Champions League 2012-13

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?

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)

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

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Originally Posted by David Bond

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

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?

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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.

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.

1-0 to useless Basel at Stamford Bridge :)

How'd it all go in the end?

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.

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Originally Posted by BonnieShels

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

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

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2...s-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.

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Originally Posted by BonnieShels

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

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?

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Well said.

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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.