Champions League 12/13

[AnfieldEd]

Man U will win 2-0 or 3-1 at OT. Madrid looked rather ordinary yesterday to say the least.

 

[big_man]

Man U will win 2-0 or 3-1 at OT. Madrid looked rather ordinary yesterday to say the least.

It says it all if a Liverpool fan can make this comment lol

 

[Deco 20]

Utd were lucky to survive the first half. They sorted themselves out a little in the second but it should have been good night Vienna way before then. Rafael was awful, just awful and Ronaldo, Coentrao and Ozil all accepted his open invitation to rape that side of the pitch. Man Utd had no control of the possession at all, but left 3 up front all the time which meant that when they did finally get the ball into the opposition half Arbeloa, Ramos, Varane and Conetrao were caught napping, as usually there was only 3 back there.

Utd scored a vital goal totally against the run of play and if that hadn't gone in when it did this tie would have been over. Granted Utd did create a few chances, especially later on and you would have expected RVP to have done better than he did. Having said that it was men against boys last night. Although Madrid didn't win and Utd will be very happy with their 1-1 draw, Madrid will not have any fear about going to Old Trafford. They are stronger in all area's and they know it, stonger in defence, stronger in midfiled and stronger up front. To be honest it was a little embarrassing as an Englishman to see the runaway EPL leaders getting handed a lesson by a La Liga team that are 16 points behind the leaders.

I'll still be cheering for a Utd win, but they have a lot of work to do. This could be a repeat of the Barca Chelski matches from last year, where Chelski just got through by pure luck.

P.S. Apart from the blatent mistake by the ref for not calling the foul by Varane on Evra when the latter was clean through, I don't see why everyone is saying the ref had a bad game?

Agreed with pretty much everything. United can thank De Gea for the result (and perhaps curse van Persie for not scoring). Except for the chances at the end, most of United's chances came from corners. It could've easily been 3-0 after that first half. Still, if they play like in the second then they might get through.

 

[Jenks]

Because they're playing at Old Trafford, infront of a sellout crowd.I doubt very much that they'll sit back and try and settle for a 0-0.Am guessing they will go for it....

Yeah... United do not operate like that, and English teams in general. Ferguson will have no problem with parking the bus. He did it once he had his goal against Barca at OT, and he'll do it here too.

 

[Kerrybai]

The ref really was poor and I usually rate him among Germany's best. Would like to know what he was smoking yesterday, I want some of that stuff

I reckon he was too worried to make big calls, varane should have seen red. He must be a man of the herbal persuasion.

 

[frostdude1]

United will go through. Madrid were mostly crap yesterday and they will not beat United at Old Trafford.

 

[darthvader7888]

I reckon he was too worried to make big calls, varane should have seen red. He must be a man of the herbal persuasion.

I can see why he'd be worried, with the antics the Special Cunt is bound to pull. He'd probably have started ranting about a worldwide conspiracy against him if Varane got sent off.

 

[BrianSwan]

United will go through. Madrid were mostly crap yesterday and they will not beat United at Old Trafford.

don't have to, a 2-2 draw will be fine.

Probably the most likely outcome too

 

[ivan22]

If madrid goes through I'd love to see them playing against Bayern. Man that would be great.

 

[Maria]

Some people on here ....

Good game tonight. Pretty much as expected Madrid were the better team overall, without being overly so (this was certainly no 2011 Barca vs United) Lots of shots from BOTH teams, and I'd be interested to see how many teams travel to the Bernabeu in the knockout stages of the CL and have eleven shots, and cope as well as United did.

Solid performance from United. We didn't have sustained amounts of possession (did anyone really think we would) but we looked dangerous throughout, and could just have easily won the match with some of the chances we had.

Very happy with that though, bring on Madrid back at Old Trafford. Before the game I was cautiously optimistic, now I'm just optimistic. We have a very good chance to progress now.

