Its the Champions League Group Stage First Game Thread!

Kingp35

I am absolutely delighted that Real lost tonight. For the love of god when will they realise that they have to buy defenders and stop wasting their money on forwards that they dont need. Its absolute madness and I hope they crash out of the group stages and maybe it will be a wake up call for them.
Fair play to Lyon. I love watching them play, especially when they are at home they play with such attacking flair and they really go at teams from the off. They proved last season what a good team they are and expect them to get at least as far again this season. Great night of champions league action.

Pepe LeFrits

To be fair, they bought an outstanding young defender (Ramos), Carlos Diogo (a defender), that tough tackling Uruguayan guy and Gravesen. Woodgate is also coming back. The problem tonight wasn't their personnel, it was the organisation. Two goals that shouldn't have gone in, conceded from set pieces. Basic training ground stuff.

Necronomicon

Missed the action tonight, I knew I could count on you guys for a summary

Looks like Lyon aren't missing Essien too much.

Big Nelly

No probs about league guys! will see if I can do any better than Premiership one!! in around 20th in that at moment......anyway didnt get to see one game last nite and flew home to try and watch highlights but was very pi**ed when I got in at 10-10 and Sky was already going to "Your on Sky Sports"....I thought there coverage of all the games went on till around 11.....flicked to TV3 and they where showing full highlights of Chelsea game and everyone on radio said it was brutal so went to bed without any footie!!! :eek:

Anyway thanks for the info on this thread.....Madrid have really bad recently.....didnt they lose a 2 goal lead at weekend to lose 3-2 at Vigo? Lyon are a good team but I still dont think they have what it takes to win the CL.....will be in quarters or Semi's thou I expect with there home form.....going to check out scores and scorers now to see how my CL team is doing!!


Ahh who cares! The mighty Wednesday 1 and our supposed to be better rivals Leeds 0......oh I love it!!

pickarooney

Essien who?
How far off a regular starting place for Brazil is Juninho P? Scary, scary team (Brazil).

Big Nelly

pickarooney wrote:

Essien who?
How far off a regular starting place for Brazil is Juninho P? Scary, scary team (Brazil).

Doesnt he play in the Kaka role so I would say miles away!!

KdjaCL

Big Nelly wrote:

Doesnt he play in the Kaka role so I would say miles away!!

No he plays deeper he gets his game sometimes, great player scores avg 5 frees a season but his passing and tackling are his best attributes.


kdjac

Kingp35

kaids wrote:

To be fair, they bought an outstanding young defender (Ramos), Carlos Diogo (a defender), that tough tackling Uruguayan guy and Gravesen. Woodgate is also coming back. The problem tonight wasn't their personnel, it was the organisation. Two goals that shouldn't have gone in, conceded from set pieces. Basic training ground stuff.

I would hardly call an unproven Ramos an outstanding defender especially considering he was absolutely awful against Lyon. Diogo doesnt play and Graveson isnt a defender. He is left in the centre by himself while the rest of the team(including full backs) are up front. They are a walking disaster of a team and dont know the meaning of teh word "tactics".

Big Nelly wrote:

Ahh who cares! The mighty Wednesday 1 and our supposed to be better rivals Leeds 0......oh I love it!!

Ah now there is absolutely no reason to bring that up. Im already embarrassed enough as it is!!!!

tinofapples

Anywhere on-line where the goals can be watched/downloaded ?

Big Nelly

tinofapples wrote:

Anywhere on-line where the goals can be watched/downloaded ?

Sky Sports should go thru all teh games tonight before they start coverage....wont have teh Chelsea games goals thou or watever other game UTV had from what I can remember from last season!! apart from that TV3 will have that catch up program for CL on at weekend sometime

Keano_sli

Watched the first half of the Chelsea game, once they scored you knew that was it for the night. They don't get the blood racing but they sure are effective tactically and have such a strong sqaud to choose from, does make me jealous as a United fan, we have a great team but can't compete with them for depth. Avoiding injuries is the name of the game for United and with Keane and Neville out thats already out of the question.

Anyhoo, changed to the Liverpool game for the second half, with them being 2-0 up and Betis at home it was always going to be the better call for action and it was, I think Betis could have pulled it out of the bag on several occasions and Liverpool were under the cosh until the end and will be glad to have got out of there with the win. Takes some of the pressure of the Chelsea games of them.

Saw other Highlights or lowlights iff your a Real fan, they were appaling least said the better, Lyon, surprise package for this year, although not really a surprise to anyone who has been watching them in the CL last couple of years.

the biggest name in European football scored again for PSV apart from that all I can say is thank god its back, much better games than the Premiership so far this seaon and a lot more goals per game. The joy of footy is restored to some extent.

