2017/18 UEFA Champions League

Guy:Incognito

Mushy wrote: »

In fairness there's likely 21 others on the pitch who'd do the same

The keepers are allowed to use their hands

monkey9

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

The bad guy in Crocodile Dundee 2

Brilliant!! :pac::pac::pac::D

Osmosis Jones

Navas should take some haircut tips from Zidane.

martyos121

Ronaldo tracking back and winning the ball, I’ve seen it all now.

Osmosis Jones

Bayern relying on a 35 year old Ribery being their best player for a full 90 minutes.

citytillidie

Semi Finals 1st leg results
Liverpool (ENG) 5 V 2 Roma (ITA)
Bayern München (GER) 1 V 2 Real Madrid (ESP)

2nd Legs
Tuesday
Real Madrid (ESP) V Bayern München (GER) (Agg 2-1) - Live on TV3 / BT Sport 2

Wednesday
Roma (ITA) V Liverpool (ENG) (Agg 2-5) - Live on RTE 2 / BT Sport 2

martyos121

Bayern were awful. They haven’t a hope of making the final now, no chance of winning in Madrid if they can’t do it at home.

NIMAN

Looking forward to the arrival of the anti-madrid posters soon.

Wonder what conspiracies they have in their heads tonight.

Utopia Parkway

martyos121 wrote: »

Bayern were awful. They haven’t a hope of making the final now, no chance of winning in Madrid if they can’t do it at home.

Bayern unlucky with the injuries but can't miss all those chances and hope to progress. Real were pretty ordinary but still won. As they often do.

Guy:Incognito

I know it's going on donkeys years now but is there actually a reason why they swap the ties around for the 2nd legs so that the Tuesday teams get an 8 day turn around and the Wednesday a 6 day one? I'd have thought it was better to have both with a week turn around?

super_furry

Bayern were just so slow up front - no pace whatsover. Five or six times Ribery got ahead of the defence and then had to pull the ball back and wait for others to catch up with him, killing the momentum.

MisterAnarchy

Osmosis Jones wrote: »

Bayern relying on a 35 year old Ribery being their best player for a full 90 minutes.

Robben was a huge loss ,himself and Robben would have stretched Real a bit with pace on both flanks.

Harry Palmr

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

I know it's going on donkeys years now but is there actually a reason why they swap the ties around for the 2nd legs so that the Tuesday teams get an 8 day turn arou d and the Wednesday ones a 6 day one? I'd have thought it was better to have both with a week turn around?

It's so those with soarview can watch one game of each tie in HD

Mr.Nice Guy

Wouldn't write Bayern off just yet. We've seen some crazy things in the competition this season. Madrid strong favourites though.

Guy:Incognito

I missed the first half hour. What happened to robben? Is he likely to be out for the 2nd leg?

Berserker

NIMAN wrote: »

Looking forward to the arrival of the anti-madrid posters soon.

Wonder what conspiracies they have in their heads tonight.

I think they are going with the 'Bayern were terrible' line.

so what's the opinion on the Liverpool - Real final then?

super_furry

glasso wrote: »

so what's the opinion on the Liverpool - Real final then?

Goals. Lots of goals.

Alonso77

Every club is in crisis according to the great dunphy

Alonso77

Alonso77 wrote: »

Every club is in crisis according to the great dunphy

Its a crisis of crisisies

martyos121

That pitch invader at the end had more pace than the entire Bayern side tonight.

Alonso77

Juventus are 'gone' apparently according to Eamo. He's hilarious

MisterAnarchy

Alonso77 wrote: »

Every club is in crisis according to the great dunphy

He is talking some nonsense.
Bayern will probably do the domestic double, and are still in this tie, a Champions league semi final and he says they are in a bad way.

He is just going for sensationalist rubbish the last few years.

NIMAN

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Its a crisis of crisisies

He's not wrong.

