CL: FC Barcelona 2 - Manchester City FC 1

Special thanks to Zabaleta for not scoring off that Pique deflection.

Can't say I liked the approach to the game. If we are going to play like this (57 % possession, end-to-end, not controlling the game) then why play like this with 4 midfielders and no off the ball runners? This game could have been burried in the first half with the normal 4-3-3. Nevertheless can't criticize the players. They worked hard, especially Messi was the old Messi. He ruined City with dribbles and passes all night. And he even worked defensively. RIP Agüero.

How many teams are we likely to play that will play with 4 midfielders and one supporting striker? Bayern perhaps, but no one else. That's why we had 57% possession.

That ref was utter garbage.

Happy with the win. Going forward it's going to get tough so hopefully we get the weakest link (Olympiakos) and let the other tough teams battle it out.

windkick wrote:That ref was utter garbage.

Happy with the win. Going forward it's going to get tough so hopefully we get the weakest link (Olympiakos) and let the other tough teams battle it out.

i prefer to have a better team if not the best. With olympiakos we will sleep again like we slept vs Vallodid and Socieded. Surprisingly we did not do bad vs good teams, this season. That shows probably hunger/motivation is one of big problems of this team right now.

Anyone else think this was the best game by Messi in recent long times....if he can reserve this even for CL games only, would not be so bad.
Neymar needed the goal, the guy is getting frustrated continuously. Not worried too much though, its just his first year.
Iniesta and Mashcherano put a fantastic display. .....

Alba deserves some praise especially considering the shit he gets on a daily basis from everyone here.

Just because he's criticized a lot doesn't mean he should get credit when he plays decently. I only saw the second half, i thought he looked decent. I dont know where he was for he golden opportunity Zabaleta spurned.

Otherwise he looked decent. Again, i didn't see tne whole match, but I can't see any real reason he deserves more praise than anyone else. Or praise in general beyond what I've said.

The entire back 4 did better than expected, including Mascherano and Alba, which was fairly surprising.

The players did well, there were a moment from the start of the 2nd half to about 20 minutes in that we looked very wobbly and looked like conceding but overall a decent game.

As I said before though, you cant play Neymar on the right. You just force him into the sideline/limit his options. Doesnt matter how good he is with his left, the ball will always be situated on his right side and the angles are wrong. Though, I didnt think he was so bad anyway, he got off the line at least and was unlucky not to score.

Still dont like the line up and as someone said already, where was the off ball runners? Alba was the only one getting behind the defence.

Everyone worked hard though, that was a positive sign, Messi was more like the Messi I expect to see on a day to day basis.

Unfortunately, the fact that we played well this game doesn't mean absolutely anything for future games. We are extremely inconsistent.

It wasn't a fantastic game, and again we struggled a lot to create chances not on the break.

@Freecat, if you are fighting for the liberation of Barca from Tata,its no suprise you would think its not fantastic game. Otherwise, so far i did not find any one complaining about todays games.

Alba deserves praise today and nice to his overlap runs. His run with Iniesta backpass is clearly a joy to watch. Even though in most cases he failed to do anything with those.

neuro11 wrote:@Freecat, if you are fighting for the liberation of Barca from Tata,its no suprise you would think its not fantastic game. Otherwise, so far i did not find any one complaining about todays games.

Alba deserves praise today and nice to his overlap runs. His run with Iniesta backpass is clearly a joy to watch. Even though in most cases he failed to do anything with those.

I'm not complaining, it was a good game. Not fantastic at all. Not incompatible.

I dont know what to make of this side.We seem to do well in the big games but lose against scrubs.The intensity just seems higher in the big games.Seems to me to be motivational issues.The players just dont seem motivated enough against scrubs.

I though we played and I am surprised that again in a big game we defended well.Our midfielders worked extremely hard,got back to defend and screened the defense.Limited City quite well.Scored from a corner again but then other than that we defended very well.
On corners,the man marking needs to go like yesterday.
Just not working and we should switch back.

On the players I was impressed with everyone bar Neymar.Yes he was on the right and that didnt help.but that doesnt excuse sloppy passes and sloppiness in possession.Gave the ball away many times.Overall not a great display from him.

