Champions League Chelsea vs. Barcelona

[Castiel]

you must be very proud of drogba despite his chronic attack of vertigo

Sorry I missed this.

I am actually. If you remember the CL final last year, United had to withstand wave after wave of attack. Barca just attacked, succeeded or failed and immediately recirculated the ball for another attack. If you do this your defence will crack under the pressure eventually.

Drogba was buying the team breathers to get back into position, find their marks and just take short breaks from the onslaught. It was incredibly intelligent play and gave them a taste of their own medicine at the same time. Its unsportsmanlike and not something I'd condone but it helped beat them. He wasn't doing it to get penalties or to get people sent off, he was just doing it to help his defence. I have no doubt that if we'd have let them do their thing uninterrupted they'd have beaten us comfortably.

 

[r.soleofsalford]

you must be very proud of drogba despite his chronic attack of vertigo

Sorry I missed this.

I am actually. If you remember the CL final last year, United had to withstand wave after wave of attack. Barca just attacked, succeeded or failed and immediately recirculated the ball for another attack. If you do this your defence will crack under the pressure eventually.

Drogba was buying the team breathers to get back into position, find their marks and just take short breaks from the onslaught. It was incredibly intelligent play and gave them a taste of their own medicine at the same time. Its unsportsmanlike and not something I'd condone but it helped beat them. He wasn't doing it to get penalties or to get people sent off, he was just doing it to help his defence. I have no doubt that if we'd have let them do their thing uninterrupted they'd have beaten us comfortably.

so your ok with him cheating. i dont know if you have kids, but if you do, at what age do you tell the little angel to start cheating.

do you condone cheating in any other sports

 

[bobrivers]

so your ok with him cheating. i dont know if you have kids, but if you do, at what age do you tell the little angel to start cheating.

do you condone cheating in any other sports

Every footballer does some cheating, some more, some less.I'd say, it's far more important what a player is like off the pitch.

Drogba has been heavily involved in charity work for many years and has recently donated £3m of his own money towards construction of a hospital in his war ravaged country of Ivory Coast. He's a hero to his people both as a footballer and a person.

Now, if you are a City supporter and are so concerned with the bad influence modern athletes' behaviour has on kids, maybe you should start by taking a good look at the likes of Carlos Tevez or Mario Balotelli.

 

[Jonathan1979]

Not to mention the fact Barça has a reputation themselves for diving and pretending to be vewwy vewwy injured.

Chelsea did what they had to. All my respect for that.

 

[Armaan]

so your ok with him cheating. i dont know if you have kids, but if you do, at what age do you tell the little angel to start cheating.

do you condone cheating in any other sports

Every footballer does some cheating, some more, some less.I'd say, it's far more important what a player is like off the pitch.

Drogba has been heavily involved in charity work for many years and has recently donated £3m of his own money towards construction of a hospital in his war ravaged country of Ivory Coast. He's a hero to his people both as a footballer and a person.

Now, if you are a City supporter and are so concerned with the bad influence modern athletes' behaviour has on kids, maybe you should start by taking a good look at the likes of Carlos Tevez or Mario Balotelli.

This is too much sense

 

[inbetween]

so your ok with him cheating. i dont know if you have kids, but if you do, at what age do you tell the little angel to start cheating.

do you condone cheating in any other sports

Every footballer does some cheating, some more, some less.I'd say, it's far more important what a player is like off the pitch.

Drogba has been heavily involved in charity work for many years and has recently donated £3m of his own money towards construction of a hospital in his war ravaged country of Ivory Coast. He's a hero to his people both as a footballer and a person.

Now, if you are a City supporter and are so concerned with the bad influence modern athletes' behaviour has on kids, maybe you should start by taking a good look at the likes of Carlos Tevez or Mario Balotelli.

So as Drogba sends a bit of his 150 grand a week to charity it's all ok, by the way he said that he'll be off soon purely for the money. He was on the floor for ridiculous amounts of time and Barcelona battered Chelsea last night and were really unlucky. Chelsea had a chance on the counter and they took it, other than that Drogba was on the floor all the game, it was ridiculous.

Can only see a big Barcelona win at the Nou Camp and really they deserved to win last night but because Chelsea were 9 at the back it wasn't going to happen. Arsenal beat them at home last year and were taken apart in the away leg.

As for Balotelli, he is a kid and no city supporter condones that behaviour i'm sure about that. Just read the Arsenal matchday thread. Not to mention with Tevez he still gets a very mixed reception on here so that isn't really going to wash.

 

[MSP]

Not disputing that pal..

Ive just never seen chelsea get raped for 90 mins at stamford bridge..

