Champions League Final Thread

[therockbox]

For the third time, it WAS a good comeback, but not the best.   It's all relative aswell.  Teams coming from several goals late on against teams of roughly a similar level regardless of which level it is are surely making the equal comeback?  Otherwise we could say that Stevenage comeing back from 1 - 0 to draw with newcastle was the greatest comeback after all they were one down against a team of vastly superior quality.

The fact is it wasn't that spectacular, there have been some greats, and this was a good one but nowhere near one of the best of all time.

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Scoring 3 goals against a team that are superior to yourselves is a much better achievment than coming back against a team of roughly similar quality.

And dealing in "what ifs" is ridiculous. Have Stevenage done that? Nope, so your argument is invalid. And you're still in the minority, it was called "the mother of all comebacks" because of who it was against. All you've done is tried to put a negative on it (oh, you looked for penalties, played defensively blah blah blah). And please, don't avoid the question: Can't you be happy that an English team won it? Like pigeon said, it's the usual suspects taking whatever chance they can to take shots at Liverpool.

JP; to be fair Liverpool have hardly been great this season either, and we've had plenty of problems.

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The point you are deliberately avoiding is that you scored three goals, yes. You came back against a good team, yes. But you didn't come back to win, which is what so many other teams have done.

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[The Kraig]

Man, you all suck for arguing.

Yes, you won, deserved to win, etc, etc. Now shut up and stop repeating yourselves. You have the trophy to do the talking.

Anyone criticising is quite sad, Chelsea will probably win it next season.

And Liverpool don't deserve to defend it next year, because they didn't qualify. What is so hard about understanding this? The UEFA Cup would be easily achievable now.

[therockbox]

Sorry, who's arguing about whether we should be allowed to defend it or not?

[The Kraig]

Sorry, who's arguing about whether we should be allowed to defend it or not?

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[therockbox]

Well I guess I'll let you off then

Things are going round in circles now, it's pretty silly - we should be on You're on Sky Sports.

[Summers]

Don't get me started on that show again.

[therockbox]

The post-final one was almost embarassing. Everyone was saying the same thing. "Can I just say... what a game, blah blah blah". Neil Ruddock was the only good thing about that show.

[Summers]

It's not even just that one. Any time something happens, that's ALL thats talked about. There's more than one thing to talk about in the world. The post-final one just made my hate for it grow stronger. I love the presenters, everytime they make it worth watching. But most fans are just annoying.

[Guest Ringmaster]

Man, you all suck for arguing.

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[lanky316]

And then penalties are used to decide who wins.  If we didn't win, then we wouldn't have won the trophy.  How we did it doesn't matter, we still won the game overall.

And again, you're missing the point of why it would have been stupid to carry on going all out attack.

- We had three people in defence.  And now pay attention:  When we were losing that didn't matter, because we had to score three.  Then when we got those, we could have been caught out on the counter-attack - which happened a few times anyway.  Would've been silly to throw away all that hard work just to please idiots who lack common sense now, wouldn't it?

- We had a few good chances to score anyway.  Riise's shot straight after, Garcia's mis-control, Hamann's run, and the free-kick right at the death.

You do this in every thread you go into.  Taken from the transfer thread:

I'd rather Ashton over AJ because he's a better player and as he pointed out those goals are a false statistic as a large percentage were penalties.

Can't you just accept that someone who you don't support has achieved something that's extremely rare, or in Johnson's case scored a bucketful of goals (and as wannabe pointed out, they only got the penalties effectively because of AJ).

Exactly the same as Stevenage game and exactly the same as the Liverpool game everybody was commenting on how it was "the best FA cup performance by an underdog since the competition began". The fact is it has been blown out of all proportion, mainly by the media.

[pigeon]

someone should close this down.

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[Summers]

I don't think it should be closed down. Liverpool did what many deemed to be the impossible early on in the season, and the thread that celebreates their achievement shouldn't be closed over bickering. It's best for everyone to just agree to disagree.

[therockbox]

And then penalties are used to decide who wins.  If we didn't win, then we wouldn't have won the trophy.  How we did it doesn't matter, we still won the game overall.

And again, you're missing the point of why it would have been stupid to carry on going all out attack.

