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Champions League
Topic Started: Aug 1 2008, 07:30 AM (4,239 Views)
shelsoccer
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Curious and rare mistake by Casillas. As I was watching the game, there was a perfect angle from behind the free kick of the wall's positioning. I immediately said to myself that the wall wasn't covering the near post. I had the volume low, but I believe the announcers picked up on that a split second later as well.

Prior to that camera angle, Casillas was shown trying to organize his wall. Assuming the wall was listening to his direction, you'd think a keeper of his talent wouldn't make such a gaffe.
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rosarino
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shelsoccer,Nov 6 2008
11:39 AM
Curious and rare mistake by Casillas. As I was watching the game, there was a perfect angle from behind the free kick of the wall's positioning. I immediately said to myself that the wall wasn't covering the near post. I had the volume low, but I believe the announcers picked up on that a split second later as well.

Prior to that camera angle, Casillas was shown trying to organize his wall. Assuming the wall was listening to his direction, you'd think a keeper of his talent wouldn't make such a gaffe.

Very true shelsoccer, I think all of us were surprised Casillas would make such a fundamental mistake. Those who said he probably won't repeat it are likely correct but it was a shocking error by such a good goalkeeper.

Del Piero has tapped the fountain of youth it seems. But spekaing of errors, you know that Cannavaro knows his game well yet he just sat abck and didn't step up on Del Piero's first goal. Give a player like Del Piero an inch and he will take a mile. He did it twice agaisnt Real Madrid.

Interesting that not one team from either England or Spain, a total of eight teams, won this week in the Champions League. Maybe there is more parity than we thought in this tournament? With all due respect to fans of clubs from those two leagues it would be welcome to see teams from outside either of those two nations competing in this year's final.
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Mr. Pither
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Werder Bremen can't stop opponents from scoring. As Simon discussed, in the Bundesliga they are scoring but they are not doing that consistently in the Champions League. Hey they are fun to watch as a neutral but it must be killing their fans.

Bayern aren't missing Toni as they did Ribery. Of course it helps that Klose can take up the scoring load. But nobody can fill Ribery's role on the team.

I appreciated the info on Juninho. He really has been a wonder at free kicks and has kept up his ability even as he's aged.
P-I-T-H-E-R ...as in Brotherhood, but with PI instead of the BRO and no HOOD
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Manzanares
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Well Atletico will still have to play PSV behind closed doors but it did get it's fine reduced and CAS determiend there was insufficient evidence of racist chanting by Atletico fans against marseille,

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=reu-...uters&type=lgns

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Atletico Madrid will have to play Wednesday’s Champions League match against PSV Eindhoven behind closed doors after sport’s court of arbitration (CAS) partially upheld a punishment handed down by UEFA for crowd trouble.

CAS ruled that the sanction should stand because of “serious security breaches” during a Champions League match against Olympique Marseille in Madrid on Oct. 1.

However, it overturned a suspended sanction of a second match behind closed doors and cut a UEFA fine of 150,000 euros ($187,900) by half because it said there was not enough evidence to support allegations Atletico fans made racist chants.


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Hector
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Atletico are complaining about the sanction but they also have accepted it as they know there are no other ways to appeal it. Really they should feel fortunate as the final punishment is much less than what was originally announced and from a public relations view the fact there was insufficient evidence of any racist chanting should help the club. It appears to me the security at the stadium was really what forced this closure.
iPuerta amigo, Sevilla esta contigo!
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ursus arctos
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Atleti are also paying a price for the usual excesses of the Spanish police in these situations, and one would hope that it causes them to use their influence to try to restrain them in the future.

The situation within grounds in Italy has improved measurably since local yahoos with badges and batons have been replaced with stewards.
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Manzanares
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ursus arctos,Nov 22 2008
01:42 AM
Atleti are also paying a price for the usual excesses of the Spanish police in these situations, and one would hope that it causes them to use their influence to try to restrain them in the future.

The situation within grounds in Italy has improved measurably since local yahoos with badges and batons have been replaced with stewards.