Don't worry..these are the same people that bash Barca for drawing at Bernabeu against a team that they call the 2nd best in the world and after a result that is good for your team all that they can say is that MU was shit. The only team that played at home last night and needs to win the tie to save the season is RM so Ferguson was smart and aproached this tie by giving Mou a taste of his own medicine..also lets not forget something that Mou always likes to remember us: your team played on Sunday, while RM played on Saturday and afforded to rest Sami, Varane, Xabi, while CR and Benzema played only 60 minutes. You also had a bit of luck, but considering that you played against a team that put an end to our cycle and that has The Only One as a coach, you needed it.

i thought madrid actually played really well considering they normally play on the counter a lot more.

That's a strange statement especially considering that in some of the games they lost this season they had a bigger posesion than they had against us in the Supercup when we lost. Controlling the posesion doesn't mean that you controled the game(Valencia learned that the other night).

Mou might be a little annoyed they only scored 1, considering they had about 30 attempts i think it was.

Using the number of shots to justify why RM was unlucky it's like Xavi using the posesion stat. Especially when they have CR and Di Maria in their team.

FUN STATS:
-RM couldn't keep a single clean sheat this season in CL
-Mourinho's teams drew the first leg at home 4 times and won 2 of those ties
-RM played 19 games away from home this season and 8 were wins, 4 draws and 7 losses(scoring 36 goals and receiving 24)

 

[Poor_Sunyol]

Good night Vienna? Madrid created fuck all other than their usual half threatening shots when given the initiative. It was NOTHING like the Chelsea game, Chelsea had like two or three shots on target in BOTH ties. United had SIX at the Bernebau alone, Madrid had EIGHT (only two more) and United created the two best chances of the game. If you want domination against United, look at the Spurs (yes Spurs) game against United a few weeks ago where they reduced United to 5 shots all game and 2 on target.

Of course Madrid have a lot to worry about, they created nothing of note apart from two Coentrao chances and never carved United open to create a clear one on one with De Gea in 90 minutes of football at their own backyard, all they relied on was pot shots from around the 18 yard box (I count about 11 of them). Manchester United have an infinitely better chance of beating Madrid 1-0 than Sevilla and Betis, both of those have happened already this season. Heck, United don't even need to score to go through. But oh, yes I forgot, Madrid WILL score, yup, like they did in their Andalusian games.

In the first half Madrid had 56% possession, how on earth is that possession domination comparable to the Barca-Chelsea tie? They had the territorial advantage but United's obviously wasn't going to attack at the Bernebau. SAF did his homework and knew Madrid are one the most useless big teams if they can't counter, and they were proven right because Madrid created more in the first half where they had only 56% than they did in the second half where they had about 65% in possession. United looked very comfortable in the second half. All they need to do is play that way again and they should go through.

Its always interesting to see Madrid play a big team that isn't Barcelona, and every time they've played these teams (Bayern, Dortmund and now United) I get more and more convinced they aren't an elite team and are riding on the coat tails of Barcelona's success, i.e. the notion that "They sometimes get results against Barcelona so they must be an elite team". Nope, they aren't ahead of the chasing pack, they just benefit from familiarity with the Barca game and I'm sure if Bayern, United or Juve have a 15 game experience against the Barca team they'll win a few as well.

I thought they were just about deserving of their second favorites tag but now I don't think there's a clear second favorite, I wouldn't be worried about their CL exploits. Even if they go past United they are not winning the competition, there are just too many teams that can beat them, I count about 4 left in the competition.

Your last point is laughable, "Apart from the blatant mistake". Well, except that is a HUGE game changing decision right there, at least 5 times out of 10 that is a red card for the defender and United are one of the best teams at capitalizing on an extra man advantage. How on earth you cant see that the referee was a homer is beyond me. He was quick to hand RVP a yellow within 3 minutes of the game for a nothing incident, refused to book ANY Madrid player despite their constant fouls, blew the whistle before United had a chance to take their corner 30 seconds before the 3rd minute of injury time, yet he didn't have a bad game. Sometimes I wonder if this a Barcelona fan board, it doesn't seem that way half of the time.

We obviously watched a different game. Madrid created nothing... Ok.