- We had three people in defence.  And now pay attention:  When we were losing that didn't matter, because we had to score three.  Then when we got those, we could have been caught out on the counter-attack - which happened a few times anyway.  Would've been silly to throw away all that hard work just to please idiots who lack common sense now, wouldn't it?

- We had a few good chances to score anyway.  Riise's shot straight after, Garcia's mis-control, Hamann's run, and the free-kick right at the death.

You do this in every thread you go into.  Taken from the transfer thread:

I'd rather Ashton over AJ because he's a better player and as he pointed out those goals are a false statistic as a large percentage were penalties.

Can't you just accept that someone who you don't support has achieved something that's extremely rare, or in Johnson's case scored a bucketful of goals (and as wannabe pointed out, they only got the penalties effectively because of AJ).

Exactly the same as Stevenage game and exactly the same as the Liverpool game everybody was commenting on how it was "the best FA cup performance by an underdog since the competition began". The fact is it has been blown out of all proportion, mainly by the media.

If it involved Spurs you'd have been quick to agree.

Stevenage's achievement on the same logic as yours was a far superior victory.

[pigeon]

The UEFA regulations RE: champs league qualifying;

1) UEFA reserve a separate place in the draw (the TH spot, top seeds) for the Champions League winners so no club/country misses out by being bumped from the Champions League if a situation arises where a club wins the competition but fails to qualify domestically. As such there's no complications in "rejigging" the draw as suggested by many clueless journos as UEFA have already taken account of this situation.

TH = title holder (Liverpool in 2005 )

2) If the CL winners also qualify for the CL through their domestic league the TH spot is not utilised (though the club remains top seeded) and the qualifying clubs move up one place in the seedings and the draw with the following happening:

a) Fenerbahce, Champions of Turkey, progress from Qualifying Round 3 straight into the Group Stages.

b) Wisla Krakow, Champions of Poland move from QR2 to QR3

c) The Champions of Romania and Slovakia (yet to be determined) move from QR1 to QR2.

3) If the CL winners don't qualify domestically no problem, there's an extra place for that country and their CL winners take the TH place and the draw doesn't change, Fernebache et al staying in their respective place ... unless the club happens to come from Spain, Italy or England (the countries who already have four places) ... UEFA have one rule for 49 countries, and one for the other three.

4) In this case the country's FA can decide to bump their fourth place domestic team down into the UEFA Cup and allow the CL winners to take their place - it's not a set rule but entirely at the discretion of the FA concerned. The English FA has decided to nominate Everton.

5) The piece on the English FA's website in March 2004 re: Arsenal and Chelsea wasn't a press release but a Q&A some minnion at the FA website answered. In 2000 Madrid finished 5th in La Liga and won the CL and Spain used their discretion to bump 4th placed Zaragoza down to the UEFA Cup.

From uefa.com:

List of 2005/06 CL Qualifiers:

Pos Assoc. Grp UCL Q3 UCL Q2 UCL Q1

TH (1)

1 ESP CH RU N3 N4 (12)

2 ENG CH RU N3 N4

3 ITA CH RU N3 N4

4 GER CH RU N3 (9)

5 FRA CH RU N3

6 POR CH RU N3

7 GRE CH RU (18)

8 NED CH RU

9 CZE CH RU

10 TUR CH RU

11 SCO CH RU

12 BEL CH RU

13 SUI CH RU

14 UKR CH RU

15 NOR CH RU

16 POL CH (35)

17 ISR CH

18 AUT CH

19 SCG CH

20 BUL CH

21 RUS CH

22 DEN CH

23 CRO CH

24 SWE CH

25 HUN CH

26 ROU CH

27 SVK CH

28 SLO CH

29 CYP CH

30 MOL CH

31 LAT CH

32 FIN CH

33 BIH CH

34 GEO CH

35 MKD CH

36 LTU CH

37 BLS CH

38 ISL CH

39 MLT CH

40 IRL CH

41 ARM CH

42 WAL CH

43 LIE CH

44 ALB CH

45 NIR CH

46 EST CH

47 LUX CH

48 AZE CH

49 FAR CH

50 KAZ CH