2011/2012 UEFA Champions League

[stokeriño]

Salamon Kalou in endless-fucking-up shocker.

Super save from Alves again.

Edit: 1-1 finish. Referee dishing out yellow cards for god knows what reason.

[LexChaney]

Not been a bad game. Knew that Valencia would get a goal somehow before the end of the 90 minutes. Didn't expect it to be a penalty mind you.

[Starvinho]

Surely should of been a penalty for Malouda? Anyways 1-1 FT.

[stokeriño]

I'm now going to wander over to the Chelsea forums and see if 99% of the posts are "GRRARGHFUCKIIGGRRAAARR KALOU!!". It's quite likely, since they tend to be mostly like that even when he hasn't done anything.

As it turns out...no, not quite. There's also the usual venting at the ref for not giving us a penalty, which I gather is a Champions League tradition these days.

To summarise: should have come away with the win, but a draw was something I'd have been happy with before the match. It's the away game against our toughest group opposition, and we're still leading the group. Good stuff.

Not sure on my MOTM for Chelsea but Diego Alves for Valencia.

[Crybaby Bunting]

Can't believe the outrage this has provoked. What he did was unprofessional, but no worse contractually than anyone who's ever failed to turn up for work. That's not a sackable offence and neither is this. I know plenty of my good, good friends that have done far worse things in life and I forgive them. I'm sure worse things happen all the time in football. Modric did similar and he doesn't get nearly the vitriol. Bizarre too that he's still accused of money-grabbing despite clearly wanting out of a club that pays the biggest wages in the world to go to a club where he'd earn far less. He's got a huge contract and he still wants to leave. The fact he's getting paid more re-inforces that point, it doesn't weaken it.

To call him a cunt for being unprofessional is totally lacking perspective in an industry where someone can flick a cigar in another player's eye and be widely forgiven because he grows a moustache and plays well. Or where a manager can virtually breach his contract and contribute to the death of a club but be massively praised for being funny in post-match interviews. Reckon if we met and chatted with Tevez we'd find him a lot more of an empathetic character than a bellend like Graeme Souness.

The whole saga is so unfortunate. Showed footage of him arriving yesterday looking miserable while the rest of the team laughed and joked. Then he seemed to spend most of the warm-up with Kidd rather than the players. Compare him to Joey Barton, who deliberately insulted his employer in public and sowed as much discontent as possible in his workplace as possible to get ahead. When Tevez says his head isn't right, it's because he's genuinely unhappy (unlike Modric or Barton who say that to advance their careers.)

I'll assume that you're not a Manchester City fan, neither am I but it isn't really hard to see that Tevez has really fucked Manchester City up from their perspective. Even though he didn't play against Bayern, the way he conducted himself actually made it hard for City to ever come back into the game. Mancini took Dzeko off for De Jong so that he could stabilise the formation ready for Tevez coming on. As Tevez didn't come on, City were left severely lacking in attack and, bar a drastic switcharound... it would have been almost impossible to salvage the tactics on the fly without manager interaction. Tevez not coming on ruined the match for Manchester City for they were pretty much left without an attacker for the next half hour.

How is a manager honestly meant to predict a striker NOT DOING HIS JOB? I don't think this has actually happened in football before, and for it to happen in the most profilic match Man City have faced for years (on paper) just screams of dickishness. He let the club down when it really mattered.

He didn't even do it because it'd ruin his chances of playing for another Champions League side this season BECAUSE HE PLAYED AGAINST NAPOLI IN THE FIRST MATCH. The guy is cup tied and there is nothing that can excuse the guy from being a grade a knob.

If Tevez is that desperate to get out he could've told Corinthians, or Inter, or whoever that he'd accept a pay cut so they could offer a higher transfer fee. As it is he didn't and he stayed. And acted like a cunt. Just because he's not as much of a cunt as Joey Barton doesn't change that.

He did, he reportedly accepted wages of 100k/week (less than half what he gets at City) so Corinthians could fund a £40m bid (which is, incidentally, £15m more than City paid for him in the first place.) City refused the deal because they wanted the money up front.