Football is going down a slippy slope fast. Leagues are becoming less competitive. Fans will get bored watching their team romp the league. You really think psg fans enjoy winning 5 nil every week?

The same teams are going to pop up in the latter stages of the cl too.

It's going to get more repetitive every season. Fans will get bored. Maybe not this year or next, but in the next 5 or 10.

There needs to be a way to spread out the talent pool across all of Europe IMHO. It's the only way to keep the game interesting.

martyos121

NIMAN wrote: »

He's not wrong.

Football is going down a slippy slope fast. Leagues are becoming less competitive. Fans will get bored watching their team romp the league. You really think psg fans enjoy winning 5 nil every week?

The same teams are going to pop up in the latter stages of the cl too.

It's going to get more repetitive every season. Fans will get bored. Maybe not this year or next, but in the next 5 or 10.

There needs to be a way to spread out the talent pool across all of Europe IMHO. It's the only way to keep the game interesting.

Of course they do. They wouldn’t support PSG otherwise. Their average attendance rose by just under 50% the season they were taken over by oil merchants.

ERG89

Alonso77 wrote:

Juventus are 'gone' apparently according to Eamo. He's hilarious

Missing: Juventus
Last seen: 11-04-18 at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.
If found please inform Eamon 'Crisis-Dying' Dunphy

NIMAN

martyos121 wrote: »

Of course they do. They wouldn’t support PSG otherwise. Their average attendance rose by just under 50% the season they were taken over by oil merchants.

It won't last.
I know I wouldn't go to games if there wasn't going to be a contest at all every game

martyos121

NIMAN wrote: »

It won't last.
I know I wouldn't go to games if there wasn't going to be a contest at all every game

Well you might have a point when you see how City struggle to fill their home ground most weeks. I still think it’s a club that attracts a lot of glory hunters though, which is perfectly natural in a city of that size. I’m not in a position to criticise them too much when I spent some money in their club shop last year though.

Mr.Nice Guy

I'm not convinced by the argument that a league requires the need to be "competitive" - by which is usually meant an open title race - in order for teams to do well in the Champions League. In 2012-13, the Champions League final was contested by two Bundesliga teams: Bayern and Dortmund. Domestically though that same season Bayern won the title after just 28 rounds and with a points margin over Dortmund of 25 points.

Bayern have since reached the semi-finals 4 of the 5 subsequent seasons including this one, and that's while dominating at home.

Also tonight if you compare their stats with Madrid, Bayern had more chances, more shots on goal, more possession and more corners. It's not like they were unworthy of their place in the contest. They didn't get much luck on the injury front either losing two key players, not to mention going into the contest without Vidal.

bucketybuck

martyos121 wrote: »

Of course they do. They wouldn’t support PSG otherwise. Their average attendance rose by just under 50% the season they were taken over by oil merchants.

Celtics average attendance this season is around 57000.

And yet Celtic become more and more irrelevant with every passing year, suffering from the horribly uncompetitive state of the scottish league.

Maybe the big boys will always fill their grounds with the tourists but its crazy to believe that uncompetitive leagues won't suffer consequences in the long term.

monkey9

bucketybuck wrote: »

Celtics average attendance this season is around 57000.

And yet Celtic become more and more irrelevant with every passing year, suffering from the horribly uncompetitive state of the scottish league.

Maybe the big boys will always fill their grounds with the tourists but its crazy to believe that uncompetitive leagues won't suffer consequences in the long term.

Celtic could genuinely be one of the biggest clubs in the world but they are stuck in the graveyard that is the Scottish league.

I'm not a Celtic fan at all. But they are wasting away there and they have so much potential.

NIMAN

@Mr nice guy, that's not the point I was making. I'm not saying teams running away with their leagues won't do well in the cl. I'm saying their fans will get bored and will lose interest in coming to games.

