Pwnage: Barcelona bum Man Utd 2-0, win the CL

[morgs]

 

but with it being man u in a final, with a weakened defence, Imagine alves there and toure in the centre

[LoveItIfWeBeatU]

I missed the first 15 minutes but from what I saw of them Man U were poor. It was similar to how we played against Aston Villa. Did they have a shot in the second half? Maybe they could have done with playing the first team against Hull last weekend?

 

I thought it was a pretty boring game. Barcelona would work the ball to the final third then instead of going for goal they passed it all the way back to their defence. Made for boring viewing.

 

Thats where I disagree. Lots of people think thats boring, but for me they're like a predator toying with their prey before unleashing hell, and I love it.

 

Yep, I thought it was a class game.

Technically it was very good play, etc. but I prefer to see an end to end game. It is the sensible thing to do if your winning. Passing the ball around without ever really trying to go for goal is boring to me.

 

I'm doing that little smile that Fergie did last Sunday when told that we went down. 

 

Did I miss this? Is there a clip?

 

:@

 

i also saw it. i thought it was more than a "little" smile though.

 

lovely karma. 

Newcastle should put a video on their website of Dowie walking in to tell Shearer the Champions League result and have Shearer pull a grin.

[Taylor Swift]

Best thing about Barca: their obsession with playing the ball on the ground. They had a free-kick 40 yards out. Any team in the world sends people into the box and whips a ball in. Not Barca. Iniesta taps it to Xavi, Xavi sprays it to the left and they're playing as if they could do better than just whipping the ball into the box - and the awesome thing is that they actually can and do. Likewise with corners. They prefer to play it short rather than whipping it in and that says a lot about their desire to play the game on the ground.

[johnnypd]

Imagine if Alves had played man.

 

Puyol owned that right hand side. Rooney was ineffective there likewise Ronaldo. But not only that, Puyol actually popped up on a few occasions and supported the attack (imagine if that little chip had gone in...). He was as good as any Barca players - but to be honest, I thought all of them were superb which really shows how good they are as a team.

 

puyol looked very shaky at first, but after he settled i'd say he was barca's 2nd best player after Iniesta.

[Guest firetotheworks]

I laughed when early on when Pleat said something along the lines of 'Barca haven't got going yet. Man United have managed to contain Henrys pace.'

 

Aye, because its Henrys pace you need to worry about these days.

[Guest The Libertine]

I'm doing that little smile that Fergie did last Sunday when told that we went down. 

 

Did I miss this? Is there a clip?

 

:@

 

i also saw it. i thought it was more than a "little" smile though.

 

lovely karma. 

 

link?

 

i saw it on match of the day and i cant find a picture. it was as the hull stadium announcer said we'd lost to villa and the camera showed phil brown, ferguson was standing behind him smiling.

[Taylor Swift]

First ten minutes I was pretty nervous about Barca because Man Utd really pressed up and Barca's passing was very, very off. They looked and played like they were nervous, then Eto'o scored and for the the rest of the match, they utterly dominated Man Utd. It could easily have been three or four and yet you can't even say that Man Utd deserved a goal. Superb stuff from Barca.

 

I'm pretty glad that I've been right about them too, incase you haven't felt it bursting out of my posts

[M4]

If Shearer could be just of third of a Guardiola for us... that would be nice!

[Kaizero]

What a boring match that was.

 

'The Dream CL Final'

 

That was possibly the best football game i have ever seen

 

You've not seen many football matches then.

 

 

[Guest firetotheworks]

I'm doing that little smile that Fergie did last Sunday when told that we went down. 

 

Did I miss this? Is there a clip?

 

:@

 

i also saw it. i thought it was more than a "little" smile though.

 

lovely karma. 

 

link?

 

i saw it on match of the day and i cant find a picture. it was as the hull stadium announcer said we'd lost to villa and the camera showed phil brown, ferguson was standing behind him smiling.

 

Not because they'd won the match/league? Also could have been edited? I haven't seen it so Im just providing suggestions.

[Kaizero]

I removed a few S's from the title. It was way too American.

 

 

A team is a collection of people. They don't 'wins' something.

 

Lesson over.

 

But not when the 'entity' is considered a single thing. Manchester United is one singular thing. So they can also 'wins' stuff if you refer to them as a united entity i.e. refer to them as a club.

 

'Barcelona's winning this'

 

'Barcelona are winning this'

 

Both correct.

 

Plural sounds better in the title tbh. "win the CL" makes me think it's spelled wrong, even when I know it's not.

[Dave]

I removed a few S's from the title. It was way too American.

 

 

A team is a collection of people. They don't 'wins' something.

 

Lesson over.

