Semi finals Champions League

chelsea will go through. did what they had to.

Puyol is suspended for the return leg and I think that Marquez will be out too from the look of that injury he got.

Marquez will be out of action until the end of the season. Is it true that Puyol will be suspended? If it is so, I think Chelsea will go through.

Posted from  Indonesia

yeah it’s true.

I won’t be writing a separate post for this game, what with all the comments here… Barca deserved the win, Chelsea didn’t deserve a draw. Guardiola played “Dutch”, Hiddink played “Italian” or maybe even “Albanian”. Disappointing game therefore and Chelsea doesn’t deserve to be in the finals. I understand Hiddink didn’t want to go all out, but to see 10 Chelsea players behind the ball constantly was pathetic. Ballack should have been red-carded. Why did Guus take Lampard out? Because he played too offensive??

The only negative thing about Barca is, THEY DIDN”T SCORE!! Damn it, I can get soooo frustrated with all the trickery and intended one-two’s in the box. For crying out loud, Johan always said if you don’t try an attempt you’ll never score. And Bojan should have put that header away!

But Barca will get more space in London and it will be a truely exciting match, I’d say…

i’m sad about the game but this is not the end. we have to score at stamford bridga and if we score the first we’ll go to the final. chelsea is only good in killing the game but they have problems when they have to construct something. we were not good yesterday but the ref didn’t send out ballack and didn’t give a penalty for a fault on henry. i hate hiddink because his tactics was the typical antifootball glasgow rangers style,even worse than catenaccio because in the classic catenaccio there are beautiful counter-attacks. now,i would say 50-50%. if chelsea will attack they will be massacres. they will play the same game as at at camp nou and try to concentrate and profit of our errors. it may go straight to 0-0 and penalties.
i hope arsenal will win tonight or at least get a good result.

Posted from  Hungary

Ferenc, you clearly still have a very good shot at the Bridge. One away goal is the key. If Liverpool can get 4, you should be able to get a couple too.

Still, you have to exploit Chelsea’s weakness on the flanks and not try to go through the middle every time. There are 5 Chelsea players there at all times, even at home against quality opposition. Maybe the one-two-click-clack-thru-the-middle works in Spain, but in England it is too crowded and the pace is too high for any precision so it will be broken up.

You need to have Messi and Henry terrorize the wing backs like in the first half. In addition, Cech has been very suspect the last 4 Chelsea games I have watched. He’s looking like he’s lost a bit of confidence. I’d say this was his best match in well over a month. Still don’t get it why Barca stopped going down the wings in the second half, but I’m sure Guus will try to take all the credit for it, even though he had nothing to do with it other than keep 10-11 players behind the ball at all times.

Ballack is a very dirty German with a very bad German attitude and should have been sent packing for a very early bath.

Barca seemed to give up in the second half. Weird, cause especially Messi really cut inside a lot in the first half and created lots of danger.

BTW
Gijs Luirink is fully recovered from his injury and now working on his overall fitness. Will most likely return in official matches for AZ next season, cause still not it enough for 90 minutes of football on Eredivisie level.
Ron Vlaar is still recovering from operation, working a bit on fitness as well as recovery of the injury itself. Same for him, will return next season.
Romeo Castelen had operations on his knee, old injury that came back and had complications, i think he’s still in recovery and again most likely to return fully next season.

Posted from  Netherlands

Amazingly, Arjen Robben is already back on the training pitch after a session with Fysiotherapist Dick van Toorn and might make El Classico.
Sneijder back in training as well, although only some light excercises.

Posted from  Netherlands

Alex did you hear or see the news about zuiverloon. he was apparently good enough to make premier league team of the week

Alex did you hear or see the news about zuiverloon. he was apparently good enough to make premier league team of the week

guti is also injured for the game.

maybe van der vaart will get his chance to shine

we saw arsenal without van persie and arshavin… they problem is that they don’t have 5 cesc fabregas. actually they were lucky because manunited deserved 2-0 or 3-0.

