Champions League QFs (11th - 19th April)

Flashbacks to Chiellini's direct red after Ronaldo threw himself to the ground:

 
Well, now we lack Nani's red card, a Merengue answering with another implicating video against that poster's favourite team and then we may round it all with Ramos offside goal in last year final. We still have 2 hours to fill until the next game :lol:
 
Ishdalar said:
You put Spanish teams in the same bracket regarding referee help, yet Real Madrid and Atletico have 11 and 9 Yellow Cards less than Barcelona despite having played an extra game, they're 30th and 32th in Fouls per game despite being top 10 in tackles per game, and are also on par with Barcelona in fouled per game, despite having 10% less possession, thus spending 10% less of the game in the better position to get fouled.


You want a scapegoat? Atletico are your go-to choice, despite being one of the visually harsher teams in the competition they get booked and foul less than almost any other team. Atletico see a yellow every 6 fouls, Barcelona 4,5 and Real Madrid 7,6. Atletico commit a foul after 4 tackles, Barcelona 2,3 and Real Madrid 3. Simeone has teached his team how to live on the edge of the rules and if you see them play and then look at their discipline stats it shows crystal-clear.
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On the contrary, the reason Atletico see fewer yellows is likely more to do with playing deeper and having less possession. Barcelona and Real play higher up the park and are more exposed to the counter attack - that's when they'll often take a yellow to avoid getting turned over on the transition in the open space behind them. I agree that they are disciplined enough to avoid needless bookings.
 
This thread is like a debate on loyalty between two cheating women.
 
gaucho_10 said:
If you are a Bayern fan then you probably don't remember this incident in CL final that Bayern won.

This uncalled penalty tops everything from yesterday and it gave Bayern the CL title.

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What's the problem with this one? That Dante didn't get a red card?
 
Inter Yer Nan said:
Wasn't Drogba wrongly red carded at 1-0 at Camp Nou in that one? So Karma evened out over that tie.
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So now a fair red card (double yellow) evens out Karma of a bad call that leaves you out of the competition? I'm almost done with this kind of arguing :wenger:

 
Ishdalar said:
Well, now we lack Nani's red card, a Merengue answering with another implicating video against that poster's favourite team and then we may round it all with Ramos offside goal in last year final. We still have 2 hours to fill until the next game :lol:
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Let's hope a PSG fan user can contribute as well. Btw is Chiellini using shoulder/neck protection? I dunno if Suárez is hungry tonight
 
I think Barca should consider playing Messi deeper today. I don't think their midfield is good enough to do the job right now and Messi could definitely end up causing a red card with his dribbling. Not sure who would play on the right instead, though, so it's probably not going to happen. I don't really trust Gomes or Rakitic (What the hell happened to him?) at the moment.

If Vidal were healthy I'd suggest playing Mascherano and Busquets in midfield together and just giving Vidal and Alba license to attack constantly and play Messi as a 10 behind a front 3 with Alcacer as a threat on the right to convert crosses from Neymar and the fullbacks and through balls from Messi, but Sergi Roberto ain't up to that.
 
Ishdalar said:
If you compare basketball and football, in basketball there's usually a correlation between offensive and defensive stats when we talk about dribblers, foulers, possession time... that doesn't happen in football because human factor is way bigger in the calls our refs do, the ref sets the tone of the game based on his opinion and teams play around that, Atletico are masters of that art right now and teams like Barcelona evolved the "constant moan" technique years ago because they found they could tune the ref's opinion towards less contact football doing that. In a perfect world without awful refeering both of these teams would load themselves with cards and eventually the sport would end up winning in pace and rhythm, but right now there are whole football schools that will be prepping kids to play around the refs like that until it stops working
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Kudos to you for not sweeping it under the mat like most Barca fans would do it!
That's why i like the Premier league so much, the moaning and playacting does work in only the rarest of cases/refs. My buddies (who are mostly Bayern fans) and me all have the strong opinion that European football should just take that over from the PL, and the football would get a lot better, and more fair. Until then teams like Barca will continue with this tactic...
 
Celestiale said:
Kudos to you for not sweeping it under the mat like most Barca fans would do it!
That's why i like the Premier league so much, the moaning and playacting does work in only the rarest of cases/refs. My buddies (who are mostly Bayern fans) and me all have the strong opinion that European football should just take that over from the PL, and the football would get a lot better, and more fair. Until then teams like Barca will continue with this tactic...
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This.

Even though the footie on display is spectacular I simply can't sit through a whole El Classico, the ref surrounding, faking injury and playacting just makes it unbearable. It is literally on cringeworthy levels and it looks like some parody.
 
Gio said:
On the contrary, the reason Atletico see fewer yellows is likely more to do with playing deeper and having less possession. Barcelona and Real play higher up the park and are more exposed to the counter attack - that's when they'll often take a yellow to avoid getting turned over on the transition in the open space behind them. I agree that they are disciplined enough to avoid needless bookings.
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I'm okay with that argument (except you're mistaken in one thing, Real get even less yellows than Atletico)

But still, defending deeper would lead to more fouls, tackles usually lead to more fouls as its an action hard to judge correctly (Vidal sent off yesterday), yet they're the team with less fouls in the whole competition.

But that's data alone, if your team faces Atletico and you see how they defend on a good day personal bias would say there's almost two fouls (hyperbole) for every possession you have in their half of the pitch, they play on the edge and, perfect case scenario, they avoid to commit constant fouls and if the ref is spot on, they're virtually unstoppable. But not even second best case scenario happens a lot through a season, sometimes they overtune their intensity and the ref punishes them, others they get away with it, sometimes they're right on the spot of "not a foul" but the ref has a bad day and screws them over and over...

