"And leave PSG and Monaco alone. Not even he would geta away with that." They can be punished "less" than a PL club though. I am adamant the FFP was concocted because Platini could not stand the thought of Citeh getting CL entrenched (yet another PL club with a chance of getting to CL finals) . With the ultimate irony being the rise of PSG near instantly after.
I didn't rate Bayern v Utd. Vulnerable to the counter attack and toothless when playing this slow pace tippy-tappy - however much of the ball they have.
I tend to agree with some commentator or other that the bigger problem than Guardiola's new style was Bayern taking its foot off the gas after wrapping up the Bundesliga early. You see something like this in American sports all the time. One team wins its series 4-0, and waits a week to face the winner of the other series. The one that has to keep playing stays sharp and usually skunks them. "You can't turn it on and off," as the cliche goes.
I'm not so sure that Bayern have switched off. Their playing, or trying to play, Guardiola's tippy-tappy football. Real, have a) seen it all before, and b) seen it done better. Bayern don't have the players to play that style. That's just for starters...
This game reminds me a lot of the 1998 WC final. The lauded technical team undone by nothing more than two set piece headers.
"Real, have a) seen it all before, and b) seen it done better. Bayern don't have the players to play that style." I watched El Plastico the other week, and Madrid were quite happy to cede possession to Barca. They weren't even pressing half as much as they have tonight.
Yeah same thing used to happen in the rugby championship here - the team who finished top had a 3 week break while a few years in a row the 2nd team came through a play off, had a european final and then rolled up at Twickenhamm and thrashed them.
Real have had years of playing against this style to prepare for this game. Their fans will be loving this slap in the face of their enemy's hero. It's a lovely advert for Spurs, too. Come to WHL, you too can beat Bayern in the semi-final of the CL, playing for Real.
Yeah, a team is a finely tuned thing that hones an edge fighting for its life. Take it out of meaningful competition for a while and it won't ramp back up to where it was instantly (more often than not).
UEFA have just announced that Madrid will be fined a million quid for kit infringement. Bale and Modric are not wearing the regulation navy blue shorts.
hate to say this but... BM are being made to look **** yet they would batter us...I think not being in the CL is a blessing as I think we'd have been humiliated
This is why the play-off system is unfair. We have a play-off system in both codes of rugby here. The side which finished top (often many, many points ahead of 3rd, 4th, 5th) sits it out for a while (2 weeks?), then plays one play-off game before meeting a team in the final who have continued playing at a competitive level since the season proper ended and have 3 or 4 play-off games under their belt. Leeds won the RL Super League two years running having finished each season in 5th place. Very unfair. Yet Leeds were recognised as one of the best two or three teams. You wonder whether they took it easy at times to ensure peak performance at play-off time.
"I think not being in the CL is a blessing as I think we'd have been humiliated" 25m odd quid would make the humilation a bit bearable, no.
In the NFL I notice building momentum at the right time is crucial. Anyone who comes out of the blocks blazing will probably be huffing and puffing by the end. The SB winner tends to start off okay, and then builds steadily from about midseason on. But we don't penalize the best teams by making them sit out more than one game. They often enough do it to themselves, though, resting their starters in the last game or two, with mostly predictable consequences.
