Chelsea made the game kinda boring. but they won't be able to continue the same approach next week. they will have to attack and leave space behind and that's all Barca need.

I think Barca are still favorites to reach the final.

The game was chess and not checkers, and in this instance Hiddink's men have played a very very tactically disciplined game. They closed all the doors in Barca's face, not Messi, not Etoo, not Xavi none of their players could untangle the knot that Hiddink tied both in midfield and at the back .. Sure it wasn't an all glamorous game, but I never expected it to be considering Barca could be lethal if Chelsea opened up.

I am in awe with the organization of Chelsea in this game in particular and all the praise has to be put on Guus Hiddink. As he knows Barca have a tough fixture with Valencia, then today's game, then Madrid next weekend (a championship clash) and upon their arrival in London, they will be without Puyol and probably Marquez (as its suspected he picked up a knock).

Hence Barca will arrive in London next week being disadvantaged physically and mentally (considering Madrid beat them at the weekend) .. I doubt Barca would go through, not with the way Chelsea is playing.


p.s. Despite this, Barca had a penalty overlooked at close the 70 min mark in which Henry was pulled down with his back to the goal and with a very dangerous chance.

good thing hiddinks first name isnt jose

That was boring. Both teams could have scored neither did. I think the second half will be much better!

Dull game. Main problem is both teams will be happy with that result, so had no incentive to open up the game to try and score. 2nd leg should be better. Another United-Chelsea final please, for no reason other than to annoy that French **** at UEFA.

Huh good point when it's Hiddink it master tactics, organization, praiseworthy football. when it's Jose it's overrated ugly defensive football. **** the fact that Jose's Chelsea never played so defensively. espeially against Barca

Sometime I hate the bias in this forum

You've misunderstood. No one would blame Jose for playing this way against Barca. I would say with the team and players Chelsea got, they have to play to their strengths which is being physical and organised. Yes, they are technical but not AS technical as Barca. So it's sensible. But Jose plays this way against any team. Whether it's <insert random low positioned EPL team> or Barca. Go 1-0 up, stop the other team from playing, hit on the counter, rinse repeat.

There was no way, Hiddink could have done anything else. The kind of form Barca are in (all their attacking players are in good nick...all 5 of them!!!) it would have been suicidal to open up in a 4-4-2, with one DM. Maybe if Drogba had scored the one-on-one things would have changed, with Barca pushing up, Chelsea would have hit more on the counter, maybe even played a bit more offensive.

Considering their quality, Chelsea played a terrible game in my opinion.

I don't think they have the kind of quality to compete with Barca at Camp Nou and beat Barca at their own game. They've excellent players, but Barca's attack is a lot better than Chelsea's. While Chelsea's defence is a lot better than Barca's.

So Chelsea defended and Barca attacked. Both teams played to their strengths and cancelled each other out.

Chelsea did not defend very well and surely they can do much more in attack than that without taking risks.

I think they defended very well. Except for that Henry denied penalty. Let's not forget that Chelsea had Alex in the middle. Bosingwa playing LB. And Ivanovic playing RB. It was a makeshift defence as it is.

And both Bosingwa and Cole are big attack-supporters for Chelsea.

The game plan was for Lampard and Malouda to support Drogba. These were the only two attacking players around. Essien and Ballack were to nullify Iniesta and Xavi. While Lampard and Drogba were to establish themselves against the less physical defence of Barca. Malouda was meant to exploit the space left by Dani Alves, while at the same time help out Bosingwa. I don't think Malouda is that good.

Lampard flopped(great match from Toure). Which meant Drogba was fed scraps. With that cancelling out Chelsea's threat, Barca kept attacking. Heck...even Pique was pushing forward in the second half.

There was only the Bojan miss that can really count. Most of the others were well kept out. Sure there were not brilliant tackles etc...but I don't think that was the plan. It was meant to cut space and stop play.

I do believe though that if Drogba had scored that one-on-one in the first half, the game might have opened up.

I remember dozens of games in which Mourinho's teams didn't follow that approach so I don't know what you're talking about

I think Chelsea were sheepish and Barcelona insipid. Both teams played a bad game in my view.

Chelsea's players were clueless. Hiddink is a coach that does play defensively when he needs to but always with a plan... Chelsea last did not look to have a plan at all and considering how deep they played and how slow Barcelona were they still conceded a lot of chances. Don't forget Hleb's last minute one-on-one and Henry's chances in the first half. Add the not-given penalty and Krkic's chance and that's too many great chances against a team playing for the clean sheet.

