Football Banter

Barca were literally taken apart by Bayern, despite putting out what looked a strong team on paper and you would have thought they would be able to compete with them, but Bayern were on a different level to every thing Barcelona had. Is this the very last time we see Messi ply his trade in CL? I hope not but given the rift between him and the club he deserves better. Man City should they beat Lyon Expect no quarter given by Bayern in the semis. It eas crazy that Bayern were 4-1 up at half - time and I reckon even it it was pretty much a vase noe many more could Bayern score?

Someone is going to have to have to a one hell of a massive re - build of Barcelona, and when you consider they finished 24 points behind Real in La Liga when several years they (Barcelona) were the top dogs. What amount of money they would have to spend to achieve it is going to be staggering and it will take certainly more than one season.
It will probably be quite a while before Barcelona will scale the heights of success of this team and whether they will still have the pulling power after that defeat to attract top quality players remains to be seen.

Man City 1- 0 down - good
hope both Mancs get knocked out lol

for the first time since 1995-96 season there are no British or Spanish teams in the CL semi Finals and for the first time France has two teams in the Semis.

The English pundits just cannot get their head around the idea that a team from one of those rubbish foreign leagues could ever beat a team from their precious superior perfect league

How many years have they been saying that English teams are going to go on to dominate the Champions League? This is the hardest competition there is, think of all the teams that failed to win it: Guardiola's Centenaries, The Invincibles, Mourinho's Chelsea, Ancelotti's Chelsea, Mancini's City, Pellegrini's City, Guardiola's Bayern, Allegri's Juventus, Conte's Chelsea, Klopp's Dortmund, 24 of Feguson's 26 United teams. They really need to check their hubris, full credit to Lyon they were great.

In terms of Barcelona I fully expected them to get beat by Bayern but I was thinking in the region of 5-1. The majority of the team are over 30, 6 out of 10 of the outfield starters were & that didn't include Rakitic who normally starts. The problems at Barca run deep, La Masia has stopped producing top talent & so they have turned to the transfer market, spending eye watering sums on players that have not worked out. To be fair to them Coutinho seemed like a logical successor to Iniesta & was probably worth it at the time as he was at his peak for Liverpool. Before his injuries Dembele was a hot young prospect on a trajectory similar to Mbappe but they paid way too much for him. They have just signed Pjanic from Juve who whilst a quality player is 30 & has had a poor season. There seems to be no ethos to their signings, they are just dropping eye watering sums on any big name player & hoping it will work out.

Furthermore their last two managerial picks have been poor, of course it is not actually in their nature to sign big name established managers, Louis Van Gall in 2002 was the last big name manager they hired, but Valverde & Setien were poor choices.

The club is also besieged by internal politics & the fact that their current President is terrible. The next Presidential election is not due until next year, unless he has a moment of self awareness, Barca will struggle to improve & the rot may set in further.

p.s Barca only finished 5 pts behind Real in La Liga, a team who also faces the problem of an aging squad

Real Madrid are on the wain massively too. Bale is finished there but still picking up huge wages, Hazard has had no season to speak of at all due to injuries and I think the days of Barca and Madrid coming for the best talent in the Premier League is gone ... for a while a at least. Both clubs need a huge rebuild, can't see them being serious challengers for the Champions League in the next 3 years, of course something out of the blue could happen to contradict that statement but the evidence points against it.

As for this premier league domination shite talk that gets bandied about, it's nonsense, just their own arrogance getting in the way of common sense. Same way they think the national team is a serious challenger for every tournament because they smack around micky mouse teams in the qualifiers.They said the same domination nonsense in 2013 when Bayern and Dormund reached the final, German dominance in the CL for the next few years, and again in 2014 when the Madrid teams reached the final, Spanish dominance blah blah blah. Pundits are generally clueless, just looking for some sensationalist headlines.

Between 2005 and 2012 there was at least 1 English team in the CL final every year (bar 2010), but in those 8 seasons they only won 3. That's as close to dominant as the PL will come in the CL. They won't get back to the true domination of 77 - 84, winning 7 out of 8 years.