As for celtic 57000, is there actually 57000 attending though. I have a relation who is a season ticket holder, and he has told me that they count sold season tickets as attending, whether they are in the ground or not. That's kinda cheating.

deaddonkey15

NIMAN wrote: »

He's not wrong.

Football is going down a slippy slope fast. Leagues are becoming less competitive. Fans will get bored watching their team romp the league. You really think psg fans enjoy winning 5 nil every week?

The same teams are going to pop up in the latter stages of the cl too.

It's going to get more repetitive every season. Fans will get bored. Maybe not this year or next, but in the next 5 or 10.

There needs to be a way to spread out the talent pool across all of Europe IMHO. It's the only way to keep the game interesting.

We've been hearing this for over 10 years now.

Deeper Blue

Am I imagining it or have the vast majority of knockout games this year been absolute ****e?

gimli2112

Not if the team you support has been in them, they've been enthralling

beya2009

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

He is talking some nonsense.
Bayern will probably do the domestic double, and are still in this tie, a Champions league semi final and he says they are in a bad way.

He is just going for sensationalist rubbish the last few years.

Also all the top leagues are rubbish according to Eamo lol I remember he stated recent enough that La Liga was very poor and he said the same about EPL and that City were not tested enough and now he's saying the same about Bundesliga.

lassykk

NDWC wrote: »

Am I imagining it or have the vast majority of knockout games this year been absolute ****e?

I'm not sure what you consider ****e but as a neutral I've thoroughly enjoyed them

Liverpool City
Barcelona Roma
Real Juventus
Spurs Juventus

Just off the top of my head they were enjoyable games to watch

inforfun

NDWC wrote: »

Am I imagining it or have the vast majority of knockout games this year been absolute ****e?

Couple of unexpected 2nd leg come backs makes it look better than it really is.


Quite a few of the 1/8 were over after the first leg (Pool, City, Bayern)
1/4 finals all should have been over after the first leg if you look at the results in the first leg
And well, under normal circumstances, both 1/2 finals are over too.

No one would doubt Liverpool's and Real's progress today if it wasnt for a few freak come backs in the previous rounds.

CL doesnt get more interesting each year. Au contraire..... As they say in southern part of Belgium

TheCitizen

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

He is talking some nonsense.
Bayern will probably do the domestic double, and are still in this tie, a Champions league semi final and he says they are in a bad way.

He is just going for sensationalist rubbish the last few years.

Dunphy reaches for the sensationalist stuff by default.

Ray Houghton on commentary is even worse. I'm not sure he can actually see what's going on, may need his eyesight checked. At the end of the game he summed up Bayern saying they didn't create enough chances? That wasn't what went wrong at all. They created a load of chances, they just didn't take them. Whereas Real Madrid were clinical with the opportunities that came their way.

I don't think the tie is over at all. There's almost a slight advantage playing away from home these days. The away goal rule can swing the balance.

Bayern just need to create chances again like they did last night but this time take a couple more of them. Real Madrid have matchwinners and a habit of doing what they need to get through which is their main danger but the way the guys on RTE were going on last night you'd think the tie was finished already, it's not at all.

inforfun

Ray Houghton probably stated Robben was faking his injury too?
That guy has a serious chip, size of a railway sleeper, on his shoulder as it comes to Dutch players.

TheCitizen

bucketybuck wrote: »

Celtics average attendance this season is around 57000.

And yet Celtic become more and more irrelevant with every passing year, suffering from the horribly uncompetitive state of the scottish league.

Maybe the big boys will always fill their grounds with the tourists but its crazy to believe that uncompetitive leagues won't suffer consequences in the long term.

Celtic's problem isn't so much that their domestic league is uncompetitive, it's the lack of revenue they are guaranteed to build teams. It's more the uncertainty they face every summer where they have to negotiate 3 and next season 4 rounds of qualifiers before they reach the CL Group Stages. Nearly all funding they get is via CL participation but they can't gamble everything and take for granted they'll qualify because if they slip up they'd be in deep all of a sudden.