Pepe LeFrits

Kingp35 wrote:

I would hardly call an unproven Ramos an outstanding defender especially considering he was absolutely awful against Lyon. Diogo doesnt play and Graveson isnt a defender. He is left in the centre by himself while the rest of the team(including full backs) are up front. They are a walking disaster of a team and dont know the meaning of teh word "tactics".

Yes, their problem lies in their tactics, not their transfer policy. They signed 2 defenders and a defensive mid over the summer, and another defensive mid last january. Ramos is an excellent young defender, one bad game doesn't change that.

Spider_Baby!

Darn those of you who had Iaquinta!!!

Necronomicon

And at the end of Week 1, the boards league reads as follows:

1 Big Nelly 60
2 Liverfool 52
3 Zuppy's Tail 48
4 Chelsalona 46
5 ForzaJuve 43
6 eirebhoy's XI 42
7 EuropeUnited 37 (me )
8 Let Christy Take It 26

3 of my starting 11 weren't playing tonight. Riquelme and Ballack injured, not sure about Lahm.

lili

well, it's me again, remember last champion's league season? i asked a rating of my team which is olympique lyonnais.

i went to see the match at gerland. i was a little disappointed because the 2 players of real madrid i would have liked to see wasn't here. but i must admit that it was one hell of match for my team:)

so, do you think that real madrid have been not enough realist in this match? or that the missing players are in fact the key players? or simply lyon played very well?
do you think that houllier can destroy my team like i have heard it many time or finally could make a good job?

and finally, how do you see the futur of my team in champion's league?
what do you think about juninho, is he underrated?

lili

oops, sorry, i thought i opened a new thread.
can a mod make something for me please?

Bateman

kaids wrote:

Yes, their problem lies in their tactics, not their transfer policy. They signed 2 defenders and a defensive mid over the summer, and another defensive mid last january. Ramos is an excellent young defender, one bad game doesn't change that.

A big problem is not being able to cope without the creative thrust of Zidane. I still think that Madrid will win the league though, I think Woodgate is going to be an important player for them. Obviously they need to start looking inwards instead of outwards, in order to overcome their problems, but the bad run won't continue for long.

eirebhoy

lili wrote:

well, it's me again, remember last champion's league season? i asked a rating of my team which is olympique lyonnais.

i went to see the match at gerland. i was a little disappointed because the 2 players of real madrid i would have liked to see wasn't here. but i must admit that it was one hell of match for my team:)

so, do you think that real madrid have been not enough realist in this match? or that the missing players are in fact the key players? or simply lyon played very well?
do you think that houllier can destroy my team like i have heard it many time or finally could make a good job?

and finally, how do you see the futur of my team in champion's league?
what do you think about juninho, is he underrated?

Lyon are thought of as a very good team now over here. The scoreline was a shock but not many people would have been shocked at Lyon winning. Houllier could do well. His weakness imo is in the transfer market but I'd say he'll do well. Juninho is a top class player. Maybe he is underrated in that he's not as well known as the likes off Kaka but he's certainly rated highly by the people with an interest in football outside of Ireland and England. All you have to do is look at the fantasy football. 16% of teams have Juninho, 1% have Duff.

lili

eirebhoy wrote:

Lyon are thought of as a very good team now over here. The scoreline was a shock but not many people would have been shocked at Lyon winning. Houllier could do well. His weakness imo is in the transfer market but I'd say he'll do well. Juninho is a top class player. Maybe he is underrated in that he's not as well known as the likes off Kaka but he's certainly rated highly by the people with an interest in football outside of Ireland and England. All you have to do is look at the fantasy football. 16% of teams have Juninho, 1% have Duff.

about the transfer market i think that houllier will not have a big influence because the president of olympique lyonnais "aulas" is a enlightened man with a big personality. look how he managed to sell michael essien.
i didn't know it was so much people who have juninho in their fantasy team:)

Kingp35

kaids wrote:

Yes, their problem lies in their tactics, not their transfer policy. They signed 2 defenders and a defensive mid over the summer, and another defensive mid last january. Ramos is an excellent young defender, one bad game doesn't change that.

I agree with you here Kaids. Whats interesting about Madrids tactics is that they are a very good counter attacking team and tend to win matches when they play like. Look back to last season when they thumped Barcelona 4-2. they played a counter attacking tactic that day and worked like a charm.

Now the problem is that the president of Madrid does not like this tactic as he considers it too defensive and not entertaining enough. He demanded taht Luxemburgo play a more attacking formation and tactic. And so the problems for Madrid are shown again. They have a far too attacking mentality and it is going to be there downfall. They struggled in the CL last season for the very same reasons and they are going to struggle again this season. the managers at Madrid simply do not get the freedom to play the way they want. The president dictates everything taht the team does. Tactically they are a mess and so they leak goals all over the place.

they have no chance of winning the CL this season. Both the English and Italian teams have a far better chance as they are tactically allot better and at the end of teh day you can have the best players in the world but if you dont get it tactically right your going to struggle.