Champions League 2012-13

[patrickccfc]

well that was exciting

[geysir]

on't have a rich owner then you are correct. But Novartis (giant Swiss pill company) have been pumping money into them for well over a decade, and they enjoy a level of sponsorship that other big Swiss clubs (Young Boys, Grasshopers, FC Zurch etc) can only really dream of. They also have the largest club stadium in the country, which is owned by some local co-operative (it was fully re-furbished a decade ago for them at very little cost in some local government / council scheme). They regularly outspend other Swiss teams and usually sign the best players from the regional (let alone national) rivals, Dragovic was signed for over €1m a few years ago, Bobadilla and Degen came for similar fees from Young Boys, years before they signed Petric from Grasshoppers for over €3m, it's a domestic transfer policy that is shades of Lyons in the 2000s and the recent Götze to Bayern move. When they signed Alex Frei from the Bundesliga a few years ago (paid over €3m) financially no other club in the region could do this (even the dodgy owners at Sion couldnt pay fees in that region) same with Streller from Stuttgart. I know you'll probably say, this post is like something of wikipedia, but the facts belie this idea that they are some sort of altruistic, organically grown club, they are at the top of the food chain in Alpine football and their signings usually ensure their place.

What is the purpose of all that? You appear to be getting sidetracked in some attempt to support your absurd opinion that Basel are some affluent club with serious under-performing issues.
If by pumping money you mean Novartis pumping Eur2m p/a for shirt sponsorship? Maybe by Swiss standards that's pumping money and Basel are well off, but we are talking about a club making its way in European competition on an income of ca Eur30m p/a, not how Basel can ably operate in Switzerland. How they spend that income is a credit to the way the club is run, is seen by the standard of their academy and performance in European competition.
If it doesn't meet their last year's European standards, then so be it. I don't have any strong opinions about the relative merits of this year v last year. I'd just look at their general standard, appreciate their technique and on occasion awestruck by the way they try to play football. I'm impressed by their efforts and performances over the last 2 years.

[BonnieShels]

Philip Lahm getting a yellow tonight; a tragedy for football? Discuss.

[Charlie Darwin]

I'm struggling to understand what logic is behind Barcelona's tactics, if any. There is no shape to the team and no discernable plan. It's bizarre how easily Bayern are dominating.

[Charlie Darwin]

Dani Alves doing the old "make a late tackle and roll around injured" routine. Classic.

[patrickccfc]

Barcelona getting um "barcelona'd" never seen them getting so comprehensively out played.. seem so devoid of ideas and have no spark about them.. they are just clueless without messi

[geysir]

Get them sprinklers on, full blast.

[geysir]

The Panel - typical Irish behaviour squabbling at a wake.

[Charlie Darwin]

Eamo's thousands of hours of intensive study of La Liga have revealed to him that the Barcelona players are burned out.

[geysir]

Eamo's thousands of hours of intensive study of La Liga have revealed to him that the Barcelona players are burned out.

John "you can only play with the players you have at your disposal" Giles made the 'Barca burnt out' comment a few minutes previous.
So we can conclude that Eamon's thousands of hours of intensive study of La Liga were a total waste of time.

[Charlie Darwin]

He should have just played his Playstation instead.

[geysir]

Eamon has been brushing up on his Bundesliga, though he's stuttering on the stats, forgivable considering the unfamiliarity of the topic.


Some revenge was exacted on Robben for his exaggerated antics last week getting two Barca players booked with Alba being suspended tonight.

[SkStu]

interesting... didnt expect PSG to be so high up there...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BJNTIXACQAAcmoe.jpg

[Charlie Darwin]

I'm surprised to see Milan so far up there. PSG don't surprise me - they've been forced to offer a ridiculous premium to attract player like City have been.

edit: and surprised to see Malaga so low, even below Celtic!

[geysir]

Those figures don't make any sense in relation to what they are supposed to be about - relative player wages; £ per year on average, 1st team players. How can Celtic pay £80m to their players, with an income of ca £45m p/a and still record a profit at the end of the year? For sure there is some calculation used, which is not clear to me.

These are the Deloitte figures, revenues by stream 2011-12
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BBYdjcdCIAAv44d.jpg
Galatasaray ca €95m.