Juventus are going for 7 in a row titles in Italy. PSG dominant in France. Bayern in Germany and those clubs are or can be competitive in the CL.

It's the traditionally strong clubs from leagues like Holland, Belgium, Portugal as well as clubs from leagues in Scandanavia, Scotland and Eastern Europe that are really being left further and further behind. The gap between the top one or two clubs in England, Spain, Italy and Germany and the rest is becoming wider and wider every year.

It's largely down to the same handful of names every year at the business end. The only way to shake it up is to have more games in the league part of it and spread the money around evenly. Also spread the money evenly to the EL clubs. If the same handful of clubs keep hoovering up nearly all of the funding every year, after years of that you'll be left with a handful of elite clubs and the rest all cannon fodder.

munchkin_utd

TheCitizen wrote: »

Bayern just need to create chances again like they did last night but this time take a couple more of them. Real Madrid have matchwinners and a habit of doing what they need to get through which is their main danger but the way the guys on RTE were going on last night you'd think the tie was finished already, it's not at all.

sure its not as if Bayern ever turned round a 2-1 home defeat against Real to bring the tie to extra time after outplaying Real in the bernabau .....

oh hang on, thats what happened last year.

TheCitizen

munchkin_utd wrote: »

sure its not as if Bayern ever turned round a 2-1 home defeat against Real to bring the tie to extra time after outplaying Real in the bernabau .....

oh hang on, thats what happened last year.

The guys on RTE were also writing off Bayern saying they were 'old'. Most of the Real team aren't spring chickens. Maybe they have bets on Real and their wishing that it's over and done.

rob316

I think its low on quality this season's CL. Madrid weren't great last night and still comfortably beat the joint favourites. Liverpool have swathed aside their last 16, quarter final and semi final opponents.
Barcelona, PSG, City,Juventus were really disappointing. United going out without a whimper.

Its definitely intriguing having 2 unfancied sides like Roma and Liverpool in the last 4 though.

If it plays out as it looks to be, Real vs Liverpool it should be a great final though, 2 really top class attacking sides.

Dunno what people want really, we've had comebacks and fantastic goals so far. Both semi-finals were good IMO, Liverpool played some great stuff with nice goals and left just a little doubt at the end. Last night was an example of a clinical team winning out against the apparent run of play.

citytillidie

Deleted User wrote: »

Dunno what people want really, we've had comebacks and fantastic goals so far. Both semi-finals were good IMO, Liverpool played some great stuff with nice goals and left just a little doubt at the end. Last night was an example of a clinical team winning out against the apparent run of play.

Because Barca and Juve are not in the semi finals people complained when it looked like it would be the same teams in the semi finals and are now complaining it is not the same teams

ERG89

citytillidie wrote:

Because Barca and Juve are not in the semi finals people complained when it looked like it would be the same teams in the semi finals and are now complaining it is not the same teams

Think many had their heart set on City, Barca, Bayern & Real in the semis. For a variety of reasons that didnt happen.

inforfun

I dont care who ends up where.

I am just saying that out of the 14 knock out pairings we had so fair only 5 of the 1/8 were not supposed to be done deals after match one. The rest should have been over

That Roma - Barca and Real - Juve proofed to be not so over as it looked after match one is because barca ****ed up completely and real almost.

A 4-1 at home and a 3-0 away is most of the times enough to go through rather easy.

Just like a 5-2 at home now and a 1-2 away should be tie over.




Forgive my art work but the ties i put a red line in, should have had 2nd legs that should have been an administrative matter.

I dont think out of 14 knock out matches only 5 have results after match 1 where the tie looks still open is good enough. And maybe it was just 4 matches even but am i too kind for PSG for the 3-1 away to real

GLaDOS

Id hardly say the Madrid Munich tie is over

inforfun

Real at home against Bayern P12 W9 D1 L2 GF21 : GA11

It should be over.