Very true and let us hope they can be restrained in the future. The club have seen the consequences of letting them run loose. Yet somehow I don't see it changing, the police won't let stewards take over from them. Why give up the authority? Employing stewards for match control makes perfect sense which is why it is unlikely to happen!
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Winslow
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Plunging on--here are Tuesday's Week 5 scores...
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Group E: Aalborg 2, Celtic 1; Villarreal 0, Man United 0.
Group F: Bayern Munich 3, Steaua Bucharest 0; Fiorentina 1, Lyon 2.
Group G: Arsenal 1, Dynamo Kyiv 0; Fenerbahce 1, Porto 2.
Group H: BATE Borisov 0, Real Madrid 1; Zenit 0, Juventus 0.

It took a while for most of these matches to get going, and a couple of them never really did. Celtic lost unluckily on a bad-bounce own goal, and is now in serious danger of not even making the UEFA Cup. Man U had nearly all of the good chances to score, but keeper Diego Lopez was in good form, beating back all the shots that weren't wasted. The draw puts both teams in the final 16; in fact, all the second-round spots from this half of the draw were confirmed today (Bayern, Lyon, Arsenal, Porto, Real, and Juventus also will advance).

Top scorers for the day were Lisandro for Porto and Klose for Bayern; each had a pair. Arsenal got a late winner from Bendtner, who ran down a fabulous long ball from Cesc Fabregas and buried it after one touch. Raul's early goal for Real stood up in Belarus, while Juventus hit two posts in St. Petersburg.
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Simon
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The United game was a pretty drab affair. Villarreal weren't really interested in winning, they just set up a big defence and played for the point that would qualify them without them needing to get anything from a potentially tricky game in Glasgow. Meanwhile United rested various players ahead of the vital derby game with City at the weekend, so there was no Van der Sar, Neville, Vidic, Giggs, Park or Tevez, who's been playing in the absence of the injured Berbatov. Funnily enough I've had such a manic time with work recently that I hadn't heard the plan to rest these regulars - I found out about it when Edwin Van der Sar walked past me this afternoon at the Christmas Market in St. Ann's Square. I kind of just stared after him thinking 'um...so I take it you're not playing in Spain tonight then?' :P

United were dominant but Diego Lopez did everything that was asked of him. Rooney had the ball in the net with a nice finish but it was ruled as a borderline offside. It was a tight decision but if only Anderson had played a first-time ball to Evra there would have been no question of offside. Capdevila got a straight red for a pretty nasty high tackle which left his stud marks on the inside of Ronaldo's left knee. Ronnie did attract a bit of rough attention all night, inevitable I suppose. My other gripe was that the over-fussy referee Rosetti did his best to ruin the game with his constant whistling for the most minor or non-existant infringements. That's now four recent United-Villarreal games that have all ended 0-0!

Nothing too surprising elsewhere. Arsenal deserved their win even if they left it late, and although Celtic were unlucky as Winslow states, they did miss a host of good chances to have killed the game when they were ahead, so I suppose they made themselves hostages to forune. That famously abysmal away record continues, and in fact they are out of the UEFA Cup as they can't outfinish Aalborg on head-to-head comparison. 12 games without defeat for Bayern now, so it looks like Klinsmann's teething troubles are over. And it should also be said that no wins and just 3 points from 5 games is a shocking record for Fiorentina.
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historyman
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Simon,Nov 25 2008
04:26 PM
The United game was a pretty drab affair.