I was extremely impressed by Messi.Think that was his best game in ages.Very good attitude.Worked hard,ran off the ball,defended and offered good movement. Skinned Kaompany,Fernandinho,Yaya and Lescott multiple times.Just such a difference when he actually decides to put in the effort.By miles the best player in the world when he puts in the effort.

Lastly,if we play with the same intensity and attitude,I dont think we need to be pessimistic about our chances in the CL.If we play with the same attitude,I am not afraid of any team.

I think this would have ended in a big hiding like 5-0 if the referee didn't choke the penalty and legit goal or at least ONE of the 2 calls within the first 18 minutes. On top of the already motivated display from minute 1, confidence would have been on a different level then. With 0-0 at half time it was still kinda tense.

I don't like the refereeing against us in the Champions League lately. We get some really big calls against us. Zlatan offside goal by a distance, Bayern 3 irregular goals, Milan irregular goal, City 2 regular goals and 1 penalty not given. Even in the CL final in 10/11 United scored from offside and the referee tried his best to not give Valencia a yellow card when he was hacking down our players all night. Someone needs to speak out. Since Mourinho's UEFAlona speach every referee in the world is adamant to showcase that he isn't pro Barca.

Fussball, those decision don't go 'against you' specifically, it's just bad refereeing.
Yesterday the pen on Messi and the goal, sure, but then the blatant pen by Pique as well.
The ref just had a terrible night.

'3 irregular goals' by Bayern really?
Do I really need to go and post the pics of the handling in the box etc?
Don't be Wounginho, please. Trademark, btw.

I agree though if you had been up 2:0 after 20 mins like you actually should've been, City would've returned with a severe beating on their backs and the press would be celebrating 'the return of Messi and Barca' etc pp

Hapless_Hans wrote:Fussball, those decision don't go 'against you' specifically, it's just bad refereeing.
Yesterday the pen on Messi and the goal, sure, but then the blatant pen by Pique as well.
The ref just had a terrible night.

'3 irregular goals' by Bayern really?
Do I really need to go and post the pics of the handling in the box etc?
Don't be Wounginho, please. Trademark, btw.

I agree though if you had been up 2:0 after 20 mins like you actually should've been, City would've returned with a severe beating on their backs and the press would be celebrating 'the return of Messi and Barca' etc pp

I agree, you get some and you lose some, but I have to say, that only Pique´s was a penalty. The Alexis one is never a penalty, seeing as it was ball to hand.

harhar11 wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:Fussball, those decision don't go 'against you' specifically, it's just bad refereeing.
Yesterday the pen on Messi and the goal, sure, but then the blatant pen by Pique as well.
The ref just had a terrible night.

'3 irregular goals' by Bayern really?
Do I really need to go and post the pics of the handling in the box etc?
Don't be Wounginho, please. Trademark, btw.

I agree though if you had been up 2:0 after 20 mins like you actually should've been, City would've returned with a severe beating on their backs and the press would be celebrating 'the return of Messi and Barca' etc pp

I agree, you get some and you lose some, but I have to say, that only Pique´s was a penalty. The Alexis one is never a penalty, seeing as it was ball to hand.

you mean in our game last year? Yeah ok, but if we start debating we can also debate the supposed '3 irregular goals'.
We don't have to though, as my point simply would be that I don't think you can say there's a pattern of specifically disadvantaging Barca, I'm not denying there are instances where wrong decisions against you are made, 2 clear ones yesterday.

The referee in the Bayern game last year (Victor Kasai or however you spell it) is just a retard in general. Howard Webb school of thought - "just let everything run". Same ref from the CL final in 2011 who didn't book Valencia all game (if you visit the match thread on Redcafe even they were perplexed during the game). I don't think much talk is needed for the Bayern game tbh. Dante is leaning on Alves, Gomez offside and Müller bumping into Alba is a clear foul. I don't care about refs in general but in recent times all close calls go against Barca as if they are trying to deliberately show that they aren't Barca-biased after Mourinho's speech.

There's exactly one game I ever saw in the CL where the refereeing was so blatantly biased that you can't but suspect some kind of UEFA foul play, and that was your semi against Chelsea.
And in that case a motive was there as well, to avoid the second Chelsea-Utd English final in a row.

So I really wouldn't go down that UEFA bias road if I was you, or are you saying the subsequent years are backlash for that? Well then, tough luck, it'll take a while to make up for that *bleep*-ing disgrace.