Possibly PSG and Malaga don't register on this table, because much of their revenue comes from other sources.

[DeLorean]

Barcelona getting um "barcelona'd" never seen them getting so comprehensively out played.. seem so devoid of ideas and have no spark about them.. they are just clueless without messi

Amazing how a lot those other players won two European Championships and a World Cup without Messi.

[Closed Account 2]

So it's an all German Final, can you name the following from the squads the last time both clubs won it (Dortmund's 1997 CL squad and Bayern's 2001 squad)?

1)2 British players (1 from each winning squad)
2)2 Swiss players (1 from each winning squad)
3)2 Brazilian players (1 from each winning squad)
4)2 Scandinavian players (1 from each winning squad)
5)2 Ghanian players (1 from each winning squad)

[pineapple stu]

Good question!

Paul Lambert was with Dortmund at the time I think?
Lucio for Bayern?

Edit - sorry; was thinking of 1997 for both clubs. Hargreaves for Bayern is presumably the other Brit.

[Closed Account 2]

Lambert is one of them, Lucio isn't though - he hadn't moved to Bayern at that stage, he actually played in the final for Leverkusen the year after (2002).

[DeLorean]

Hargreaves definitely won with Bayern anyway.

[DeLorean]

Bayern Ghana player was probably the guy that was in bits after United beat them in '99, his name escapes me though!

[DeLorean]

Brazilian for Bayern would have been Elber, the Swiss may have been Sforza although I'm not at all sure. Just knew he was there at one stage. Lovely player. Haven't a clue about any of the Dortmund lads really bar Lambert. That's me out I think.

[osarusan]

Swiss - Chapuisat was at Dortmund?

Ibrahim Tanko was Ghanaian? And Kuffour with Bayern?

[Closed Account 2]

Yeah Hargreaves and Lambert are the two British ones, You're right about Sforza (Bayern 01) and Elber (Bayern 01 you could also have had Paulo Sergio from this team) and the player from Ghana you allude to is correct (Bayern 01) anyone know who the corresponding Dortmund players were? I can give you a hint about the Swiss Dortmund player, he has the reverse* initials of Sforza.

*(in the sense that Steve Finnan and Frank Stapleton have reverse initials)

[Closed Account 2]

yeah it's Chapuisat and Tanko

[DeLorean]

Ah Kuffour, that's the guy.

Chapuisat was pretty obvious, disappointed with that. Tanko doesn't ring any bell at all.

[Junior]

Those figures don't make any sense in relation to what they are supposed to be about - relative player wages; £ per year on average, 1st team players. How can Celtic pay £80m to their players, with an income of ca £45m p/a and still record a profit at the end of the year? For sure there is some calculation used, which is not clear to me.

I think its 800,000 rather than 80m or in other words the celtic first teamers are on average (800k /52) £15k per week whereas Barcas are on £100k or €120k per week (5.25m/52)

[geysir]

Thanks Junior, sometimes I need it spelt out.

[DeLorean]

I decided to Wiki the rest of those answers and I found a name to rival Danny Invincible for the greatest in world football. Dortmund's sub keeper for the '97 final and current goalkeeping coach, meet....

Wolfgang de Beer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_de_Beer)

[Closed Account 2]

Or Teddy as he was known to his friends.

[OwlsFan]

I see Dunphy was off on one of his self righteous rants last night, castigating George Hamilton for saying that Barca were humiliated because a wonderful club like Barca can't be humiliated, despite losing 0-7. I understand that Mother Teresa is the managing director of the club. This is the same club who turned on the sprinklers when Inter Milan beat them a few years back to get the celebrating Milan players off the pitch. They are a club like most other clubs - no better - no worse. No doubt about the lovely football they play but when a team is beaten 0-7 on aggregate it is a humiliation, all the more so when it is a top club. Makes our 1-6 against Germany a slightly less humiliation.

Much made of them getting to 6 semi-finals in a row. Chelsea got to 5 in 6 years.

