Champions league draw

Nunu

A lot of people on that forum saying it would be easy to rig the draw to come out like it did by using 4 hot and 4 cold balls?
But how the hell could that guarantee the exact line up of fixtures?

There would still be many variables wouldn't there because if you pick out a hot ball you still don't know which of the pre determined 4 you've picked?

zAbbo

pfft, I was using the soccer forum before it was full of disgruntled EL folk

I-Bleed-White

I think there is defo something going on. I mean now you look at it you have no tourney favourites playing eachother as it stands making for a great semi final. No disrepect to the pool but you have to fancy the Arse, manu, barca and chelski out of that 8 to be tourney favourites and none of them are playing eachother. Coincidence? A possible motive could be to restore the champ league glitz to the occasion after recent grumblings from fans, players and papers that winning the champions league is luck.

_blank_

Different degrees of temperature.

ie.

White Hot
Red Hot
Hot
Tepid

Absolute Zero
Frozen
Brrrr
A Bit Chilly

You could tell the dude who made the draw (was he weraing a wig btw, or just a shít load of Just For Men?) that Hot must play Brrrr.

Simple to rig imo.

_blank_

zAbbo wrote: »

pfft, I was using the soccer forum before it was full of disgruntled EL folk

Touché sir.:pac:

Nunu

DesF wrote: »

Different degrees of temperature.

ie.

White Hot
Red Hot
Hot
Tepid

Absolute Zero
Frozen
Brrrr
A Bit Chilly

You could tell the dude who made the draw (was he weraing a wig btw, or just a shít load of Just For Men?) that Hot must play Brrrr.

Simple to rig imo.

Makes sense:D

~Rebel~

i didn't see the draw itself live, but couldn't there easily just be something like 1small groove or bump or something in ball to come out first, 2 in the second etc, something noone would be able to see except the person feeling for them..if you thought bout it for 10mins with the balls that were to be used i bet it would be pretty easy to rig.

_blank_

I saw the draw.

The balls and officials were far from groovy.

BrandonBlock

Tusky wrote: »

Experts said it was virtually impossible to manipulate the time of the posting - which read 10.28am.

'Experts' ROFL. A child could do it -

UPDATE forum.post SET date.post_time="10.28am"

BrandonBlock

The Mirror wrote:

I was at the draw this morning and it was all done properly. I cannot understand how this happened.

Hang on a minute, if the draw was at 12.30pm here, wouldn't that make it 1.30pm in Switzerland.. I'd say the draw just wasn't live, and the info was leaked before being broadcast.

~Rebel~

BrandonBlock wrote: »

'Experts' ROFL. A child could do it -

UPDATE forum.post SET date.post_time="10.28am"

The problem comes with the many posts following it, consistently being added until right now, it would take serious doctoring to make them all fit right, and id imagine the actual users who's names were used in this ruse would be pissed off because obviously all the posts made between 10.30 and 12 would have had to be created without them knowing or else THAT's a massive conspiracy. Most of them are regular contributors, postcounts of 500plus upwards to the 1000's of posts. Changing one post without anyone noticing, no problem. Changing a whole thread without everyone on the board calling shenanigans, not possible imo. All it would have taken for this to die is "Oh, that wasn't there earlier."

RasTa

There was no soccer form back in 98!

james123

jesus i should have named it the old biddy thread

Tusky

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

As I said before yes there's still time left in the season but unless the European Cup is won, the season would have to be regarded as a disappointment. Gerrard seems to think so too.

I would say what Arsenal have managed represents genuine progress whereas what Liverpool have managed is to fail yet again to mount a league title challenge. It wasn't too long ago that the 'sack Rafa' brigade were making their voices heard. I wouldn't be at all surprised if similar calls come out following the Arsenal tie.

Yeah but thats not what we were talking about. I was replying to your point about us going backwards rather than forwards. Last season we were 21 points off the top. This season we are 10 points off with 9 to go. It is entirely possible that we could close the gap and finish 5 or 6 points off the top. That would represent progress, as I said.

Chardee MacDennis

a bit tenous but....

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AuJCCeZY418u7e.ZBFRFPHjsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20080313105656AAigxRG

event

so the chamions league and the chamPions league are rigged?

OH NOES!!!11!!

monkey9

If it was rigged, why would they draw Roma and Utd together after the crowd trouble that occurred in Rome?

leninbenjamin

DesF wrote: »

They'd make money off the games no matter who played who.

come on, use your head. the matches between the heavy hitters would garner considerably more advertising revenue and command higher ticket prices etc. secondly, these games attract much more interest from neutrals. that's why it's in UEFAs interests to fix the draw so that there is always one game of heavy weights only, particularly in the earlier rounds.

Nunu

monkey9 wrote: »

If it was rigged, why would they draw Roma and Utd together after the crowd trouble that occurred in Rome?

If it was fixed, personally i don't believe so, then the only thing I can think of is that Romans roubles are at work here.

For obvious reasons he'd want Chesea in Moscow this May and perhaps he sees their best chance as avoiding the favourites Barcelona / Utd?