 

But not when the 'entity' is considered a single thing. Manchester United is one singular thing. So they can also 'wins' stuff if you refer to them as a united entity i.e. refer to them as a club.

 

'Barcelona's winning this'

 

'Barcelona are winning this'

 

Both correct.

 

In the UK Manchester United are a group.

 

Don't do it again.

[Beren]

I feel like I watched a different match to everyone else judging from what I've read on this thread. For the record I was supporting Barcelona tonight, but I don't think they performed half as well as they could have done.

 

I thought Man Utd were a far superior side for the first ten minutes, and when they conceded against the run of play to a fairly ordinary counter-attack that the match as a contest ended. Barca played fairly aimless counter-attacking, and Man Utd just didn't recover whatsoever. Credit to Barcelona for making it so difficult for them, but superlatives are a bit much IMO. It wasn't the masterclass in attacking play that I'd hoped for. Thought it was a piss-poor spectactle personally.

 

Ideally, Man Utd would have taken the league and Barcelona would have had another opportunity on the big stage to prove that they can unlock a top English defence that isn't pouring forward. That also might have induced some of those sweet, sweet Cronaldo tears the world's been thirsting after. Most of the questions posed before the match remained unanswered for me because Man Utd got Arsenal'd inside the opening 10 minutes. Poor end to an entertaining season [not a good season for Newcastle *sigh*... obviously]. Hopefully Chelsea can give Everton a sound kicking on the weekend.

[Taylor Swift]

I thought it was a decent game, why is people complaining?

 

Watching Barca try to play football> watching Manu and Chelsea try to bore each other out.

 

are

 

For Dave.

[morgs]

What a boring match that was.

 

'The Dream CL Final'

 

That was possibly the best football game i have ever seen

 

You've not seen many football matches then.

 

 

 

i have seen a lot but i am not coming from the angle of end to end excitement games, in which case you are right. But in terms of passing the ball around, with ease and creating clear cut chances, when the other team cant get near you as you have a much higher skill level, and passing movements of 40 passes ending up with a clear sight of goal, in that sense of composed, highly skilled football. It was majestic

[Guest The Libertine]

I'm doing that little smile that Fergie did last Sunday when told that we went down. 

 

Did I miss this? Is there a clip?

 

:@

 

i also saw it. i thought it was more than a "little" smile though.

 

lovely karma. 

 

link?

 

i saw it on match of the day and i cant find a picture. it was as the hull stadium announcer said we'd lost to villa and the camera showed phil brown, ferguson was standing behind him smiling.

 

Not because they'd won the match/league? Also could have been edited? I haven't seen it so Im just providing suggestions.

 

it was as the announcer said we'd lost and the camera panned to phil brown to see his reaction. i'll get a picture eventually.

[johnnypd]

I feel like I watched a different match to everyone else judging from what I've read on this thread. For the record I was supporting Barcelona tonight, but I don't think they performed half as well as they could have done.

 

I thought Man Utd were a far superior side for the first ten minutes, and when they conceded against the run of play to a fairly ordinary counter-attack that the match as a contest ended. Barca played fairly aimless counter-attacking, and Man Utd just didn't recover whatsoever. Credit to Barcelona for making it so difficult for them, but superlatives are a bit much IMO. It wasn't the masterclass in attacking play that I'd hoped for. Thought it was a piss-poor spectactle personally.

 

Ideally, Man Utd would have taken the league and Barcelona would have had another opportunity on the big stage to prove that they can unlock a top English defence that isn't pouring forward. That also might have induced some of those sweet, sweet Cronaldo tears the world's been thirsting after. Most of the questions posed before the match remained unanswered for me because Man Utd got Arsenal'd inside the opening 10 minutes. Poor end to an entertaining season [not a good season for Newcastle *sigh*... obviously]. Hopefully Chelsea can give Everton a sound kicking on the weekend.

 

agreed it was a quite jarring match with so many basic errors from both sides, certainly not a great spectacle. barca were nowhere near their best but they dont play man utd every week. you cant just expect them to play with carefree abandon in a major final, there'll always be more conservative elements in their strategy. saying that they did have a couple of good 10 minute spells and i think Iniesta and Henry were very very good going forward.

[Taylor Swift]

For real now, when was the last time Man Utd were outclassed like that? And it wasn't like they had a bunch of players missing or players recovered from injuries. Barca were the team that played three of its starters out of position and had Henry looking pretty unfit and yet they passed Man Utd to death.

 

Ankdh, I agree with you that Barca didn't absolutely batter Man Utd in terms of constantly pressing and attacking, and also that we didn't get an entertaining end-to-end 3-2 or something, but the way Barca passed it around Man Utd in the second half was very impressive to me. Man Utd are one of the hardest working teams in the world, and they've got a lot of players who are good on the ball and move well without it, yet they could not string more than 3 passes together because of Barca's midfield and defence.

