Barcelona - a lot of moaning about them and some praise

Yeah, "Barca love in" is a fair description of my posts in this thread. Or not.

I don't know what it is. Probably defending them to have a dig at Real then? Thing is you just can't defend what was happening yesterday.
And for those who say Real were at least as bad: Well, they simply weren't.
Di Maria was annoying in the first half on 2 or 3 occassions, but Barca reached new heights as far as cheating is concerned.
 
I just wonder if those people who still defend Barcelona's antics and the preferential treatment they get from the refs will still be this generous if they beat us in the Champions League final with the help of the referee who oversees their cheating and diving?
 
Oliver Kay

Uefa case against Barcelona relates to sub keeper Pinto's red card. Case against Real includes Pepe red, Mourinho dismissal, Mourinho comments, throwing of missiles and a pitch invasion


Quite amusing that Madrid seem to have more to answer for, cnuts though they are.
Typical UEFA....ignoring all the diving, unsportsmanlike behaviour, or whatever it's known as, plus ref harrassment from Barca.

In other words no investigation into their on field antics.

Funnily enough Pinto's card was the only thing I didn't see and the only thing that didn't matter.

I'll bet they'd be quick to look into all the other though if it was United.
 
It was a yellow card at the worst, and given that there wasn't even a contact made, Alves should be banned for a number of games for blatant cheating that resulted in getting a fellow professional sent off.

But obviously nothing will be done about Barcelona and their players' actions in this game. UEFA have no balls when it comes to this club. They can ban everybody else for daring to voice their frustrations but the scandalous behavior of the Spanish leading club and the incompetence of the officials that continue to be fooled by it will be further tolerated.
 
UEFA have opened disciplinary cases against both clubs.

8969970-dressing-a-pig.jpg
 
For Barca the case relates to Pinto(the reserve keeper), nothing to do with anyone on the pitch, they are all in the clear.

I hope some Real players dive a lot in the 2nd leg and get some of those Barca cnuts sent off.
 
I hope for a fair/good/strong ref in the final if we get there. Maybe it will help that it is at Wembley and a more british way of refereeing may be applied.
 
I hope for a fair/good/strong ref in the final if we get there. Maybe it will help that it is at Wembley and a more british way of refereeing may be applied.

5 match ban for you.

I hope Jose kick up enough fuss in the coming week that whoever gets the final over-compensates and favour us.
 
This has probably been posted already, but if not.. yeah.



embarrassing

i wonder what does busquets think when he sees this images, or alves

do they laugh? do they think they've been good?

i hope they feel 50 percent of the shame we fans feel when we see what they have done to football
 
The ref we got at Gelsenkirchen (spelling?) was more "British" than most PL refs.

He's Spanish, so he won't be allowed to referee the final. He'd probably favour us with most Spaniards hating Catalans.
 
This has probably been posted already, but if not.. yeah.



:lol:

I actually laughed out loud at this. Things like this make me feel embarrassed to say that I love football so much. I can't wait for our game on the weekend. Will remind me of all the good things in the game.
 
That Real Madrid TV (or whatever it is) video is brilliant.
 
You should watch this match. because it is not a massive over-reaction. It was perfectly acceptable to condemn some of their players antics. Its not that madrid were innocent. overall, from a neutral perspective, we were robbed of a performance.

So I watched the game last night fella and I can confirm my opinion was Barca were disgraceful, I counted nine players surround the ref for the red card incident and generally just extremely unsporting.
Massive shame as it killed the game.
Real weren't exactly thriving though, the tactics were crap; I think Jose made the same mistake as Fergie in trying to contain Barca...how do you contain a team like that? Best bet is to counter them with your natural game which for the current Real team is attack, not pile three defensive layers in your formation.
United did the same in the 2009 Final when we should have attacked them with our wingers rather than contain and out-pass them as no-one can out-pass Barca.
 
Interesting Twitter argument between Oliver Holt and Guillem Balague who claims the English press are hypocrites for slagging the Barca-Real players behaviour.
It's almost as if Balague condones it...
 
Interesting Twitter argument between Oliver Holt and Guillem Balague who claims the English press are hypocrites for slagging the Barca-Real players behaviour.
It's almost as if Balague condones it...

Post it in here, J Dawg.
 