Could you name any one team at any one ground in the world currently that would "outplay" Barcelona over 90 minutes? Barca could come to Eastlands and shit all over you on a footballing level too. They go and do it at the Santiago Bernabeu regularly. Most of their 25 or whatever it was shots were pretty impotent because of the lack of space we gave them and the positions we forced them into.

Notice we didn't let Messi into our box at all and when he tried to he had our entire back line converge on him; so he spent most of the game in midfield with the chances falling to less clinical finishers like Sanchez and Fabregas. Our midfield got in their faces and restricted the space and Drogba held up the ball for Ramires and Mata to try to counter and employed some unethical behaviour to buy his defence breaks from the constant waves of attacks. Thats how you beat them and thats why we have the best European record against them of all English teams. Try and play football against them and they will crush you like the 5-0 against Madrid demonstrates.

you must be very proud of drogba despite his chronic attack of vertigo

Well, considering who he played against, they've found their match ;)

And to be clear - I don't have idea what kind of football Nottingham Forrest played 1979. but they won the damn thing :)

If Chelsea pass to the final and/or win it on the end, nothing else would matter.

And I agree with most of stuff Castiel said, Chelsea executed their plan brilliantly, Messi barely came closer than 20m to their goal and Barca were forced to use other guys to finish their action and they're way below than he is.

Still don't give them too much chances of advancing, it's going to be different on Camp Nou but who knows, and at least they made it in first half, even that was not expected and not too many teams could do it. Chelsea definitely have experience to play such big CL matches.

 

[r.soleofsalford]

so your ok with him cheating. i dont know if you have kids, but if you do, at what age do you tell the little angel to start cheating.

do you condone cheating in any other sports

Every footballer does some cheating, some more, some less.I'd say, it's far more important what a player is like off the pitch.

Drogba has been heavily involved in charity work for many years and has recently donated £3m of his own money towards construction of a hospital in his war ravaged country of Ivory Coast. He's a hero to his people both as a footballer and a person.

Now, if you are a City supporter and are so concerned with the bad influence modern athletes' behaviour has on kids, maybe you should start by taking a good look at the likes of Carlos Tevez or Mario Balotelli.

on the field of play tevez conduct is exemplary, off it according to the newspapers and media not so much.

balotelli is still doing immature stunts, and losing his head now and then and commits reckless fouls.

anyway back to the question in hand when do you look into you young sons eyes and say, go on that pitch and cheat for all your worth and make me proud

 

[Latics Fan SJK]

so your ok with him cheating. i dont know if you have kids, but if you do, at what age do you tell the little angel to start cheating.

do you condone cheating in any other sports

Every footballer does some cheating, some more, some less.I'd say, it's far more important what a player is like off the pitch.

Drogba has been heavily involved in charity work for many years and has recently donated £3m of his own money towards construction of a hospital in his war ravaged country of Ivory Coast. He's a hero to his people both as a footballer and a person.

Now, if you are a City supporter and are so concerned with the bad influence modern athletes' behaviour has on kids, maybe you should start by taking a good look at the likes of Carlos Tevez or Mario Balotelli.

on the field of play tevez conduct is exemplary, off it according to the newspapers and media not so much.

balotelli is still doing immature stunts, and losing his head now and then and commits reckless fouls.

anyway back to the question in hand when do you look into you young sons eyes and say, go on that pitch and cheat for all your worth and make me proud

Give over with that ridiculous line.

Answer these:

Do you think the parents of a high number of Madrid & Barca players aren't proud of them just because they dive here and there?

Do you think the parents of a hell of a lot of players around the world aren't proud of them just because they dive here and there?

Do you think the parents of Drogba aren't proud of them just because he dives here and there? Especially in this case as it's helped Chelsea possibly get to a CL final?

No, I don't agree with diving. But it happens. It isn't just Drogba. It isn't just Busquets. United players do it. Arsenal, Chelsea. Even City players. Just because one has done it more often than the other doesn't make it any more right or wrong.

The funny thing is, I thought Drogba's 'theatrics' were clever only because it stopped Barca's rhythm. I supposed I'd have been a little more disgusted if he had won 3 penalties through it.

If Drogba goes home to his parents with a CL winners medal ask yourself whether his mum & dad will turn round and say, "Fuck off Didier son, I saw your theatrics. You should be ashamed of yourself and you don't deserve that winners medal".

I'll give you a clue. They won't.

 

[ali benarbia's studs]

i ve always said that cheating is the last 5% of the winning mentality. if a game is so tight that it is won by a loose tackle so be it. as a player you see someone storming at you and lunging of course you ll step across them and win a free/pen.

i am not saying that cheating is acceptable but if teams revert to this (playing sly) i always match it.

the game was a joke but respect to chelsea for muscling out a result. i cant see them going to the nou camp getting a positive result. if they do they deserve to win it outright.