Indeed, gifs are a great invention.
Indeed, gifs are a great invention.
Olympiakos should have scored three or four. They looked ragged at the point that United had gone three up though but United just retreated into their brittle shell for the remaining forty minutes. They really were inviting a Sunderland/Swansea type finish instead of kicking on. In a weird way the pressure's kind of off now though, they're very much in bonusland in this competition given there are seven top sides that will be expected to beat them in the quarters. I don't think they've the tactics, players or confidence to take advantage of that though.
A great quarter final line up awaits. Hard to pick a winner but will go for Madrid myself.
Lets talk about six baby
There's a half decent europa league 1/4 finals in prospect as well, just Betis and Seville going down to the wire to a penalty shoot out, which peaked with some quality top corner shots and petered out with some jelly efforts. Basel would have to be candidates for performance of the evening, going down to to 10 men after 10 minutes to a germanic hustle and bustle side Salzburg, conceding a goal, then coming back in the 2nd half to score 2 with some tasty football technique on display.
The ref hadn't impressed me at all until late on when right in front of the his nose, a Basel player's head moved forward to make a contact of sorts with an aggressive Salzburg player's face, the Salzburg player spent 5 minutes rolling around the grass, the ref gave them both a yellow.
For that decision, the ref should get automatic absolution for whatever he's done over the past 5 years.
Barcelona v Atletico
Real Madrid v Borussia Dortmund
PSG v Chelsea
Manchester United v Bayern Munich
And the B competition
- AZ v Benfica
- Lyon v Juventus
- Basel v Valencia
- FC Porto v Sevilla
Pep v Moyesy... the start of a great footballing rivalry!
Büttner to school Robben.
Not bad progress for the Swiss club who have risen from about 50th place in Europe a couple of years ago, to breaking into the top 20 after this season with an attractive style of football under the very active direction of Yakin, their promising coach.
But in case anyone should get carried away with their return to the dizzy heights of the EL 1/4 finals, alongside much more illustrious rivals, I suspect we might need another dossier on why Basel are really just a paltry sum of their mostly mediocre parts, having the temerity to think they can do anything more than dabble around for a while in the vicinity where the big teams congregate.![]()
They are not unlike their national side who also seem to kick above their weight.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
In delusions of grandeur news, Manchester United fans are booing their team for being passed around the pitch by Bayern Munich.
Diego Costa hamstring, oh dear.
United 1-0 up to Bayern and Atletico 1-0 up at Barca. Well now.
Bayern struggled badly against the poorest Man U team ever to appear at the CL knockout stage and considering Man U even had a grandfather in midfield.
Game of the night was in Spain.
Itv commentary team is so biased it's unreal. Vidic gets Mandukic booked for eff all, holding his face when he wasn't hit, and they say right decision and then Rooney makes a meal of a tackle by Schweinsteiger - a foul, nor more no less - to get him sent off and commentary team say fair enough. Had it gone the other way they'd be citing Johnny Foreigner cheating disgrace.
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