Posted from  Hungary

Maybe if the Oranje had played “anti-football” we would have won a World Cup by now. B/c as Italy has shown us Defense wins.
I would rather have Hiddink as our coach in the World Cup than Bert. I am not confident that we can win the world cup in South Africa if we do not play Hiddink’s style. I am skeptical with our squad and Bert Van Marwijk’s tactics and strategies against powerhouse football nations like Italy, Brazil, Germany, argentina and the emerging Spain.
If Hiddink was our coach against Russia in the Euro we would have won that game. Similarly we would have beaten Portugal in 2006.
At least with Hiddink, the Semi-Final is a certainty but Bert has yet to convince me for we have the weakest World Cup Qualifications Group.
Honestly our players are young,physically weak, always injured and lacking cohesion as a unit even if they play beautiful football.
I am tired of waiting and waiting for a World Cup Trophy(for 4 more years, and many many more 4 more years)…when Brazil,Italy, and Germany have a combined 12 World Cup Trophies.
Hope Chelsea wins!

Posted from  United States

When Marco qualified for Euro08 EVERYONE said “Wait till we hit France and Italy – we’ll be back home before you know it” This was proven wrong. There are always a lot of “IFs” with hindsight. One thing is for sure NO ONE would have dreamt we would slaughter the 3 in our group of death. and like wise with our poor showing against Russia.
Give Bert a chance against some big guns (England in August) and lets see what happens.You need luck to win the championship. Oh the biggest IF I learnt in Australia in response to all those who use if this and if that.
“If my Auntie had Balls – She’d be my Uncle !!” So much for Ifs !
I have waited since 74 for a World Cup !

Posted from  Singapore

Carlos: you’re absolutely right. if,if,ikf – completely bullshit. and i prefer not to win something with a flamboyant style instead of winning in a dodgy style,stealing the victory. how did hiddink win his only one european cup? with 0-0s,1-1s,blessing intentionally the best player of the opposite side (psv versus bordeaux,gillhaus versus i don’t remember the name). corea? bullshit. i prefer marco van basten’s oranje to hiddink’s chelsea. and we shouldn’t forget: in 98 we had the best squad.

Posted from  Hungary

tesekkurler

Nasılsın Gözum

Well, Almounia kept Arsenal in the game. Wasn’t impressed with the Gunners. Indecision. Bad decisions. A bit of fear. And rightfully so. Man United played awesome football at times and could have scored four in the first half. This lack of effectiveness could be their downfall next week, with Van Persie back in the squad. Couldn’t believe why Wenger didn’t sub Nasri. I don’t think he created anything! All in all, Arsenal looks to lightweight to progress and Wenger’s team lack the width (on the bench I mean, or is that depth?) to withstand the Best of Europe…

I hope Robin can play the 2nd leg because Arsenal needs him very much.

@ Sonneveld, no didn’t know about it till today, but he seems to be making a quick comeback to his top form for the last stage of the competition. Impressive against Portsmouth and Sunderland, haven’t seen other recent games of West Brom. Wouldn’t even be watching them if it weren’t for Zuiverloon playing there.

Arsenal lack Arshavin and V.Persie, 2 of their 3 best creative players, Fabregas can’t do it alone. But Diaby and expecially Nasri looked very weak, Diaby making dribbles that end up making them lose posession, Nasri losing almost everything. BTW poor defending at times, Silvestre ? what is that guy doing in Arsenal squad, Mathijsen would match his performance easily.

Posted from  Netherlands

Yeah, Arsenal didn’t look too great, and were lucky that Man U didn’t score more in the first half when they created lots of chances (or in the second half when Ronaldo rattled the crossbar!). Still, next week they’ll be at home and they’ll have to go for it, playing two strikers. I think they’ll do much better next week.

Posted from  Canada

Yeah Jan, that depth

Posted from  Canada

Sorry, that should say “that’s depth”

Posted from  Canada

It looks like Robben might be able to play in El Clasico.

Thank you alex

Posted from  India