A couple of things.
This is an European championship, all the teams play in their local leagues too. So if both games end up in a tie, it would be practically impossible to schedule a new game. Would you rather have penalty kicks decide who advances?
Also, playing at home is much different than playing away. This rewards a team that will play offensively as a visitor. Not a bad idea in my opinion.
Finally, this rule rarely comes into play.
You also complain about stalling and faking injuries. How about a game with no timeouts, no long breaks, game is rarely stopped. You can´t compare the flow of a soccer game to any other sport. Plus an hour and a half game is perfect.
You can't really compare baseball to soccer...I mean we're talking about
Baseball:
-Old, overweight men hitting a ball with a stick, running in a square (and half the time they don't even get past base 1
Soccer:
-The most played and popular sport around the globe (baseball is played where? Japan...Mexico...USA?)
-Try running like they do for 90 minutes without a break
-If you knew anything besides American sports you'd learn to appreciate such a fine sport
I guess just stick to football where a bunch of roid heads run full speed at each other trying to carry a ball into an "endzone"...call it football but where is the "FOOT" in the ball? The only time a foot touches the pigskin is when the kicker or punter are at work...
hno::cripwalk:
Yessssss thankgod barca won. Over both legs they deserved to go through. Barca play football the way it is supposed to be played. Pass annd move, pass and move. Chelsea tactics are basically Czech long ball to drogba which he hopefully will knock down to the on rushing lampard/essien/ballack/anelka who will have a shot. Even the Barca defenders are better technically than any Chelsea player.
Man Utd did the same thing last year that Chelsea did this year. Basically sit back for 180 mins with 11 men behind the ball and hope you snatch a goal sometime over the two legs. They got lucky with the Scholes goal and Chelski tonight thought they had repeated history with the essien goal.
Barca are so much superior to any other team its not even funny. Hopefully they win it all.
Man Utd did the same thing last year that Chelsea did this year. Basically sit back for 180 mins with 11 men behind the ball and hope you snatch a goal sometime over the two legs. They got lucky with the Scholes goal and Chelski tonight thought they had repeated history with the essien goal.
Barca are so much superior to any other team its not even funny. Hopefully they win it all.
Alense, I disagree.
I think Chelsea played far better than Barca did today, sure it's their home pitch and that first goal gave them much motivation...but they still outplayed Barca IMO.
Barca is extremely lucky to have advanced on that goal in the 90+ minute...I mean that is just awful for Chelsea...stupid mistake by the defender and just extreme luck by Barca to score a goal that late into the game.
I almost want to say that Chelsea sort of let their guard down in those last minutes thinking the game was over...
In any case, it was a great game to watch. I for one did not wager anything on it and am glad so.
The popular picks were: Chelsea to win, Chelsea to advance, and over 2.5...clearly none of these happened but that is what happens when you bet final games...you really never know what might happen.
I think Chelsea played far better than Barca did today, sure it's their home pitch and that first goal gave them much motivation...but they still outplayed Barca IMO.
Barca is extremely lucky to have advanced on that goal in the 90+ minute...I mean that is just awful for Chelsea...stupid mistake by the defender and just extreme luck by Barca to score a goal that late into the game.
I almost want to say that Chelsea sort of let their guard down in those last minutes thinking the game was over...
In any case, it was a great game to watch. I for one did not wager anything on it and am glad so.
The popular picks were: Chelsea to win, Chelsea to advance, and over 2.5...clearly none of these happened but that is what happens when you bet final games...you really never know what might happen.
Wow. Did you watch both games? You cannot be serious saying that Barca were extremely lucky to advance.
Quick recap for the stats for you over both legs:
Barca Chelsea
Possession 65% 35%
Shots off target 22 7
Shots on target 7 5
Corners 16 8
Fouls commited 24 36
As you can see Barca dominated Chelsea in all areas. The stats are there for all to see.
Quick recap for the stats for you over both legs:
Barca Chelsea
Possession 65% 35%
Shots off target 22 7
Shots on target 7 5
Corners 16 8
Fouls commited 24 36
As you can see Barca dominated Chelsea in all areas. The stats are there for all to see.
Those stats are very misleading. Chelsea played the first game with no interest in keeping the ball whatsoever - their sole intention was not to concede away. They should have won the first leg on Drogba's clear chance.
Today, they scored early on and then again had no intention of allowing Barca to open them up. They were extremely unlucky not to get any one of three clear penalty shouts - the last one, deep in injury time was a clear penalty. I thought Ballack was going to hit the referee!
Barcelona were very, very lucky. Fair play to them for keeping going after Alves was sent off though.
How are those stats misleading? barcelona controlled the entire game and we all know it. And yes you are right Chelsea played the first game with no interest of conceding a goal, but guess what? So did barcelona but that didnt mean they didnt attack the whole game. At the end of the day in glad that the team that played SOCCER is going to the final. Not the team that had 11 defenders!
Since when is there a right way to play the game? That's the biggest load of horse shit i've ever heard. Seems to me it's a pretty damn good gameplan and they really should have gone through if the ref wasn't completely incompetent. Even besides that, Chelsea had SO MANY more scoring chances than Barca had in either game
Stats don't always tell the story. Having more possession and shots doesn't automatically translate into domination. For instance this last game had Barca with 63% possession and 14 shots to Chelsea's 12. Now to almost a man everyone will agree Chelsea controlled the game and were unlucky not to win.
Over both legs Chelsea were happy to contain Barcelona and thus it allowed them to rack up impressive stats. However upon closer inspection it was a very well balanced two legs. Barcelona had the better of it at Camp Nou but Chelsea were the better team the second time round. How many great chances did Barcelona have over both legs? Not many. In fact they probably create more grade A chances in one half of a La Liga match then they did in both games combined.
Well of course they didnt have great chances. When you have one team who is unwilling to commit more than 3 or 4 men forward on any one attack then its pretty obvious you wont see the other team have any "great" chances.
Look at how Chelsea played against Liverpool in the previous round. They scored 7 goals in both legs scoring 3 away from home. They attacked with virtually their whole midfield and full backs. Now look at both games against Barca. First leg their only chance was a Marquez mistake. They "created" nothing. They kept at least 7 men in their own half at all times. Chelsea had no intention whatsoever of playing football and taking the game to Barca. They played like pussies. In the second leg they were slightly better, although you would expect that when playing at home.
This extremely defensive approach is fine when you have one team that is vastly superior to the other. If Barcelona played Stoke, no one would blame Stoke for defending with 10 men and attacking with 1. However this is a champions league semi final with what is supposed to be fairly equal levelled opponents.
