The UEFA Champions League 2011/12 Thread

[4ndr3i]

I think I'll kill myself if Barca wins it again this year.

 

[Jaboldinho]

Busquets didn't really do anything though. He was pulled back really hard, and I think with Puyol's screening of Nesta, he lost his balance, falling on Busquets.

And there's been a lot more talk on another forum, and they aren't necessarily saying Barca shouldn't have won, but they steer the conversation away from that. By going on about this "Barca buying refs, etc" bull**** they distract from the fact, that Milan weren't really too big of a threat at any point, that Barca were already stolen one clear penalty at San Siro, and so on. They just insist on putting the team down, calling them cheaters, as if Barca only got through because of the referee.

 

[CarlosDanger]

Nah man, but after several years of whining about this stuff, it gets tiresome. When we had our bad run before Laporta, no one said half of this stuff. All teams get calls, all teams con referees, but when you win everything, people take shots. Hence the haters thing.

 

[Coruja]

Going a bit off topic here but to respond to you Coruja, I understand your concerns about the lack of opportunities Portuguese players have been having, but at least Nélson Oliveira managed to prove himself with the minutes he got and will surely be in the Euro.

While I get where you're coming from, note that we have 5 Brazilian players in the squad and only Artur and Luisão are uncontested starters. Porto for instance, have 8. Sporting have 6 and Braga have 12.

Most of our South American players, which I take it is what you're referring to, are quality players with Emerson being the blatant exception. And Jardel too (which we bought internally [from Olhanense]). Artur, Luisão, Aimar, Garay, Gaitán, Maxi, Cardozo and even Bruno César are very good players and certainly not randomly picked. Javi Garcia, Rodrigo, Nolito and Witsel are so too and have great potential. At least three of them will have a brilliant future football wise. And these aren't Brazilian, they're Spanish and Belgian respectively, and I think discriminating them and ignoring their talent based on nationality wouldn't be smart.

I don't mind having the majority of these players if they're quality. What I do mind is regularly bet on a crap player like Emerson or even buying Jardel when we have Miguel Vitor and Luis Martins from our academy, capable of evolving and grabbing the spots if given the chance.

Regarding the injuries, and if we consider they all refer to the CB position it immediately reminds me of Man Utd in that department, bad luck I guess. Add the fact that JJ didn't rotate the squad as much as he should have during the season, which not only increases the chance of injuries but it also prevents players like David Simão, Roderick, etc. from getting the deserved playing time, but since JJ won't do it anyway, it'd be even worse to have them in the squad rotting on the bench or in the stands..

My question is, couldnt we search for quality inside our country? Of course i dont mind having foreign players in Benfica, this is not a national team, but not as much as we have, cause its so ******* embarassing when im watching some stream and the comentator says: "Oh and we have a funny information that from the 4 teams playing, Benfica's the only one with no Portuguese."

I dont know how many players we have under contract, but like.... 50? just throwing a number.


I could throw a bunch of portuguese young players that maybe if they were playing on Brazil or Argentina, Benfica would track them. Now they play in a Portuguese team... must be sucky.

Now look the players that had chances just because they did average on their old teams and now are gone.

Talking about the SUB-20 WC where Portugal went to the finals, was that just lucky? Maybe Jorge Jesus thinked: "Those portuguese bastards have some south american blood, thats why they achieve the final."

Benfica's lost his id, the only thing that is still Benfica there are the supporters, how can we stilll talk abou Mistica when a great number of players came knowing that Benfica is a great passport to better leagues/teams. We need portuguese blood there, that grew up hearing whats the importance of Benfica/Porto/Sporting. That can live the club and honour the shirt.

Porto won the champions league with 8 portuguese players on their line-up.
They just need a chance to prove themselves. If i was a portuguese player and saw some foreign player of my age taking a place on the team knowing nothing about Benfica and with a questionable skill i would be so mad.

I wont talk about the quality of our players, because i think we could find a bunch of them here in Portugal with quality, cheaper and maybe feel the shirt better than them.

I have nothing against south americans just to clarify things, just talking in terms of football and the id of Benfica.

EDIT: And yeah, im a lazy prick so write in topics instead of making walls of text.

 

[Filipower]

Nah man, but after several years of whining about this stuff, it gets tiresome. When we had our bad run before Laporta, no one said half of this stuff. All teams get calls, all teams con referees, but when you win everything, people take shots. Hence the haters thing.

Yeah I see what you mean, and to be fair I AM biased against Busquets. Though I've said I don't know how many times here that I've always liked Barça (and preferred them to Madrid). So "Haters gonna hate" just because I made a joke about one guy in one play in a quarter final match is a bit far-fetched.

 

[seoway10]

Hope this time it is going to be more exciting!
Premature Ejaculation

 

[Jaboldinho]

^Hopefully not quite that exciting.

 

[Coruja]

LOL

 

[Mandieta6]

I didn't say the Barça shouldn't have won. I also love this "haters gonna hate" thing. It's like we can't criticize anything just because you don't agree. That makes you haters too, no?

 

[CarlosDanger]

I'm a hater, I freely admit it.

 

[Ebonix]

That's Lampard's contribution for this game done.

 

[Jaboldinho]

FML. Was just going to bet a tenner on red card to be shown. I make the bet. An error message arrives. I see the match is on pause in livebet. Minute later I see on my stream that Pereira got sent off.

 

[Coruja]

sigh...

 

[Tiago_10]

Didn't expect us to win even before the match with a defence constituted by 3 side backs and a defensive midfielder..

But if not for the double standards Obi Mikel and Kalou should've been sent off as well. It's interesting to see the penalty called (as it should be), whereas in the first leg Terry's hand on the ball was apparently inexplicably missed by the ref..


From Marca.com

"Bastante polémica la actuación arbitral. No se entiende que los portugueses sean los que hayan visto más amarillas cuando han recibido bastante leña."

 

[Coruja]

"Los portugueses"

Where? Cant find them.

 

[Ebonix]

Good save by Cech.

 

[Mandieta6]

This is gonna a tense 5 minutes.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Come on Benfica.... this would be hilarious

 

[ShiftyPowers]

OHH!!! GREAT goal from Meireles

Haha, "thank goodness Meireles found the energy..." If he didn't he could have just given it to Ramires, because that guy was running HARD.

 

[Mandieta6]

Wow, nice job Meireles. Excellent steal, good driving, fantastic shot.