...hows that for a conspiracy theory!:D

~Rebel~

Nunu wrote:

If it was fixed, personally i don't believe so, then the only thing I can think of is that Romans roubles are at work here.

For obvious reasons he'd want Chesea in Moscow this May and perhaps he sees their best chance as avoiding the favourites Barcelona / Utd?

...hows that for a conspiracy theory!:D

I dunno...not sure Roman would pick to be guaranteed to play two of the teams who have been in the final the last 3 years (as well as barca obviously)...also pretty sure he wouldn't pick the team thats knocked them out at the Semi stage for 2 out of 3 years..

Peyton Manning

Seems to me that the only reason to rig it like this would be that you get the dream semi finals - that is the 4 best teams left in the tournament and a chance of a non all-english final.

Man Utd vs Barcelona
Arsenal vs Chelsea

Basically they wanted Barcelona, Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal to avoid each other. Pretty simple to do this, just leave those 4 balls in a freezer over night. Then draw warm ball vs cold ball.

~Rebel~

Archimedes wrote: »

Seems to me that the only reason to rig it like this would be that you get the dream semi finals - that is the 4 best teams left in the tournament and a chance of a non all-english final.

Man Utd vs Barcelona
Arsenal vs Chelsea

Basically they wanted Barcelona, Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal to avoid each other. Pretty simple to do this, just leave those 4 balls in a freezer over night. Then draw warm ball vs cold ball.

atually thats a good point. The 3 strongest squads (arguably) get a bit of a bye to the next round while they next 2 strongest squads play off against each other for the final semi spot.

Man U, Barca and Chelsea will all be able to put out very strong teams in all competitions even with injuries/restings. While Arse have a fantastic first team, injuries and tiredness could take their toll more then the other 3.

Guy:Incognito

Why would they bother with messing with the balls? They can just do what the FA do in the draws and pull ut a random ball, then instead of saying the number on the bal , just say the number they want to be on it,

d22ontour

Tough draw for United, Roma were excellent away against Madrid and will be tough to beat.

Pighead

d22ontour wrote: »

Tough draw for United, Roma were excellent away against Madrid and will be tough to beat.

Ah d22ontour, cheer up. Turn that frown upside down. Instead of looking for negatives why not look for the positives?

Man Utds last 4 games against Roma= Man Utd 10 Roma 4

The game United lost 2-1 in Rome they played for an hour with 10 men after Scholes got sent off.

The game they drew in Rome they started with this team:
Kuszczak, Simpson, Pique, Evans, O'Shea, Eagles, Fletcher, Carrick, Nani, Saha, Rooney.

And I haven't even mentioned the 7-1 yet.
Cheer up little man. Its gonna be ok.

Guy:Incognito

I really cant see Utd having any trouble with Roma and I reckon they'll get past Barce handy enough aswell.

RasTa

Stop making teams up pighead.

Pighead

RasTa wrote: »

Stop making teams up pighead.

Just trying to cheer the wee fella up. He seems awfully down in the dumps.

invincibleirish

Great draw, the Champions League got interesting!

i fully expect and demand a classic trilogy of games between Liverpool & Arsenal,And see how far off Villa are from the top 4 *sigh*

FatherTed

invincibleirish wrote: »

Great draw, the Champions League got interesting!

i fully expect and demand a classic trilogy of games between Liverpool & Arsenal,And see how far off Villa are from the top 4 *sigh*

Would love to see Liverpool win the Prem game and Arse to knock off Liverpool in the CL.

Sherifu

invincibleirish wrote: »

i fully expect and demand a classic trilogy of games between Liverpool & Arsenal

:pac: Mmmmmm. Don't care about the prem at this stage.

rossie1977

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

2006/2007 Final Premier League Table:

1 Manchester United (C) 89 pts
2 Chelsea 83 pts
3 Liverpool 68 pts
4 Arsenal 68 pts
5 Tottenham 60 pts
6 Everton 58 pts

2007/2008 current Premier League Table:

1 Arsenal 66 pts
2 Manchester United 64 pts
3 Chelsea 61 pts
4 Liverpool 56 pts
5 Everton 56 pts
6 Aston Villa 49 pts

2006/07 Pl:29 W:16 D:5 L:8 F:44 A:20 Pt:53

2007/08 Pl:29 W:15 D:11 L:3 F:53 A:20 Pt:56

Apart from the wins they have lost 5 less games, scored 9 more goals than this time last year, conceded the same (giving a much better goal difference) and that despite one of the two centre backs missing for 95% of the campaign and have 3 points extra in the bag

there is progress there but not as much as liverpool fans/rafa would have wanted, the draws; especially the home draws vs chelsea, birmingham, spurs, arsenal, wigan and villa are terribly disappointing given the fact that liverpool led in every one of those games except birmingham (which finished scoreless) only to be pegged back. It strikes me that certain members of the team have taken their eye off the ball at anfield when liverpool have taken the lead in a tight game (wigan, villa and spurs are perfect examples of this)

herbieflowers

Pighead wrote: »

Think its to determine which team is viewed as the "home" team in case of jersey clashes, and to decide who gets which dressing room.

ah, that makes sense.