And again, you might not think talk is needed when you yourself can just declare stuff, but give us 2 pens in the first half, then acknowledge that Dante doesn't lean on Alves so much as Alves is too fat to jump and prefers to pretend he's being leaned on, then I give you that Gomez is offside BY A TINY MARGIN.

As for Müller, of course, but that is more like the hand of god goal.
The hip of god. Doesn't count.

And as usual people brush off everything that goes against Barca with that Chelsea game 5 years ago where Drogba was diving all over the place and in which Barca was the team that had to play with 10 men for nothing. Hans, pls.

Hans, pls what?

You are claiming 'all close calls go against Barca' in recent times, which isn't true, and you suspect this is some deliberate, or intuitive, in any case systematic bias against Barca.

I'd say you're exaggerating this, and brought up an example of how such bias would actually look like   

Hapless_Hans wrote:There's exactly one game I ever saw in the CL where the refereeing was so blatantly biased that you can't but suspect some kind of UEFA foul play, and that was your semi against Chelsea.
And in that case a motive was there as well, to avoid the second Chelsea-Utd English final in a row.

So I really wouldn't go down that UEFA bias road if I was you, or are you saying the subsequent years are backlash for that? Well then, tough luck, it'll take a while to make up for that *bleep*-ing disgrace.

And again, you might not think talk is needed when you yourself can just declare stuff, but give us 2 pens in the first half, then acknowledge that Dante doesn't lean on Alves so much as Alves is too fat to jump and prefers to pretend he's being leaned on, then I give you that Gomez is offside BY A TINY MARGIN.

As for Müller, of course, but that is more like the hand of god goal.
The hip of god. Doesn't count.

IMHO Bayern was helped out by refs against Barca, but it would only change the result (goals scored). Instead of huge difference Bayern would still win by at least two goals over two games. It is stupid for us Barca fans to complain about that game as it is stupid for Bayern fans to deny they were helped. But, the bottom line is, Bayern was way better team (it does not matter if just physically, tactically or technically). Bayern destroyed us and no ref in the world could have saved us from loosing to that Bayern side, not with our form anyway.


EDIT: lately bad calls go against us more than for us. Just a coincidence i am sure. BTW, just wait and see if Bayern keeps this great run. You will se how you will be treated by other fans.

Whether you think it's stupid or not, I'm denying that we "were helped".
I'm not denying the ref made wrong calls favouring us (Müller being the obvious, yet undoubtedly hilarious and beautiful one), but he also made wrong calls favouring you. That's the point of the whole thing.
There's no bias against you going on.

Yeah, how about we get back to the game of yesterday and not history from years ago?

Ok, thanks.

Hapless_Hans wrote:There's exactly one game I ever saw in the CL where the refereeing was so blatantly biased that you can't but suspect some kind of UEFA foul play, and that was your semi against Chelsea.
And in that case a motive was there as well, to avoid the second Chelsea-Utd English final in a row.

So I really wouldn't go down that UEFA bias road if I was you, or are you saying the subsequent years are backlash for that? Well then, tough luck, it'll take a while to make up for that *bleep*-ing disgrace.

And again, you might not think talk is needed when you yourself can just declare stuff, but give us 2 pens in the first half, then acknowledge that Dante doesn't lean on Alves so much as Alves is too fat to jump and prefers to pretend he's being leaned on, then I give you that Gomez is offside BY A TINY MARGIN.

As for Müller, of course, but that is more like the hand of god goal.
The hip of god. Doesn't count.

This is quite hypocritical of you after the other post that you wrote. In that game, or better said, in that tie, Eto'o had a one-on-one with cech called for offside when he was onside, there was 2 penalties not given to Barca, Bosingwa pulling T.Henry on his shirt in the first leg and a Ballack handball in the 2nd leg, then Abidal got sent off thanks to an Anelka dive..

If the referee wasn't biased in the Bayern vs Barca game when he allowed 3 illegal goals, simply because he didn't give Bayern a penalty, then Ovrebo wasn't biased either seeing as he made more bad calls against Barca then the ref did against Bayern in the Bayern vs Barca game..

Like I said before, you get some and you lose some. And against Chelsea, we got some AND we lost some..

fair enough