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Teams:
Chelsea: Cech; Ivanovic, Luiz, Terry, Cole; Ramires, Lampard, Mikel, Mata; Torres, Kalou
Subs: Turnbull, Ferreira, Cahill, Essien, Meireles, Drogba, Sturridge.
Benfica: Artur, Emerson, Pereira, Capdevila, García, César, Aimar, Gaitán, Mati?, Witsel, Cardozo
Subs: Eduardo, Almeida, Nolito, Djaló, Oliveira, Rodrigo, Saviola.
As well they should. ESPN has the rights for EPL, so of course they're going to promote the crap out of it, and the Big Four is where the money is in viewership and page clicks. Look at Fox Soccer's website, they have much more content of other leagues, because they carry them. It's the same reason why they only give you 30 seconds of hockey highlights a week on Sports Center: it doesn't help out the rest of their content.
As awesome as it would be for me to have a top flight football ground that I could see from my office window, this makes no sense to me.
Agreed, plus MLS previously wanted the 20th team to be in NY but they've since expanded their horizons. Unfortunately the Cosmos can't get off the ground.
Evidently the Libertadores prices are too high.
Allah, Allah, Allah, fo' suh' everybody.
Oh, there's another Iniesta goal that might be fairly important...but it wasn't against Chelsea....
That makes Tom Henning Ovrebo the most important football figure of our lifetimes, I guess.
Anyone see Chelsea with any chance against Barca? I actually can imagine Drogba's strength and Sturridge's pace causing them trouble, but I don't see how the Chelsea's back 4 are going to be anything but Keystone Cops when defending the tiki-taka. I'm going to guess something like a 6-2 aggregate for Barca. Real against Bayern will be fascinating.
I can see it. Cech is certainly capable of the great performance and if Terry can keep the back four disciplined and stay at home they could keep Barca from slicing through. Chelsea also have the ability to finish on the counter so if they can get a few counterattacks the ball should be in the back of the net. Basically it's the formula Inter used two years ago in the semis and I think Chelsea have the personnel to pull it off. They have to be willing to stay back and let Barca have the ball and just move it around.
That is all. You may return to your duties.
They should absolutely use Milan's goal on Tuesday as a template.
Shouldn't that be "Sam Hutcheson has decided Sam Hutcheson is a supporter of..."
I agree 100% with his recommended changes.
Sam Hutcheson is strongly considering referring to Sam Hutcheson as The Ricky-Sam from now on.
Considering that Milan only took 2 shots in the entire game, despite needing to score in order to avoid a shootout or an outright defeat, I'm not sure Chelsea want to consider that particular template. They must believe they can do better on the counter than 2 shots, though with Kalou and Ramires on the field their opportunities might need to approach infinity for actual goals to result.
I think your prediction in 118 looks pretty good.
When we visited New York we stopped at The Strand and I made a beeline for their sports section. I was definitely disappointed in the lack of soccer books. They had a decent selection of baseball books, but I think I counted like six or seven soccer books at most (almost enough to fill up a whole shelf!).
Herc Gomez scored two more goals yesterday. I think he's clearly passed Wondo & Buddle as the slightly overage striker who deserves a call up once the US begins World Cup qualifying.
As for Chelsea's strategy -- I unfortunately have seen very few Barca games this year, but I seem to recall a few folks on twitter saying some La Liga teams have given Barca trouble by pressing them high up the pitch. Given how 'well' that went with AVB in charge, I can't see Chelsea sustaining that for any stretch without being carved up at the back. So I'd think their best strategy is the one Milan employed -- sit back, stay tight at the back and hope you convert on the 3-5 chances you'll get over the two legs.
(*)Not that anyone here said he did.
*With apologies to the Basque people
I'm not so sure about giving all 4 semifinalists a spot in the Champions League, but giving them at least qualifying spots would be nice. Teriffic article otherwise.
I agree four guaranteed Champions League places is overly generous, but qualifying places for the semi finalists, a place for the finalists and a seeded place for the winners might be fairer. That the winner should get a place is so obvious that only the suits could be so dumb to miss it, but a seeded place is perfectly logical too. After all, the winning club has won a European competition. There are clubs like my Arsenal who never really do anything in the Champions League but are seeded since they reliably get to the knockout stages. Taking away a seed from the never-was and giving it to the UEFA Cup winner would be fair and help make what was a real connisseur's competition that was often regarded as more difficult to win than the European Cup a stronger competition.
He never did say where exactly to put them, just that they should get a spot. Put the winner in the group stage, the loser in the playoff round and the semi-finalists in the final qualifying round.
The big problem with pressing Barça high up is that if you get tired before they do, the last 20 minutes turn into a massacre. Ask Valencia. I agree that the best shot for Chelsea is to try to replicate Inter from a couple of years ago.
If I were to be conspiratorial about refs/UEFA being overly fond of Barca, it's that first tackle as they press. They go at it pretty hard, but the upshot is that a brutal challenge in their offensive half will almost never result in a yellow card, seems to result in a foul less than one might think, and could result in a very sudden 3-on-2 or such. Folks wonder why more teams don't keep a higher line against the Blaugrana, but I wonder why more teams don't emulate this early point of offensive possession approach. It's proven to be overwhelmingly successful for almost four years now.
Because most teams can't control the ball like Barca. The problem with that sort of approach is that you are vulnerable to the counterattack in a big way and while Barcelona can be comfortable that once they've won possession they are going to retain it few other teams, even among the elite, can feel that sort of confidence.
You don't believe those leagues exist?