Thanx 4 The Fish

That's it alright.

Tough draw for the pool but ya have to beat the best to be the best.

OPENROAD

No easy games in the cl at this stage, so I'll take Liverpool,wanted to avoid Barcelona, hopefully we will have fully fit squad.

herbieflowers

True, and it suits Liverpool to be the underdog, again.

colly10

Ok, just wondering does anyone know anything that would suggest the draw was not a total fix, cause after reading for the last while as much as I hate to say it, it seems very hard to deny. UEFA's suggestion of "a good guess" is not good enough for me

colly10

Thought this deserved it's own thread. Someone said that that the draw was leaked and predicted the results at 10.28 this morning (an hour an a half before the draw), it's all over the web now.
The thread is here -
http://forums.icnorthwest.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=33755

UEFA have came out and suggested that this was simply a good guess but i've heard the odds of guessing this right are around 200/1 (can't do that choose probability anymore forget how)

So what do you think, was it rigged? Anything to suggest that it wasn't, it seems to be a total fix to me

Chong

Yup this is very strange, wud love if it was fixed UEFA were shown to have actually rigged it.

GBX

I saw something earlier. Its not hard for anybody to predict the draw with their only being 8 teams left. You or I could do it. I guess cos it happened that 2 english teams got drawn together, somebody is getting their knickers in a tizzy.

KdjaCL

mega merge.

smithy1981

I'd find it very hard to believe to be honest. But if it can be proven that the bookies stopped taking bets early and they dont have a proper excuse for it then i'd take a closer look.

colly10

GBX wrote: »

I saw something earlier. Its not hard for anybody to predict the draw with their only being 8 teams left.

Think 8 teams would be very difficult to predict.
Btw - to the mod, why was the thread I started on this cut and put into this one, whether or not it's a fix doesn't seem to relate to the general opinion of the outcome of the draw

KdjaCL

colly10 wrote: »

Think 8 teams would be very difficult to predict.
Btw - to the mod, why was the thread I started on this cut and put into this one, whether or not it's a fix doesn't seem to relate to the general opinion of the outcome of the draw

your link was stuck in there about 7 pages ago, so already been discussed.


kdjac

CHD

whats there to gain from rigging it?? nothing would change! clubs are hardly rigging it.

PHB

Lads, I don't understand why everyone thinks this is an easy draw for United.

When did Barca stop being the team that had Eto, Ronaldinho, Messi and Henry, who at any point if they decide to, can rip most defences in the world to shreds at ease.
Barca imo are a tougher team than Chelsea and Liverpool, significantly so to be honest.

Personally, I think Chelsea have the easiest draw. I'd rather play the winner of Arsenal/Liverpool than Barca, much rather it, and I'd say Grant would too.

p.s. Roma have the ability to knock United out also, they are the toughest of the 'crap' teams.

If I had to call it, I'd go

Arsenal go through
Chelsea go through
United go through
Barca go through

Then in the semis
Arsenal go through
Can't call the United Barca game

United or Barca to win the final

Then again, if Liverpool go through against Arsenal, I think they will beat Chelsea, and then be in the final.
Two key matches in this tourney to determine the final
Arsenal vs. Liverpool, United vs. Barca

PHB

Oh yeh, this is gona be the first time (of many I think, especially with Ronaldo eventually going to Madrid) that Messi and Ronaldo will face each other This will be a fun game

Peyton Manning

PHB wrote: »

Oh yeh, this is gona be the first time (of many I think, especially with Ronaldo eventually going to Madrid) that Messi and Ronaldo will face each other This will be a fun game

Dont get too ahead of yourself there mate, we made that mistake last year.

~Rebel~

chdpoker wrote:

whats there to gain from rigging it?? nothing would change! clubs are hardly rigging it.

as mentioned a few pages ago, the biggest benefit possibly would come from the best 3 squads in the world reaching the semi's easily enough, in Barca, MnU and Chelsea, with the next 2 best squads playing each other for the final spot.

Right now, its hard to say how it wasn't rigged, without the posters who actually posted in the thread before 12 coming out and saying they faked it, or else that posts were put up in their name. It being pretty much the official city of Liverpool forum its hard to believe it was done by admins.

All in all i would be in favour of the 'its bollix' side of things normally except theres been nought to disprove the conspiracy theories so far, and i've never had any reason to particularly trust Uefa.

CHD

~Rebel~ wrote: »

as mentioned a few pages ago, the biggest benefit possibly would come from the best 3 squads in the world reaching the semi's easily enough, in Barca, MnU and Chelsea, with the next 2 best squads playing each other for the final spot.

Right now, its hard to say how it wasn't rigged, without the posters who actually posted in the thread before 12 coming out and saying they faked it, or else that posts were put up in their name. It being pretty much the official city of Liverpool forum its hard to believe it was done by admins.

All in all i would be in favour of the 'its bollix' side of things normally except theres been nought to disprove the conspiracy theories so far, and i've never had any reason to particularly trust Uefa.

But whats there to gain by having the best 3 squads? when porto and monaco went all the way it was one of the more exciting and great to watch tournaments.They werent the best squads and there was no loss.