Funnily enough I've had such a manic time with work recently that I hadn't heard the plan to rest these regulars - I found out about it when Edwin Van der Sar walked past me this afternoon at the Christmas Market in St. Ann's Square. I kind of just stared after him thinking 'um...so I take it you're not playing in Spain tonight then?' :P

United were dominant but Diego Lopez did everything that was asked of him. Rooney had the ball in the net with a nice finish but it was ruled as a borderline offside. It was a tight decision but if only Anderson had played a first-time ball to Evra there would have been no question of offside. Capdevila got a straight red for a pretty nasty high tackle which left his stud marks on the inside of Ronaldo's left knee. Ronnie did attract a bit of rough attention all night, inevitable I suppose. My other gripe was that the over-fussy referee Rosetti did his best to ruin the game with his constant whistling for the most minor or non-existant infringements. That's now four recent United-Villarreal games that have all ended 0-0!

and although Celtic were unlucky as Winslow states, they did miss a host of good chances to have killed the game when they were ahead, so I suppose they made themselves hostages to forune. That famously abysmal away record continues, and in fact they are out of the UEFA Cup as they can't outfinish Aalborg on head-to-head comparison.

As the old cliche says, 'some games have 0-0 written all over them' and you could tell from the start that this would be the case with Utd and Villareal.

Are we returning to the good old days when top players could walk down the street unmolested? :P

Last night was also a reality check for Celtic. Out of Europe now along with Rangers, both Glasgow clubs have slipped even further behind in their endeavours to be ranked amongst Europe's elite.
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Manzanares
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Good story about van der Sar. Admitedly there has not been much drama in this group stage of the Champions League with the play of Anorthosis being one of the rare exceptions. Anybody else recall when so many groupos have been determiend so early as has happeend this season?
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Winslow
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And Wednesday's scores...
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Group A: Bordeaux 1, Chelsea 1; Cluj 1, Roma 3.
Group B: Anorthosis 2, Werder Bremen 2; Inter 0, Panathinaikos 1.
Group C: Shakhtar Donetsk 5, Basel 0; Sporting Lisbon 2, Barcelona 5.
Group D: Atletico Madrid 2, PSV 1; Liverpool 1, Marseille 0.

So there are still some second-round spots to play for on this side of the draw. Les Girondins dominated the first half at home, but fell behind on the hour after Lampard one-timed a loose ball up the middle to a wide-open Anelka, who juked the keeper twice before tucking it in. That held up until seven minutes from time, when a wide-open Diarra headed a corner off the near post and in to secure the draw. Lampard was then sent off on a second yellow, so he'll miss the final group match against Cluj. Roma now leads Group A by one point over Chelsea and two over Bordeaux after getting a pair from Brighi to win in Romania.

Otherwise, Anorthosis coughed up a two-goal lead at home, but the upset at the San Siro leaves Group B wide-open. Sporting was routed at home by Barca, but both teams advance after an even bigger wipeout in Ukraine. PSV's defenders were the only spectators at the Calderon, as Atletico's two easy first-half goals stood up; the Spaniards join Liverpool in the next round, after Gerrard's wide-open back post header made the difference at Anfield.
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raconteur
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At least Groups A and B have some last day drama. Anorthosis still are alive despite blowing that 2 goal lead against Werder Bremen but I believe they will need to beat Panathinaikos in Greece to qualify. Still their progress in this tournament has been one of the really good stories so far. I have to say I was shocked by Inter's loss to Panathinaikos who usually don't travel well. Yet Inter still made the next round!
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Manzanares
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Barcelona sure let Sporting know who were the boss of the group. Here is an article on how Atletico fans were singing outside the stadium to urge their team on depsite the stadium ban,

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=reu-...uters&type=lgns

Quote:
 
At one end of the Calderon a banner was draped over the seats from the home supporters saying: “Absolutely no one will separate us from you,” and they did not disappoint.

Just before kick-off a few hundred Atletico fans gathered outside one of the open corners of the Calderon, and started to cheer the side on, and continued to do so throughout.


Here is a group by group rundown on qualifying status, according to this article, 13 of the 16 second round spots are already determined,

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=go-c...=goal&type=lgns



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Merengue
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I didn't get the chance to see any of this week's games but it looks like I didn't miss that much. In past years' we have seen many groups already decided by week 5 but the last two years there have been more than before which have already been determined by this time. Shows me that the gap betwen the haves and have nots is increasing, surprising teams like Anorthosis notwithstanding.
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