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Tag: Champions League
Cristiano Ronaldo sings the Champions League anthem with gravitas and sincerity
Find someone who treats you the way Cristiano does the Champions League anthem.
World Cup 2018 referees can look forward to being shot at with flare guns
Spartak Moscow fans add a new weapon to their repertoire.
Marco Asensio proves he doesn’t have the self-grooming skills to be a top footballer
You can't be the best if leg shaving mishaps keep you out of Champions League matches.
UEFA include wrong Hibs in Champions League draw
From the second division to the Champions League...or not.
Celtic’s Leigh Griffiths booked for time wasting after fans throw glass bottle at him
It's hard to take a corner kick when you're dodging bottles.
Pep Guardiola’s tactical masterplan for Man City’s 5–3 win over Monaco
A wild match that went how Guardiola always knew it would
Man City squandered a first-half lead, then mounted an emphatic comeback to beat Monaco 5–3 in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 tie. Needless to say, the match went exactly to plan for Pep Guardiola. At least, more so than most things have for him this season. Here are the full details of the brilliant tacticians pre-match instructions.
- Instruct Willy Caballero to play like a 45-year-old non-league goalkeeper who just ate a half dozen pies.
- Have John Stones defend like a deflating beachball, but shoot like Pele in a World Cup final.
- Let Falcao score two goals just to confuse Man United fans, but also stop his penalty attempt because you’re not running a charity here.
- Tell Sergio Aguero to try and play like Gabriel Jesus.
- Hold up Mesut Özil’s defensive work rate as an example for the entire midfield to emulate.
- Concede three away goals because keeping clean sheets is an antiquated philosophy.
- Don’t do whatever it was that Barcelona did against PSG.
Atletico Madrid fan suing UEFA, Mark Clattenburg over Champions League final goal
Big-game bitterness goes a step too far
In the 15th minute of the 2016 Champions League final, Sergio Ramos scored to put Real Madrid up 1–0 over Atletico Madrid. Ramos appeared to be offside when he scored, but referee Mark Clattenburg allowed the goal to stand. In the second half, Atletico’s Antoine Griezmann missed a penalty, but Yannick Carrasco scored in the 79th minute to send the match to extra time, then a shootout, which Real Madrid won 5–3.
This being the second time in three years that Real Madrid beat Atletico in a Champions League final made the result especially difficult to handle Los Rojiblancos supporters. One fan in particular feels someone must pay for this result, though. As in actual money. So he’s suing both UEFA and Clattenburg in Spanish court
The claim made by Rojiblanco supporter José Antonio Campón is for a total of €1,660 euros (€160 for the price of the ticket and €1500 for “moral damage” caused) and, as is written in the official suit document, fingers the blame at UEFA for “not applying all means to safeguard the fulfillments of regulations and choose persons (Clattenburg) who did not fulfill their duty as would be demanded”.
MORAL DAMAGE! That’s a laughable claim, but Campón’s flawed logic only gets more flawed:
“If you go to the cinema and there is no sound, they give you back your money,” he said. “This is the same thing. There is a regulation and it has been breached. It is negligence and in your job, and when you are negligent you pay the consequences. That is why we address the claim to the employer (UEFA) and his employee (Clattenburg) as responsible.”
Comparing an audio malfunction at a movie theater to a controversial goal in a football match is flat out stupid. By this line of thinking, should Griezmann also be sued for not putting a shot on target with his penalty? Should Atletico’s defenders pay out for not containing Sergio Ramos? Should their goalkeeper be punished for not stopping a single spot kick in the shootout?
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The reason Campón is targeting UEFA and Clattenburg is to highlight the need for video technology in football, but a frivolous lawsuit seems unlikely to be the instrument of change on that front. If anything, all this is likely to do is give Cristiano Ronaldo the idea to sue his teammates when they don’t pass to him.
Leicester City advance in Champions League with more wins than they have in the Premier League
They’re Leicester City and they’ll win where they want
Leicester City shocked the world by winning the Premier League last season. So what did you think they would do this season? Win it again? That would be stupid and boring. And by currently sitting 16th in the Premier League—just two points above the drop zone—Leicester are making it crystal clear that they don’t give a shit about winning it again, either.