By the way Drogba's finish on that occasion was awful. I can't believe he's paid to hit the ball and he hit it that way... even if Valdes wanted to avoid the ball he couldn't, Drogba shot right at him! And then the effort to go past him was terrible too.

Could very well be .. And Drogba's miss, that was just so poor; once he passed Marquez, I expected the goal.

Second leg is still 50-50, all Barca have to do is score an away goal and that would open the game up to their advantage. Then again, Hiddink does his talking on the pitch where he conducts a very organized and disciplined side .. Hence, I doubt the second leg will be anything spectacular, rather a closed game from Chelsea again. But next time around, Barca will have major problems in defense and would have been drained already after playing Madrid.



Next up United vs Arsenal ... I don't know, but something tells me Wenger's boys will get an away goal, at least .. and I hope they do

I would love for Arsenal to win this. But they won't.

I guess it's a subjective topic then. I remember more of this type of game where he would score from the counter attack, while you don't.

We don't need to go back far. Just this season will do. Jose's already been criticised for doing nothing but playing simple counterattacks. His scoreline, except for that one match with a Juve (or was it Roma) team in ruins, it's all been staid stuff.

I agree with the bolded part.

Weird, I don't think they looked clueless. They cut spaces too effectively(esp in the first one hour) to be clueless. In any case, they've always been hopeless tacklers. And Mikel is not much.

Don't remember Henry's chances, I just remember Alex flying into him and Henry lying senseless on the ground... both the Hleb and the Krkic shots were towards the end. When Chelsea were probably all pooped. Don't remember Chelsea making many subs.

I do agree though, this was a match Barca could have won.

I agree Chelsea were sheepish. Their plan was to keep Barca stuck with the possession, but no penetration, while hoping Lamps, Malouda and Drogba could somehow fire a quick counter. That was the Plan. Lamps and Malouda flopped (attacking-wise), and fortunately for them, Barca had no Plan B, once the famous 5 were nullified. It also didn't help that Dani Alves seemed to cross a bit like Oddo last seaon.

You say "hoping" and then you say "plan"... these two don't go together... I saw that none of the Chelsea players knew what to do with the ball once they had it on their feet and that shows to me that there was no plan.

Aargh...

I have no time or energy to argue with you. I've been working all day and I need a break. Look..I'm right ok??!! That's all you need to know.

By hope..you know what I mean. When Pirlo finds Kaka in open space. The plan is Pirlo finds Kaka, the hope is Kaka can do something with it. Or when Becks makes crosses into the box looking for Pippo...the plan is Beckham brings Pippo into play, the hope is Pippo does something.

That's what I meant. Unfortunate choice of words.

Here's an article...

I told you So

This doesn't feel like a CL game AT ALL. please god, don't let it be two EPL sides in the final... we deserve more excitement than this.

Arsenal so far have been terrible, with the bad back passes and terrible marking, Almunia pulled a couple of point blank saves already and if it weren't for him they could be 3 down.

They really need to wake up, football can't afford to have Man U in another final!!!

The trouble is that Adebayor as a lone striker in a 4-5-1 simply doesn't work.

Yeah, God forbid English teams keep playing the way they've been doing of late. I mean, Liverpool 4-4 Arsenal, Chelsea 4-4 Liverpool, United 5-2 Spurs, Chelsea 4-3 Bolton all in the past few weeks. Boring, boring England!

I don't want to see another Chelsea v United final

Com'on Arsenal !!! You can do it !!

You think because you're 10 days older or so you know better!??

This is ridiculous... Barcelona had two great chances and a clear penalty not given to them only in the last half hour, how is that stopping them?

(by the way, the writer of that article is ignorant, his articles do not even make sense to me)

Milan have a plan because they know HOW TO do what they're going to do... simply saying we'll give the ball to Kaka is not a plan... there has to be a procedure of doing it. Chelsea had nothing, when they had the ball they just did not know what to do with it... they looked like 2 year olds (none of them Chuck Norris) with a condom on their hand.

You misunderstood me. the game was perfectly alright, it was played at the highest level etc etc etc. what I meant by that was that we see at least 2 Man U-Arsenal games each season. CL is about watching games that you don't get to see more than once in a couple of years!! e.g. Milan-Madrid, Real-Arsenal, Juventus-Barca, etc etc etc. last night's game didn't feel like a CL game to me at all; it felt like an EPL game, hence it had less excitement than a proper CL game. had it been 3 Italian or Spanish teams I would have said the same.


