final as, in effect, not winning it.

 

[rich 1990]

Well you prefer what you want. I want CL too, but I see losing the final as, in effect, not winning it.

Yeah but getting there is half the fun. To get there you have to beat at least a couple of Europe's giants and that's what it's all about. The excitement of the CL is on a different level to anything else. It's like comparing Michael Jackson live to Michael Ball live.

 

[Rex Stone]

Reported, you're a bot. No human being would do that.

I watch it if it pops up, but stop right after Sol scores. Haven’t been able to go back to that game at all since.

Can’t even remember who scored apart from that c*nt Belletti.

Toughest loss supporting a football team that, after the way that team came together in the run to the final. Cesc shredding Vieira, the win in the Bernabeu and Lehmann stopping Riquelme.


Imagine if the last thing the club did at Highbury was win the Champions League.

 

[Ricardinho]

Can look back fondly on the run to the final but the way we lost along with Pires' Arsenal career ending the way it did is never nice to remember.

 

[hydrofluoric acid]

It would be easier for me to watch some sick flute player lure million puppies to jump of a cliff than watch our CL final again.

Thankful for having those 3 FA cups in last 5 years! Brilliant brilliant success given all!

 

[BobP]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/sep/19/psg-liverpool-thomas-tuchel-football

A net €750m spent in eight years and that’s all you get? Success without money is all but impossible in the modern game, but wealth brings no guarantees. Football still has the capacity to make the richest of men seem very foolish if they pursue glamour at the expense of substance – a heartening moral, so long as you don’t think too closely about the source of the wealth that is paying for Neymar to squander his immense talents in an entitled fug of self-indulgence.

For Paris Saint-Germain, there has been no development. The lessons of last season have not been learned. All the flaws that undid PSG against Real Madrid in last season’s last 16 were there again at Anfield on Tuesday. Leaving three forwards high up the pitch to float about and occasionally pull off a trick may be enough in Ligue 1 – given PSG have begun the season with five straight wins and have scored at least three goals in every game, it demonstrably is – but it is no way to play against proper opposition. The Air Jordan branding may be intended to add an extra shot of glamour, but in context it appears to say little more than, “please nutmeg me while I appeal half-heartedly for offside.”

There is an irony to this, of course, that PSG’s domination of the French league is precisely what prevents them being truly competitive in Europe. This is the great paradox of the financial structures of the modern game and it one of the factors that will probably lead, sooner rather than later, to some sort of pan-national super-league. When there is no challenge, it’s only natural complacency sets in. When there are no predators at home, why would you flee the red-faced men with sticks and guns? When there is no peril in your league, why would you bother to track Trent Alexander-Arnold?

Is Thomas Tuchel happy with this? This, after all, is a man who grew up in the hard-pressing world of the Bundesliga. He was regarded as the new Jürgen Klopp, a manager forged at a similar school. He is somebody who dined with Pep Guardiola after his Dortmund side had lost 5-1 to Bayern, whose love of the theory of juego de posición outweighed the sting of defeat. There can be no version of that conception of the game that features three men standing 50 yards upfield from their midfield, barely raising a jog as a defender surges past them again. PSG football is not Tuchel football; it may not even be football.

In the end, perhaps it was too easy. The second half became a stroll, despite Thomas Meunier halving Liverpool’s lead five minutes before half-time, hooking in a loose ball in the box. Almost 40 minutes of it had passed and PSG not only hadn’t had a shot, they had managed only eight passes in the 30 yards closest to Liverpool’s goal. The game had taken on a weird aspect, as Liverpool, charged for an epic, found it a stroll and found their own focus slipped as a consequence. A lax pass from Mohamed Salah, a quick turnover and Neymar had laid in Kylian Mbappé to equalise. Indulged they may be, but they are still good players. Give them a chance and they will still take it, just as the most decadent of the late Romans would still eat a grape so long as you peeled it first and popped it in their mouths.