I actually thought there was contact with the alves tackle as I didn't think he'd be able to swing around like that without it

but the clip is very good quality and shows clear air between pepe and alves' leg
 
Not that I like Holt too much, but Balague has always come across as a non too bright individual
 
I got extremely annoyed watching Barca play yesterday. It wasn't the first time either. All that diving and play-acting were absolutely disgraceful. What I hated the most though, was the fact that everytime there was a foul on one of their players, the entire team surrounded the referee. UEFA needs to do something about this, but they obviously won't.
Another observation: Their style of play really is not exciting at all. They spend 80% of their entire possession passing the ball either backwards or sideways just so they can fulfil their obsession of keeping possession. It's only the other 20% of their time that they actually spend attacking.


for me , there is no doubt the rushing up to the ref is pre-meditated by guardiola...there is no way after every foul it just so happens that every barcelona player sprints up to the ref (in valdes's case 50 metres on a few occasions) to tell the ref he needs to be carded....he must have instructed this to his players , it just cant be possible that just like a hollywood movie , they know exactly what they need to do and in sequence all rush up as one group......even in the alves tackle not 1 barcelona player checked to see if he was okay , they were busy brandishing invisible cards to the ref......quite poor really:devil:

the 1st ref to grow a pair and start booking players for making that gesture is the day "football wins".....its an ugly look for the game and one barcelona shouldnt be proud of
 
Just read through this Balague chap's tweets. Doesn't seem to read much of the British sports press does he. Has no idea at all what goes on here.

He also says no-one in Spain has mentioned Barca's diving...it's just the English.

@GuillemBalague
Guillem Balague

@Aaron_Sharp_EFC @OllieHoltMirror good point.In spain nobody mentioned theatre from alves,busquets,pedro.In england is what most ppl...
Time someone mentioned it.....
 
Don't ever let me run FIFA or UEFA or I'd be handing five figure fines on seeing replays of this bullshit. The fine would double for a repeat offender and then a suspension for a third infraction.

It's clear as day this face-clutching is a taught tactic.

This is what Fifa, EUFA the FA etc should do, have every single match reviewed for incidents like this. This frees the referees from making decisions during the game that they may not see clearly.

The review committee should be looking for examples of simulation. You see someone run up on someone elses back, make no contact that could explain writhing around like they were shot? Automatic 2 game suspension.

Just come down hard on it. This sort of rubbish is horrible.

Your head would spin at how fast simulation would be cleaned up. There should be zero tolerance.
 
This is what Fifa, EUFA the FA etc should do, have every single match reviewed for incidents like this. This frees the referees from making decisions during the game that they may not see clearly.

The review committee should be looking for examples of simulation. You see someone run up on someone elses back, make no contact that could explain writhing around like they were shot? Automatic 2 game suspension.

Just come down hard on it. This sort of rubbish is horrible.

Your head would spin at how fast simulation would be cleaned up. There should be zero tolerance.

Yes to all of your post......give them a suspension and see if they do it again
 
So you like to see Stoke City's shithouse tactics shine through on a European Cup Semi-final? You don't want to see two sides going all out to attack eachother, to provide a spectacle? I bet you were the same type condemning Arsenal for going out of the competition like a bunch of cowards in the knockout round against Barca..yet you're getting all high and mighty when Madrid put 10 men behind the ball and resorted to cynical fouls without any positive intentions with the ball.

No I never said that. The true greats of football are positive teams. Most people would agree that watching a team with attacking threat is better then watching a team with none. I don't think it's outlandish to say playing to score is the way football should be played.

What the hell is this cack?

Yes, I would LOVE to see Stoke City make it through to the Champions League (barring not in our place) and push through to the semi-final (Only if we were already out). Why? Because they would be a MASSIVE fecking underdog, and every second of every match would be nail biting. They would be playing the best brand of football they could play to WIN.

That is what matters, winning. Not how you win, just that you win within the rules of the game.

I also disagree with the "true great" teams of football being positive. First, what the hell is "positive" supposed to be. What you should say is "attacking" because all the term positive is, is a back handed way to suggest that there is something inherently good about attacking, and something bad about defending.

Defending and countering is every bit as enjoyable for a true fan of football.

There is something brilliant about a technical and smothering defensive display that still manages to put the game away.