 

[BrianSwan]

We obviously watched a different game. Madrid created nothing... Ok.

lol @ anyone who thinks Real actually had 30 shots. Counting blocked shots is dumb to me, the only stats that matter are shots on target which was RM 8, MU 6.

 

[Kerrybai]

I can see why he'd be worried, with the antics the Special Cunt is bound to pull. He'd probably have started ranting about a worldwide conspiracy against him if Varane got sent off.

Yeah let's be honest Mou didn't exactly help the career or Anders Frisk when Chelsea beat us a few years back , 2005 I think.

 

[Unbiased United]

Good night Vienna? Madrid created fuck all other than their usual half threatening shots when given the initiative. It was NOTHING like the Chelsea game, Chelsea had like two or three shots on target in BOTH ties. United had SIX at the Bernebau alone, Madrid had EIGHT (only two more) and United created the two best chances of the game. If you want domination against United, look at the Spurs (yes Spurs) game against United a few weeks ago where they reduced United to 5 shots all game and 2 on target.

Of course Madrid have a lot to worry about, they created nothing of note apart from two Coentrao chances and never carved United open to create a clear one on one with De Gea in 90 minutes of football at their own backyard, all they relied on was pot shots from around the 18 yard box (I count about 11 of them). Manchester United have an infinitely better chance of beating Madrid 1-0 than Sevilla and Betis, both of those have happened already this season. Heck, United don't even need to score to go through. But oh, yes I forgot, Madrid WILL score, yup, like they did in their Andalusian games.

In the first half Madrid had 56% possession, how on earth is that possession domination comparable to the Barca-Chelsea tie? They had the territorial advantage but United's obviously wasn't going to attack at the Bernebau. SAF did his homework and knew Madrid are one the most useless big teams if they can't counter, and they were proven right because Madrid created more in the first half where they had only 56% than they did in the second half where they had about 65% in possession. United looked very comfortable in the second half. All they need to do is play that way again and they should go through.

Its always interesting to see Madrid play a big team that isn't Barcelona, and every time they've played these teams (Bayern, Dortmund and now United) I get more and more convinced they aren't an elite team and are riding on the coat tails of Barcelona's success, i.e. the notion that "They sometimes get results against Barcelona so they must be an elite team". Nope, they aren't ahead of the chasing pack, they just benefit from familiarity with the Barca game and I'm sure if Bayern, United or Juve have a 15 game experience against the Barca team they'll win a few as well.

I thought they were just about deserving of their second favorites tag but now I don't think there's a clear second favorite, I wouldn't be worried about their CL exploits. Even if they go past United they are not winning the competition, there are just too many teams that can beat them, I count about 4 left in the competition.

Your last point is laughable, "Apart from the blatant mistake". Well, except that is a HUGE game changing decision right there, at least 5 times out of 10 that is a red card for the defender and United are one of the best teams at capitalizing on an extra man advantage. How on earth you cant see that the referee was a homer is beyond me. He was quick to hand RVP a yellow within 3 minutes of the game for a nothing incident, refused to book ANY Madrid player despite their constant fouls, blew the whistle before United had a chance to take their corner 30 seconds before the 3rd minute of injury time, yet he didn't have a bad game. Sometimes I wonder if this a Barcelona fan board, it doesn't seem that way half of the time.

Nice post dude, agree with much of it.

All those people going on about shots last night fail to realise many of Madrid's shots were long range efforts. In truth United were fairly comfortable throughout, sure there were times when it got a bit close for comfort, but United probably had the best chances of the game.

Looking at it through a non 'I hate Man Utd' perspective its clear we played well last night without being stupid against a dangerous team with an home advantage. Its worth mentioning that it was without Vidic or Cleverley too who have been key players for us this season, and Nani who can win a game by himself when he's in the mood.

Against Barca in the 2011 I was that nervous with the constant pressure I could hardly watch, last night, odd moment aside, I was pretty much calm throughout.

 

[ivan22]

some madrid supporters claiming a penalty here.