I think Atletico are the team most influenced by the refeering in the whole UCL, if they do good, calls are probably going their way, if they perform bad they probably got screwed, Barcelona might be a close second, hard to judge our games, most of the time it feels we get screwed with our players not being protected and the other half our players get overprotected and then the other team is screwed
 
Celestiale said:
Kudos to you for not sweeping it under the mat like most Barca fans would do it!
That's why i like the Premier league so much, the moaning and playacting does work in only the rarest of cases/refs. My buddies (who are mostly Bayern fans) and me all have the strong opinion that European football should just take that over from the PL, and the football would get a lot better, and more fair. Until then teams like Barca will continue with this tactic...
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Even with the better Premier League refeering standars, teams can get screwed a lot of times.

I know it would work in my team's favor and football purists might consider this a sacrilege, but I'd be up for a more concrete booking style basketball fashion, 3 fouls this game? You get a yellow unless you already have one, 5th foul ref warns you, 6th foul? Red card.

Rakitic and Busquets may get a yellow card each game for stopping a counter and I'm okay with that, risks of our style. But when Casemiro, Alonso or Lass Diarra foul my players 5 or 6 times without seeing a Yellow in the same game I get absurdly triggered
 
Cal? said:
What's interesting about Terry scoring a header? :confused:
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Why isn't Valdes trying to stop that ball, where was Carvalho? What did he say about what he did? What did he saw the linesman did?
 
Ishdalar said:
Even with the better Premier League refeering standars, teams can get screwed a lot of times.
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Yep. You just have read the Michael Oliver thread. Or if you feel nostalgic the Howard Webb, Mike Dean or Mark Clattenberg threads. Perhaps most people won't remember but one of the most inept refs i´ve seen (portuguese/spanish level) was english. Uriah Rennie was his name. God what an awful ref.
 
Coming here from Europe and outside finding an agreement about video technology is just a sign it is due and pretty soon, if UEFA want to protect their show and the big load of cash attached.
 
gaucho_10 said:
He was on a yellow already, which is why he didn't get another one.
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The ref didn't have a very good performance in that final in general. Dante was definitely lucky there. Lewandowski and Ribery should have been sent off too.
 
 
A midfield two of Bakayoko and Moutinho? Dortmund could have a field day with the space left behind.
 
This is our 100th Champions League game, most likely the last of this season. All I'm hoping for is that this game is another step forward to 'normal' life for those who were sitting in the bus.
Monaco will apparently play YAWN and honor Marc Bartra before the match. It's a nice gesture but I'm not sure if away routine wouldn't be better.
 
Reus is back. That guy's incredible in the CL. Think you'll turn it around actually
 
It's good to see Allegri going for it.

I'm going for a 2-1 win for Barcelona and 2-2 draw between Monaco and BVB.
 
Barcelona 3-0 down. . . . Can only mean one thing. . . Theatrical diving outside the box, Theatrical diving inside the box, Card in the air gestures, intimidation of the referee, intimidation of the linesmen, intimidation of people behind the goal, squaring up to opposition, potential biting, anger with whistling, Neymar blatant cheating and a missed Messi penalty
 
giorno said:
Reus is back. That guy's incredible in the CL. Think you'll turn it around actually
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I'd obviously love it but don't think so. There's so much hyped expectation for a miracle to happen that IMHO it adds to the pressure the players feel.

Anyway, leaving aside the attack and the game last Wednesday, I really enjoyed this CL campaign. Apart from Real Madrid no boring opponents (sorry, RM fans, nothing personal, it's just that we've played each other too often to get excited).
 
Playing Durm instead of Pulisic without Dembele even on the pitch seems a bit too defensive to me.
 
Sly said:
Yep. You just have read the Michael Oliver thread. Or if you feel nostalgic the Howard Webb, Mike Dean or Mark Clattenberg threads. Perhaps most people won't remember but one of the most inept refs i´ve seen (portuguese/spanish level) was english. Uriah Rennie was his name. God what an awful ref.
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He was absolutely woeful and I think the only thing that kept him in a job was some sort of racial quota.
 
Crossie said:
I'd obviously love it but don't think so. There's so much hyped expectation for a miracle to happen that IMHO it adds to the pressure the players feel.

Anyway, leaving aside the attack and the game last Wednesday, I really enjoyed this CL campaign. Apart from Real Madrid no boring opponents (sorry, RM fans, nothing personal, it's just that we've played each other too often to get excited).
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No Fabinho is huge, there's no balance in Monaco's midfield (see cup final vs PSG) and they've had 3 terrible second half performances in CL in a row so as long as you're within touching distance by half time I expect you to go through.
 
Really looking forward to the Barca game.

I don't think Juve will mess this up, but I feel Barca are the only team capable of turning around that kind of deficit.
 
do.ob said:
Playing Durm instead of Pulisic without Dembele even on the pitch seems a bit too defensive to me.
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Pulisic being on the bench had to be expected as he is consistently stronger as sub than as starter. I can´t really pinpoint it but something about his game gives his opposing players tremendous trouble for a time until they adapt to it. Pulisic as of right now is an ideal player for half an hour, probably our strongest high impact sub.

Dembele on the bench pretty much means to me, that Reus is not expected to play the full game (he might have an hour or so in his tank) and Tuchel wants exchange on the highest level later against tired opposition.

The whole game rides on our ability to score early. If we do so we rip the tie wide open.
 
Barca will win but I can't see Juve throwing a 3-0 lead at once. Predict a 2-1 win for Barca.
 
Peanut Butter said:
It's going to be another Real v Atletico final isn't it? Zzzzz

Come on Juve win this thing.
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Hope not, will be good to see RM and Juve in the final.

If it somehow ended with another Madrid derby then Simeone should kill his players if they lose for the 3rd time ! no kidding here.
 
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