I do think Pep's obsession with winning the CL with City is beginning to stifle the aspirations and performances on the pitch in Europe for City. While City dominated the PL for several years, it did seem the arrogance of the club shone through but now with Liverpool under Klopp ending their dominance and with a game plan that seems to based around a far more skilful and less arrogant style on the pitch and with Ole suddenly discovering a game plan that suits United that probably matches his ambitions and style, suddenly to me City look stale, tired, and almost believing their own hype and facing a real struggle to regain top spot next season.
I can only think Pep will be at City possibly 2 more seasons or maybe a third before whoosh he's gone and I think if Pochettino doesn't walk into the Barca's manager's office lap in the next season or two, and I actually think it will be a too big a a re - building job even for him there, he may be the one name that City may turn to, to get them out of a possible rut and possibly bury Pep's legacy and shake the arrogance out of City's game, and replace it with a much more relaxed style that may bear better fruits on the pitch. Moreover, I wonder how long it will be before the fans will turn their frustrations on Pep and possibly the owners next season if things don't go well both in Europe or domestically?

(16-08-2020 01:30 )Stemmw Wrote:  Real Madrid are on the wain massively too. Bale is finished there but still picking up huge wages, Hazard has had no season to speak of at all due to injuries and I think the days of Barca and Madrid coming for the best talent in the Premier League is gone ... for a while a at least. Both clubs need a huge rebuild, can't see them being serious challengers for the Champions League in the next 3 years, of course something out of the blue could happen to contradict that statement but the evidence points against it.

As for this premier league domination shite talk that gets bandied about, it's nonsense, just their own arrogance getting in the way of common sense. Same way they think the national team is a serious challenger for every tournament because they smack around micky mouse teams in the qualifiers.They said the same domination nonsense in 2013 when Bayern and Dormund reached the final, German dominance in the CL for the next few years, and again in 2014 when the Madrid teams reached the final, Spanish dominance blah blah blah. Pundits are generally clueless, just looking for some sensationalist headlines.

Between 2005 and 2012 there was at least 1 English team in the CL final every year (bar 2010), but in those 8 seasons they only won 3. That's as close to dominant as the PL will come in the CL. They won't get back to the true domination of 77 - 84, winning 7 out of 8 years.

I agree British clubs will never dominate the CL like they did from 77 - 84, even if it went back to to old style knockout competition there is the possibility even then PL clubs will fall way short.
I think it is time that we now realise that the money side of the game is the root cause that gives rise for the arrogance and attitude of PL clubs to think they can win the CL every season and i really hope that this unique situation that has happened, makes the PL clubs realize they need to adopt a far different attitude in both European and domestic competitions for a few years at least.

Away from the CL, I actually do think the money that is awash in the PL - that now needs to distributed way way better further down the pyramid structure, otherwise we may not have a strong stable financially viable league for very much longer and we could be the first league to suffer a real financial crash and one which the beautiful game in this country may never fully recover from.

Spanish teams have won 10 out of the last 20 Champions League's & 6 out of the last 10 when there are 5 so called big leagues, I think it would be fair to say there has been Spanish dominance but I agree with your overall point

(16-08-2020 01:30 )Stemmw Wrote:  Real Madrid are on the wain massively too. Bale is finished there but still picking up huge wages, Hazard has had no season to speak of at all due to injuries and I think the days of Barca and Madrid coming for the best talent in the Premier League is gone ... for a while a at least. Both clubs need a huge rebuild, can't see them being serious challengers for the Champions League in the next 3 years, of course something out of the blue could happen to contradict that statement but the evidence points against it.

As for this premier league domination shite talk that gets bandied about, it's nonsense, just their own arrogance getting in the way of common sense. Same way they think the national team is a serious challenger for every tournament because they smack around micky mouse teams in the qualifiers.They said the same domination nonsense in 2013 when Bayern and Dormund reached the final, German dominance in the CL for the next few years, and again in 2014 when the Madrid teams reached the final, Spanish dominance blah blah blah. Pundits are generally clueless, just looking for some sensationalist headlines.

Between 2005 and 2012 there was at least 1 English team in the CL final every year (bar 2010), but in those 8 seasons they only won 3. That's as close to dominant as the PL will come in the CL. They won't get back to the true domination of 77 - 84, winning 7 out of 8 years.

Madrid massively on the wane? Quite a different situation to Barcelona. They have lots of some of the best young players either in the team already, out on loan or being brought back from loan.

Bit contradictory to talk about Hazard then say they can't sign the best from the Prem anymore. He arguably was the best player in the league before he left Chelsea. It was two shocking tackles that injured him this season and if he stays fit then he'll be like a new signing.

Add to all that the arrival of Mbappe in a year or two...

Happy for PSG and especially Lyon the French League is a big league but small compared to the English,German, Italian and Spanish leagues maybe these results could give the up lift the league needs.