No, they’re leaving the piddly little Premier League to small-time clubs like Man United, Chelsea, and Liverpool. What Leicester City care about is the Champions League. And they’ve proven that by winning their group—one that also includes Porto, Copenhagen, and Club Brugge—with a match to spare and one more win (four) in five European matches than they have 12 Premier League matches this season (three).
Since this is Leicester’s first appearance in the Champions League, this is also the first time they’ve reached the tournament’s knockout stage—a feat it took Man City three consecutive tries to accomplish. With the Champions League on lock, Foxes manager Claudio Ranieri now has the difficult task of convincing his players to actually care about the uncultured backwater that is the Premier League so they can try and avoid relegation.
From Leicester’s official website:
“It is unbelievable, to be top of the group,” said Ranieri. “I am very happy and very proud. I am happy for my players, for my chairman, for the fans — for everybody.
“We have another journey now through the knockout. Unbelievable. It is very important to be top of the group but our minds must now go on the Premier League because I want to push my players to think about the Premier League.
“Now our job is done. We won the group. I don’t know which team we will play but it will be a fantastic team.
“But now we have to go back. In the Premier League we are very close to the relegation and we must play at the same level as the Champions League because when we want to do something we achieve something.
“We must concentrate on the Premier League now.”
“Must” is a strong word. I’d go with “might as well.” As in, “This Champions League business is easy peasy, so we might as well embarrass everyone back home again, too.” What I’m trying to say is that, at this rate, Leicester will win the 2018 World Cup. While playing in League One.
The key to stopping Real Madrid is an empty stadium
Legia Warsaw prove that eerie silence is the most hostile atmosphere of all
Legia Warsaw supporters opened this season’s Champions League campaign — the club’s first in 21 years—with an spine-tingling display that exemplified the very best of the competition’s atmosphere. That same night, they went on to exemplify the very worst fan behavior, fighting opposing supporters and dousing stewards with teargas.
Borussia Dortmund beat Legia 6–0 that night and the home fans were punished with a complete stadium ban for Real Madrid’s visit. And in a ground completely devoid of any atmosphere whatsoever, Legia earned their first point of the group stage with a 3–3 draw against the current holders. Clearly the absence of any fans whatsoever was the key to Legia’s unexpected success.
Real Madrid seemed to be on the path to giving Legia another 6–0 drubbing when Gareth Bale opened the scoring 56 seconds into the match with a gorgeous half volley. Karim Benzema gave Real Madrid a 2–0 in the 35th minute, but Legia struck back in the 40th with a goal from Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe and equalized in the 58th minute thanks to Miroslav Radovic. In the 83rd minute, Thibault Moulin gave Legia a shocking 3–2 lead, but Mateo Kovacic saved the Spanish club from total embarrassment with a final equalizer in the 85th minute.
Real Madrid beat Legia 5–1 at the Bernabeu just two weeks ago and though they played the return fixture without Luka Modric or Casemiro, they really should have made easy work of their hosts once again. But without the haters that fuel Cristiano Ronaldo or any crowd energy at all, Real Madrid were lulled into complacency by the deafening silence that smothered and extinguished the adrenaline fueled desire that usually accompanies European nights.
After the match, Bale all but admitted as much. From Football Espana:
“It was a strange game, especially with the stadium. That’s no excuse, though,” the forward told Spanish TV, reports UEFA’s official website.
“We’re not happy with the result and we need to bounce back from the result.
“I think we had control of the game at 2–0 and lost concentration and if you do that at this level you get punished.”
On this evidence, clubs should voluntarily play in empty stadiums as a means of psyching out their opponents. If Legia Warsaw had played all of their home Champions League matches in an empty stadium, they wouldn’t have had all that violence and could be leading the group right now.
In fact, completely banning all fans from ever attending any football matches again could solve all of the game’s problems. The decrease in revenue would help keep the exorbitant wages in check, struggling teams wouldn’t have jeers in their home grounds to further deplete morale, there wouldn’t be anymore fears of mob violence, racism, homophobia, or sexism from the stands, and think of all the money clubs and taxpayers would save on policing and costly stadium expansions. It makes perfect sense.