But most damning of all was what followed. PSG had been gifted a point. They had got away with one of the most disgracefully negligent performances a club of their resources has ever put on. They could go back to Paris and fuel their self-regard with a useful away point. All they had to do was compete for the final seven minutes plus injury time. But they could not.

Liverpool, to their immense credit, were able to re-engage. And when placed under pressure again, PSG’s swagger became a whimper. Look at Roberto Firmino’s winner and count how many PSG players have turned away rather than attempt a block: these are basics of defending, of professional self-respect, and they cannot do them.

Each season the question seems to become more fundamental: what are PSG? A vanity project for Neymar? A strangely misplaced Nike marketing ploy? A laundromat for Qatar’s international reputation? They’re certainly not a football club in any traditional sense. And if they are supposed to be an agent of Qatari soft power, they really need to start emphasising the power aspect of that phrase rather than the soft.

 

[tap-in]

I watch it if it pops up, but stop right after Sol scores. Haven’t been able to go back to that game at all since.

Can’t even remember who scored apart from that c*nt Belletti.

Toughest loss supporting a football team that, after the way that team came together in the run to the final. Cesc shredding Vieira, the win in the Bernabeu and Lehmann stopping Riquelme.


Imagine if the last thing the club did at Highbury was win the Champions League.

Yeah, my biggest Arsenal disappointment ever! It was like all the bad luck a team could get in a season, dished out in one single moment. The fact we were beating the best team on the planet at the time (or maybe 2nd best) was a huge buzz, to see us reduced to 10 and Pires being subbed in his final game was just too much to take. So unjust, I think neutral fans everywhere felt the same.

 

[Ricardinho]

Yeah, my biggest Arsenal disappointment ever! It was like all the bad luck a team could get in a season, dished out in one single moment. The fact we were beating the best team on the planet at the time (or maybe 2nd best) was a huge buzz, to see us reduced to 10 and Pires being subbed in his final game was just too much to take. So unjust, I think neutral fans everywhere felt the same.

There used to be a YouTube video of Pires' return to arsenal while playing for Villareal that showed him exiting the pitch during the final followed by some of his best moments in the shirt. Ended with him and kolo having a big hug at full time. Had a look for it earlier and unfortunately couldn't find it. I guess it was clipped from coverage on Spanish TV.

 

[tap-in]

There used to be a YouTube video of Pires' return to arsenal while playing for Villareal that showed him exiting the pitch during the final followed by some of his best moments in the shirt. Ended with him and kolo having a big hug at full time. Had a look for it earlier and unfortunately couldn't find it. I guess it was clipped from coverage on Spanish TV.

I was always pleased that Pires came back to Arsenal and worked with Wenger. I hated the fact that Pires may have felt aggrieved for being subbed in his last game. At the time I'm sure he was, but he's a pro and understands.

 

[Notorious Big]

From 19:00 we have Europe League games.Good one from UEFA.

 

[razörist]

From 19:00 we have Europe League games.Good one from UEFA.

Funny.

 

[Notorious Big]

Funny.

At least,it's good game in Ukraine.

 

[razörist]

At least,it's good game in Ukraine.

That’s good. Ajax-athens very boring.

 

[Rex Stone]

Harvard Nordveit plays for Hoffenheim eh, blast from the past. Hopefully I get home in time for Nelson smashing it off the bench.

 

[MutableEarth]

Shakhtar v Hoffenheim is a great game at the moment. Hopefully Nelson comes on, he'll enjoy this. Lot of space here.

I'm coming round to this loan. Still think we should have kept and played Nelson ourselves, but I really like how Hoffenheim play football and Nelson can definitely take his game to another level there.

 

[Borussin]

The Shatkar and Hoffeheim game is really good. So much better than the early game I watched yesterday (Sp**s!).

 

[razörist]

Ajax up 1-0!!! Deserved lead.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

Alexis will be starting in his best position this evening.

 

[razörist]

Boeeeeeem Donny what a goal 2-0 game over!