 

Not since Porto in 03/04 and Real in 99 have I seen such a one-sided CL final.

[Anon]

I'm doing that little smile that Fergie did last Sunday when told that we went down. 

 

Did I miss this? Is there a clip?

 

:@

 

i also saw it. i thought it was more than a "little" smile though.

 

lovely karma. 

 

link?

 

i saw it on match of the day and i cant find a picture. it was as the hull stadium announcer said we'd lost to villa and the camera showed phil brown, ferguson was standing behind him smiling.

 

Not because they'd won the match/league? Also could have been edited? I haven't seen it so Im just providing suggestions.

 

it was as the announcer said we'd lost and the camera panned to phil brown to see his reaction. i'll get a picture eventually.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article6353735.ece

 

Click on the man utd game, it's at the end of that.

[Beren]

Well, I'd like to stress again that I was supporting Barca and I am glad they won - but I just thought neither side was at their best, which is to be expected in a final, I suppose. Hopefully they'll draw each other a little earlier on next year. Finals are always so tentative and overly-tactical.

 

As J-pd mentioned, there were so many mistakes and players like Park were giving the ball away for fun. Very uncharacteristic - and while certain errors were forced, a good deal were unforced. Credit to Barcelona - probably the team of the tournament on the balance of things. Would have been interesting to see how the final would have progressed without that first goal. *shrugs* With no subtext or sarcasm, my question for you Apisith is, how do you feel Barca would have coped with Man Utd on full pelt? Or do you not think Barca would allow such a thing? Honestly, if Man Utd had hit their stride, I don't think Barca could withstand an archetypal Man Utd onslaught. I'm reminded of when Chelsea countered Barca to death at the Bridge a few years back. I recognise Barca are a different team now, and this is all just conjecture and speculation to be taken with a pinch of salt, but it'd have been nice to see.

 

Hopefully not too much changes in the time between their next match up anyway...

[The Prophet]

What impressed me about Barca again is how hard they work to get the ball back. Rare to see from a continental team these days.

[Taylor Swift]

Man Utd at full pelt? Barca wouldn't allow it. We've seen it time and time again: they dominate possession and control the pace of the game. They weren't going to let the game become end-to-end because they know how good Man Utd are on the counter-attack, so they played it slow, happily and frankly easily passed the ball around Man Utd's midfield (their first-team midfield, might I add - with the exception of Fletcher who I don't think could have changed the outcome of the match) until they found an opening or two, which they then seized. It's been the same story with all their other matches. I mean, even when Man Utd were down 2-0, they still couldn't create a clear opening. I think it says a lot that Barca were able to contain them that well and like I said, it could have been more.

 

A Man Utd onslaught is usually done by pushing up and pressuring the opposition into losing the ball, then just streaming forward towards the goal. Man Utd did try to pressure Barca but they were passed around so that's why I think they retreated. At the start of the second half, when Tevez came on and they tried to pressure Barca again, Barca played their best football of the match because there was space to run into (Henry chance, foul that led to Xavi's free-kick).

 

Honestly, I think that Man Utd don't have the midfield to compete with Barca. I said it when Chelsea defended for their lives and said it last year when Man Utd defended for 180 minutes - that style of play is so dependent on scoring an awesome goal and scoring it early. When that fails, or when the worst happens and Barca score, you're then fucked because the space created makes it even easier for Barca to play their football and their football really limits the chances that the opposition can create. I thought Barca struck a perfect balance between slowing the game down and pressing for extra goals. On a few occasions that Messi got the ball in space, he didn't instinctively charged towards Man Utd's goal, but seemed to relax and pass it around. From my perspective, they did that because it forces Man Utd to bring all their players back to defend and thus makes it harder for them to launch a successful counter-attack. If Messi charges towards goal and loses the ball, Man Utd would still have had a lot of players in Barca's half and they could have attacked the way they do in the Premiership. Guardiola out-thought Fergie tonight, in my opinion.

[dcmk]

I think the last time Man Utd were outclassed like that was probably against AC Milan.  Few years back.

[Guest firetotheworks]

I think the last time Man Utd were outclassed like that was probably against AC Milan.  Few years back.

 

When KaKa scored from a ridiculous position? If so, agreed.

[Taylor Swift]

From a post in a Man Utd forum my mate just showed me

 

'No one's doubting that we're a great team, but to say anyone questioning individual players or team selection is a "cunt" is utterly ludicrous. Obviously something was at fault because we didn't lose, we were crushed. Humbled; embarrassed; humiliated; trashed. We were outplayed from ten minutes in to the end without a spark of brilliance from our team.'