I was amused when Dunphy now tipped Bayern and Brady, who had tipped them throughout, started beating his head in anguish at the thought of D tipping them :)

The Barca fans sang at the end despite the drubbing their got from the Germans. Would those who castigated the Irish fans for supporting their team despite the defeats in Poland care to comment?

[Closed Account 2]

It was a humiliation - it's not like it was a narrow defeat or the seven goals were against the run of play. There was no stage of either match where Barca really had Bayern under pressure. Accross the two legs it was 7-0, which is the second biggest margin across all CL group stage (H/A matches) and knockout matches this season - only Chelsea's 10-1 vs Nordsjealland was bigger.

Even in the history of the CL knockouts, margins of 7 goals (or more) are very rare:

Last year Barca beat Leverkusen 10-2
Bayern beat Sporting 12-1 (2008/9)
Lyons beat Bremen 10-2 (2004/5)

[BonnieShels]

It seems the BBC's David Bond has jumped on the Ken Early Bundesliga bashing bandwagon, bai...


Why Germany's new dominance of Europe may not last for long
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football-22383346

[DeLorean]

I'm not a Dunphy defender but I think he was trying to say that Barcelona have been amazing for five or six years and it was a little sad to see their demise manifested so heavily over the two legs. I suppose he felt George and Trevor could have maybe paid tribute to what has been a great side as well as (or instead of) speaking about humiliation. Obviously they were humiliated though, there's no doubt about that.

[BonnieShels]

I'm not a Dunphy defender but I think he was trying to say that Barcelona have been amazing for five or six years and it was a little sad to see their demise manifested so heavily over the two legs. I suppose he felt George and Trevor could have maybe paid tribute to what has been a great side as well as (or instead of) speaking about humiliation. Obviously they were humiliated though, there's no doubt about that.

Not wanting to be one to throw out conspiracies but has anyone else been a bit concerned at the drastic decline of Barca?

I thoroughly enjoyed their humilation and in fact I think that it could have happened v Milan only for suspensions as discussed here before but there was just something bizarre about the whole thing to be honest.

[geysir]

I suppose after Bundesliga clubs getting trashed and played off the park by Barca in their many better recent years, it was bound to happen one day that they would get their chance to rub Barca's noses in it. C'est la vie.

If Kraftwerk did a few Pink Floyd covers, some people might even get confused and start to proclaim Kraftwerk as the second coming.

[SkStu]

The Barca fans sang at the end despite the drubbing their got from the Germans. Would those who castigated the Irish fans for supporting their team despite the defeats in Poland care to comment?

Yes. They managed to make it to the semi-finals of the tournament they were competing in and had just about secured the league. They deserved a bit of a sing song. We were losing 4-0 and had played like schoolboys for the previous 180 minutes.

[Charlie Darwin]

Benfica are in a spot of bother now. After evening the tie up with an early goal, they've now conceded an away goal and will need to win by two goals outright.

[Charlie Darwin]

1-0 to useless Basel at Stamford Bridge :)

[BonnieShels]

How'd it all go in the end?

[geysir]

Crass performance by Basel at Stamford Bridge. They're an insult to intelligent football people as they pranced around the pitch. 'Their performance against Chelsea was a disgrace, a monument to conceit adorned with vanity and self-indulgence, rendered all the more objectional by the swagger of their gait', with their drug pumped money in their back pockets.

Tough on Fenerbahce considering their home leg performance. The 2nd leg Europa league semi finals were great entertainment, for a second feature.

[Stuttgart88]

It seems the BBC's David Bond has jumped on the Ken Early Bundesliga bashing bandwagon, bai...

Here's an article by a German insider in Thursday's Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/may/01/german-fairytale-champions-league-spiel

It says that despite the success of Germany's model, perhaps its best days are the last ten years with an era of Bayern dominance beckoning and the much vaunted competive balance might be in the past.

I think he may be right. I think many in sport are very quick to turn a short term phenomenon into a long term trend. Lets see how it all pans out, but for now I'm very happy to admire the two finalists.

Edit, Sorry, just saw that the article was linked into the BBC article above. Anyway, I think we have highlighted the anomalies in the German model was well as its merits. I personally know a Director of 1860 Munich and the deal they signed with Bayern for sharing the stadium is virtually extortionate. 1860 are a financial mess, I'm sure much of their own making, but the terms of their lease on the Allianz makes generating match day income very hard.