Guardiola sets them all kinds of instructions about when and who to press that aren't just "press the guy on the ball". A few that I remember:-
1. Immediately press the player who has just won a tackle because he won't have a good idea where players are
2. Immediately press a player as soon as they turn towards there own goal because they've limited there passing options
3. Immediately press a player as soon as they make even a minor mistake in controlling the ball
4. If you win a tackle immediately pass it to the closest available team mate, he will have a better view of the game than you
5. Never press one on one, it should always be at least two on one.
6. If you don't win the ball back within X seconds (it was something very short like ten) then immediately retreat and get into defensive positions to control the space
Well, they've got more baseball books that any other sport combined (IIRC), but I didn't really find any hidden gems or anything you can't find in a Borders or Barnes & Noble.
Chelsea Wigan more interesting than I anticipated. Not exactly fun, it's Wigan after all, but it's not 3-0 yet.
But it would completely break football if the 4th official had access to a TV and was able to see what literally millions of people at home can see.
So I guess there's nothing we can do about it.
City has to win to preserve some nerve.
If I didn't know better I'd never guess that City were in second place fighting for the title. This has been all Arsenal so far, the ball has barely been over the halfway line. And Balotelli should have been sent off.
EDIT: Balotelli's year would end that way.
Maybe I'm just concluding that SAF is really damn good.
(1) There have been very few poor showings other than in the three losses (City, Blackburn, Newcastle).
(2) United score late goals to secure points (West Brom, Liverpool, Arsenal, Norwich, Blackburn), but don't concede late to drop points.
(3) In fact, I count only twice (Stoke, Newcastle) when United have dropped points from a winning position.
(4) There have been spells of explosive offense, both in several blowouts and to rescue points (Chelsea).
(5) And when the attackers have been less prolific, United still manage to score early and then defend leads to the end (Everton, Swansea, Aston Villa).
Ferguson could probably take a pub team to the title.
They've also been playing together for years and whether by design or because of injury Ferguson has also rotated much better than Mancini so hasn't fatigued any of his players (like Mancini has with Silva and Aguero).
Man City *should* have won the title but have perpetrated just as big a bottle job as Newcastle did two decades ago. Mostly because Mancini is pretty much another Claudio Renairi. Give him comfortably the best team in the league without any serious challengers and he probably wont #### it up but that's pretty much it.
Anyone gambling on Balotelli can safely be called an idiot at worst and guilty of supremely wishful thinking at best. He's been the same player since he broke in with Inter and still just as much of an immature tosspot who only plays when he feels like it (and often looks like he has mental health problems, a more "bipolar" player in their behavior on the pitch I have not seen).
Great. Now I feel old.
I only caught the last 30 minutes of the game (since when did ESPN2 start having La Liga games on?), but man those 30 minutes were like an onslaught. It's amazing the game ended 0-0.
Whenever I see Balotelli make any facial expression I have an overwhelming revulsion and can't help but spend the entire game hoping that he gets his comeuppance and never has anything to celebrate. I don't think I've ever reacted to an athlete with such an intense longing for him to fail at everything he does. The only people who come close are certain NFL players, but for them I can excuse their ridiculous douche-baggery by saying they need to psyche themselves up for the game (Terrell Owens, Jeremy Shockey) and/or are suffering from peer pressure-induced roid rage (Dan Romanowski). Whenever Balotelli does something good I always have a hope that it was actually Micah Richards (they look similar on TV).
Sounds like somebody needs a crash course on the original "Super Mario".
They've got an awful lot of really good attacking options, but they can be made to look ordinary when pressed.
Any theories about Man City's collapse? Is it just down to Mancini is a poor jockey?
I'm a City fan, and it's hard to pinpoint anything without getting too deep into the weeds about chemistry and "bottle" etc. So, setting all that aside and trying to focus on the actual play on the field, I would point to the lack of a consistent dominating striker, and the lack of creativity in the attack outside of Silva. Yes, I'm perfectly aware how ridiculous that sounds considering the amount of money they've spent on strikers and the fact that they're second in the league in scoring, but they've been awful at times on the road, scoring well under 2 goals a game vs nearly 3 per game at home. Aside from a few brilliant spells from each, Aguero and (particularly) Dzeko have mostly been poachers this year rather than creators, with Silva and sometimes Yaya doing all of the hard work to set them up. When, like yesterday, Silva and Yaya are off the field, Milner and Nasri aren't getting the job done.*
Does that all go back to Mancini? Yeah, I think that's probably fair.
But back to the beginning (chemistry, bottle), this is not a team that has been strategically assembled with a plan in mind, and I think it shows.
*Again, fully aware that many other teams would kill for any or all of these guys. I get it.
Kind of a strange move as Crawley has a real good chance of promotion. Weird timing, too. I don't follow the nether reaches of the League much, but I get the feeling lots of wacky stuff goes on at the bottom of the pyramid.
I guess it's hard to predict, but the owners seem fairly steady to me; it's not like they've been churning through managers like Milan or Inter. I suppose they (or anyone else in England outside of United and Arsenal) would jump if Mourinho was actually interested, but who else would they go after?
Nasri was so good in the Chelsea win a few weeks ago but has been relatively anonmymous for long stretches of the season. I expected a lot more out of him, that's for sure.
Also, I should apologize in advance to Arsenal and Napoli fans on behalf of all Manchester City fans for the inevitable ridiculous bids on Van Persie and Cavani that we'll surely see this summer. I don't expect either of them to end up there, but I gotta think the bids are coming.
Giuseppe Rossi!
I know this will sound crazy, but this may be the perfect time for Arsenal to sell Van Persie. His value will never be greater and he's just about to turn 30. I think they'd be a little nuts to do it, but at his age and with his health history, and with his contract having only a year left, it's now or never if they want to sell him for big money. They might need to invest in some extra security for the board members if they do it, though.
I actually agree with that. He's also been remarkably healthy this year, which seems to go against the trend of recent years.
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