AC Milan vs FC Barcelona (1st leg CL)

El Shaarawy wrote:

free_cat wrote:

El Shaarawy wrote:

As a supporter of Serie A he should support the Italian teams out there fighting for coefficient points.

Rivalries in Italy are shit? It seems that every Clasico it becomes more of a snoozefest, right now the top 6 in Serie A are fighting for CL spots and the Scudetto, La Liga is done and dusted, dont see what the point of rivalries are when there's nothing to battle for

Supporter of "Serie A"? You've got to be kidding. There's no such thing as a supporter of X League. Leagues don't compete with each other in any competition so you can't support a league.

Sure, Clascios are snoozefests, when they've been the most heated and thrilling big games in the last years.

As a fan of a Serie A team, he supports us so we can get more CL spots and better the Serie A reputation.

Ridiculous.

Go Barca, I hope you beat Milan and prove La Liga's superiority.

Spoiler:

what are the chances....?

billy_gr wrote:what are the chances....?

Of you getting curb stomped? Very slim I'm afraid.

I'll be very happy with a draw for this game. However a narrow defeat wouldnt even surprise me.

Our defending, in the last month or so, has been worse than a Serie C side (if there is such a thing)

Any team we face, be it Alaves or whoever, are guaranteed a goal or 2 by our defenders.

You cant win cups with such defending. As much as I admire Tito for the job he has done so far at Barca, I feel he wont be winning anything near to what Pep achieved.

I fear our season's campaigns for the cups (CL and copa) will all end like the supercopa, whereby the team plays brilliantly going forward, only to lose it all by schoolboy defending.

If we are knocked out by our defending we have no one to blame but the club for not purchasing a Centerback in the Transfer window and buying Song.

This could be an emotional game/games for Roura. He sustained an injury vs Milan and reports say he never recovered from it, eventually forcing an early retirement from the game in his 20s.

Don't know why some of the fans here think we are going to concede alot of goals. Personally, don't think Milan will be a threat in attack enough for us to lose the game.

Deportivo put four past us. Why can't Milan put a few of their own?

gondov wrote:This could be an emotional game/games for Roura. He sustained an injury vs Milan and reports say he never recovered from it, eventually forcing an early retirement from the game in his 20s.

Wow, time has not passed for him. He looked the same at 20 years old. Already quite fat. And he was fast.
A pity his injury, maybe he would have become another Barça legend.

People talk about our reasent "form", but it is all down to Balotelli, scoring on free kicks etc. getting penalties.

2-0 barca or 1-0

Wrong thread.

FC Barcelona's starting XI: Valdés, Alves, Piqué, Puyol, Alba, Sergio, Xavi, Iniesta, Cesc, Pedro and Messi

what a horrible performance from us, first goal was handball but doesn't excuse how bad we played.
Xavi shouldn't of played, neither should of Alexis / Cesc.

It makes no difference if it is a handball. We literally had no chance on goal. I think this is the worst match i watched from us ever. Period.

We didn't deserve to win this match. Lots of needless and directionless possession with no intent. Movement lacking. Cesc did not help. Xavi did not help. Messi was absolute shat, though very much surrounded whenever he had the ball.

Horrible horrible.

But props to Milan.

Xavi just came from injury don't know why he played the full 90 minutes
Sanchez has been completely useless in every game he really shouldn't play big matches, hope Villa starts next match.
Cesc is wasting Iniesta, he didn't do anything all match.
Messi is surrounded by 3-5 people all game why doesn't the rest of the team step up, we depend on him too much and he didn't produce anything rest him vs Sevilla maybe he has played way too many constant games.

Pedro has been horrible most of the season as well. Has he stopped making off the ball runs or something?

free_cat wrote:

Cotes wrote:Ses to outshine Messi

Don't think so.

Why rivalries in Italy are so shit? As a Juve fan, you should be supporting us vs. Milan.

LOL....I remember saying this...
Juve & Milan actually are good friends...fans & staff...the problem is Inter

The Franchise wrote:

I am somewhat pessimistic about this, I really do have some worries.

That was prophetic dani. I myself was worried as well for various reasons.

Now since I am probably the biggest pessimist here I will say right now I don't have an iota of hope left. UCL is over. If Madrid don't go out the pain will be doubled.

It really is the same story again and again and again. We can't do anything against parked buses. We have tried things like buying Ibrahimovic, buying Sanchez, etc. but nothing has worked. It's always the same story. Whenever we face a parked bus team its all about luck. If we get the first goal we will probably destroy them. If they get the first goal then we are in a close to hopeless situation. We are the only team in the world against which teams and the biggest of teams at that consistently try to park the bus. Hell we even reduced the swashbuckling Arsenal team to a parking the bus side in the second round second leg in UCL 2010-11. Very few teams have refused to do this against us and the most noteworthy name that immediately comes to mind is Manchester United. That we demolished them twice only discourages other teams to play us like that. Tonight for me it was all about the hand ball goal. Till that goal happened we were unable to do anything but they also did hardly anything. Now the game could have ended a 0-0 draw which wouldn't be nice but would be much better than what actually happened. Or else who knows which team would have scored first thereby changing the complexion of the tie. The minute they go one up we become desperate, play even more into their hands and thereby concede the second goal which though was a very good piece of play on their part. With that its good bye to UCL for a year. After five consecutive semi final appearances the law of averages was bound to catch up with us. I don't even know when before us was the last time a team reached five UCL semi finals consecutively but what I do know is that there won't be a consecutive sixth for us.

To add to that our defense and the offside trap is at its worst right now in five or so years. I too would have liked to see Villa come on but as far as I remember he wasn't even on the bench having not recovered. Sanchez I knew wouldn't do anything and hence I didn't expect any constructive input from the bench either. Thiago was there of course but of what help would one more midfielder be in such a situation. Some have said Xavi could have been rested earlier but I doubt it would have made much of a difference in the end. The bench reminds me that we are also without a coach. So its just the starting eleven that had to find a way all on their own. The best that I can say right now is that at least some players tried their hearts out but it was all in vain.

harhar11 wrote:Pedro has been horrible most of the season as well. Has he stopped making off the ball runs or something?

Don't say that. Free_cat will eat you regardless of the fact that he's been shite for two seasons now.

And please, stop calling him a winger, he is a disgrace to the term 'winger'. He's just a pivot that you pass to for him to pass it back to you.

Goodbye CL! Also in the same spirit, goodbye Alexis and Pedro. I was hopping for Pedro to show up, but definitely he has lost it. We should cash on both of them. Also goodbye Iniesta on wings.

danyjr wrote:

harhar11 wrote:Pedro has been horrible most of the season as well. Has he stopped making off the ball runs or something?

Don't say that. Free_cat will eat you regardless of the fact that he's been shite for two seasons now.

And please, stop calling him a winger, he is a disgrace to the term 'winger'. He's just a pivot that you pass to for him to pass it back to you.

^ I was actually thinking what he would say to me when I wrote it.

Pedro has never been a real winger. He has always been more like a right forward, who used to make off the ball runs and score. Now for some reason, he has stopped doing most of that :/

Let's face it, everybody was shat. Messi, though triple marked, could have made better decisions. Cesc did jack shit. our defence wasn't bad at the beginning and for most of the match. However, we got caught on the break way too often for my liking.

If Milan play like today in the Camp Nou, I don't see us going through.