And I deliberately didn't say "England" because it's not about England at all but the EPL!

I agree with that, it's always more fascinating when it's a clash between clubs of different nations.

Right now though I only care about United not winning it.

I agree. But the only way we'll see this in the latter stages is if other leagues start getting their act together.


Yeah, teams from the same country know each other too well so don't like to open up. There's also more of a rivalry and a sense of them just not wanting to lose against each other. In saying that, I hope it's a repeat of last years final.

For the sake of all that is good in football, I hope not.

Me personally, I'm praying for a Barca-Arsenal final. I always got the sense that that game was decided the moment Lehmann was sent off, and I would actually like to see that one being played 11 vs 11 and see what happens.

And personally I can;t stand to see Man U in another final, Chelsea I wouldn't mind because I really feel bad for them when it comes to their CL bad luck, but Man U would actually make me especially if they win it again

Those were not necessarily good games, just games littered with mistakes.

Barcelona have not changed too much but Arsenal are a totally different team, I don't think it would be a worthy rematch. Sadly enough, I can't see Arsenal going through United in the first place, they looked so weak the other night. There are still (at least) 90 minutes of football to be played so... anything can happen.

Here here!


I know the Arsenal team has changed a lot, but that match back in 06 left a bitter taste in my mouth, especially after we got knocked out the way we did against Barca in the semis (Sheva disallowed goal...)

As for Man U vs Arsenal, I had hoped that they would actually put in a good performance, but they played like headless chickens in the first leg and are lucky not to be 3 down going into the second leg, hopefully they wake up at the Emerites and put up a fight.

I can't take having to see Man U in the final! If they win it I'll blame it on Inter and their incompetancy

Gibbs slip, JS Park takes advantage, 1-0 United. Game over.

Once again, Man U's great luck assists them.

AMAZING GOAL RONALDO!!!!!!!!

Almunia at fault though

Ronaldo, 2-0. Oh dear.

Fishdoll meh.

As much as I dislike Man U, they completely deserve to reach the final. or shall I say, Arsenal don't deserve to?

Man, Wenger looks terribly sad.

It's become boring since Ronaldo's 2nd goal. Arsenal don't see like they can do anything about it at all.

They've probably had one of the easiest paths to the final

Inter -> We all know they're as bad as any relegation team when it actually comes to showing up in Europe, they're still the same old Inter in the CL

Porto -> No point elaborating, they put up a decent fight at Old Trafford, but really who thought they would actually make it through? Their terrible keeper just made it worse by letting in Ronaldo's hope hitter into the net from what should have been a very basic save.

Arsenal -> Oh what can be set about the Arsenal kids... They were shaky and mediocre in the first leg and tonight everything Man U hit is going in. That free-kick should have never gone in, how could Almunia be beaten like that??? Is he taking lessons from Dida? And that first goal, I just felt sorry for that kid because that will be something he'll have to live with for the rest of his carreer. I'm all for letting the kids be given the chance to play, but not in a CL semi and especially not in defence. Wenger was just asking for it.

Man U must sleep in cr@p every night with the luck they got this season in this competition. Now let's watch them win it a second time in a row and hear that w@nker Andy Gray go on about the 'English' game

Becks and Flamini at the Emirates...

As well as Galliani and Ancelotti, apparently.

han, now you see why I only watch CL games on ESPN Deportes (the spanish language station). The commentators on the regular ESPN are awful.

100% agreed!

Could they be scouting Adebayor? or even [dream mode]Cesc[/dream mode].

I don't like the jack@ss commentators as much as you do Tennie. But I personally don't like listening to commentary in other languages, since I know a max of 2 languages(maltese and English, and a few Italian words, mostly the dirty ones ) I just like actually understanding what the commentators are saying, I find it irritating, being unable to understand them

Amazing counter attack

0-3. Ronaldo

I really hoped that atleast one of these teams would have actually knocked Untied out.

But I guess as the old saying goes, 'if you want something done right, do it yourself' really applies to this situation.

Can't wait to actually see Milan back next season

Counter attacking football at it's very, very best. 3-0, Ronaldo.

Laughable

There's no 'luck' about it. You can only beat whats in front of you and that's what they've done.

Andy Gray. Top class footballer, top class commentator. Though it's stupid, if he was going on about Milan winning it for a 2nd time in a row, I doubt anybody would be complaining or calling him a wanker.