[Stuttgart88]

Not wanting to be one to throw out conspiracies but has anyone else been a bit concerned at the drastic decline of Barca?
And a Spanish judge ordering Fuentes' blood bags to be destroyed? :)

In fairness, this Barcelona team has been playing non-stop for over 4 years now. I think they're knackered and lacking balance in some areas.

It's a thin squad and many of them have also played long international tournaments. I think other teams have learnt how to play them too. Not to mention that they might easily have only lost 2-1 in Munich - two Munich goals would have been disallowed by many refs and only an unbelievable intervention by Dante prevented a Messi goal, and they missed a sitter after springing the offside trap from a free kick too. Goals change games.

I think Bayern were excellent, but a few things went their way that maybe flattered the outcome. It remins me a bit of Germany v England in 2010. It finished a 4-1 humiliation with Germany counter attacking for fun, but had Lampard's goal been allowed to make it 2-2 it might have panned out differently.

[Stuttgart88]

The Barca fans sang at the end despite the drubbing their got from the Germans. Would those who castigated the Irish fans for supporting their team despite the defeats in Poland care to comment?Well said.

[Charlie Darwin]

It's a thin squad and many of them have also played long international tournaments. I think other teams have learnt how to play them too. Not to mention that they might easily have only lost 2-1 in Munich - two Munich goals would have been disallowed by many refs and only an unbelievable intervention by Dante prevented a Messi goal, and they missed a sitter after springing the offside trap from a free kick too. Goals change games.
I think goals change games, but they don't change two games. Bayern won 7-0 because they were seven goals better, in my opinion.

[Stuttgart88]

I think the fact that the first game finished 4-0 instead of 2 or 3-1 totally changed the second game, so yes they can change 2 games, especially with the away goals rule.

I love the way you omitted to quote "Bayern were excellent...but a few things went their way that maybe flattered them"! I think Bayern were emphatically the better team, the only thing I'd disagree with is that they were 7 better. A 5-2 aggregate win, for example, would still be a very comprehensive win that would be getting just as much acclaim.

[Charlie Darwin]

I reject the notion that it changed the second game at all. If I had seen Barcelona take one risk in the second game I might agree somewhat, but if anything they were more conservative and more defensive and still got hammered. And 3-0 flattered them.

[Closed Account 2]

Crass performance by Basel at Stamford Bridge. They're an insult to intelligent football people as they pranced around the pitch. 'Their performance against Chelsea was a disgrace, a monument to conceit adorned with vanity and self-indulgence, rendered all the more objectional by the swagger of their gait', with their drug pumped money in their back pockets.

Tough on Fenerbahce considering their home leg performance. The 2nd leg Europa league semi finals were great entertainment, for a second feature.

Basel were almost as hopeless as you sarcastically suggest. 5-2 in the end and you can't really argue with that scoreline, even then one of the Swiss goals was a gift of a PK from the ref. It's the easiest two legs Chelsea have had in the Europa league this season, Sparta Prague, Rubin and Steaua all ran them closer, and gave them more of a game. I know how much you love stats, so here is another one for you 5-2 is the joint biggest scoreline across all EL finals, semi finals and quarter finals this season or last season. Been a bit of a rotten fortnight for you as a football clairvoyant hasnt it? You seemed adamant Spanish teams would continue to dish out their "hammerings" of German sides, and that Basel would produce a stellar performance of inventive football... Didn't quite pan out that way.

[Charlie Darwin]

You're wrong though. Basel did display a lot of inventive football and dominated Chelsea for 45 minutes at Stamford Bridge. The fact they could only convert their dominance to one goal in the first half, and then succumbed to three quick goals at the start of the second half, is testament to already-identified deficiencies and the fact Chelsea can call on £500 million worth of talent to create unrepresentative lopsided scorelines.

[Stuttgart88]

I thought it was obvious enough throughout the latter stages of the tournament that Basle have a bit of class about them but I never expected them to beat Chelsea who have that bit of extra quality, top level experience and street-wiseness about them. I enjoyed watching them, regardless of whether they're the local rich kids.