Refusing to work is the same as not turning up for work, which doesn't consitute a sackable offence even if you're working on a production line. This happens in public because his job is performed in public. If I embarrass my employer when I'm in an office job I've fucked up big time. When I'm a professional footballer then it's a facet of my job.

Ok, I'm going to predict the club you support. I'm guessing it's Manchester United but I can't be certain so feel free to change the words and names around. Imagine if, in the Champions League final against Barcelona, Berbatov refused to come on despite the only other striker being injured earlier in the match. There are no more strikers on the bench and no-one can really turn themselves into a makeshift striker without revolving pretty much the entire team.

Manchester United don't even manage to come back into the game and are heavily beaten. Do you expect Berbatov to make it out of the stadium without being lynched?

In fact, in easier terms. Say you work at McDonalds and refuse to collect someone's order, in fact you tell them that they're fat and shouldn't be even coming to McDonalds. Do you expect to remain at the company? If you were working as a secretary but refused to write down the huge multimillion pound contract that someone was arranging, would you expect to remain at the company?

Looking like a credible Champions League team this season would be the bare minimum of City's aims. If Tevez looking like a cunt prevents say, Busquets or whatever coming into the club because he sees the club as unstable... do you think that Tevez should get away with a slap on the wrist? Because this looks like petulant trolling from where I'm standing.

EDIT: As for the Corinthians saga, from where I'm standing it was practically impossible for them to afford buying him, it was always going to be a publicity stunt and Man City called their bluff. Manchester City accepted the deal because they knew that him leaving would be a good thing, Corinthians banked everything on City refusing until they hit the £50m mark and then doubletracked on how to possibly pay for the deal in an attempt to sabotage it.

Edited September 28, 2011 by The General

[Summers]

Alves was fantastic.

[Matt]

They just said on Sky Sports News that they're not allowed to call the City of Manchester Stadium the Etihad Stadium in Europe, has this been the case for Arsenal and The Emirates as well?

[EddieG]

Is that because of the name, or because of the investigation going into the whole sponsorship case? Or was that settled?

[Crybaby Bunting]

Seems strange given that we call Bayern's ground the Allianz Arena. Unless of course that was the terms of the contract, that it only came into play in England meaning that they could still keep their 'roots' in Europe.

[Matt]

Is that because of the name, or because of the investigation going into the whole sponsorship case? Or was that settled?

I've no idea about the sponsorship case but it sounded as though they were saying UEFA don't refer to stadia by their sponsor names.

Seems strange given that we call Bayern's ground the Allianz Arena. Unless of course that was the terms of the contract, that it only came into play in England meaning that they could still keep their 'roots' in Europe.

Huh? Is the Allianz arena called something else in Germany or something?

Edit: Just been on UEFA's website, they refer to the Emirates as the Arsenal Stadium, so yeah it is a sponsorship thing.

[Asuka's Gonna Kill You]

Starting : Lindegaard, Evra, Smalling, Vidic, Fabio, Anderson, Carrick, Nani, Valencia, Rooney and Hernandez

Bench: De Gea, Jones, Evans, Owen, Welbeck, Berbatov and Fletcher

Need a win tonight. Awesome to see Vidic back and us actually playing two up top.

[Crybaby Bunting]

Seems strange given that we call Bayern's ground the Allianz Arena. Unless of course that was the terms of the contract, that it only came into play in England meaning that they could still keep their 'roots' in Europe.

Huh? Is the Allianz arena called something else in Germany or something?

Edit: Just been on UEFA's website, they refer to the Emirates as the Arsenal Stadium, so yeah it is a sponsorship thing.

From Wiki

The large financial services provider, Allianz purchased the rights to name the stadium for 30 years. During the 2006 World Cup it was known as FIFA World Cup Stadium Munich.

So ultimately, that should go under the same rules as Emirates or Eithad, given that it's advertising the services of Allianz. It's not even just a national company either, given that it also advertises in the UK, Europe etc.

[Colly]

Same applies when there's an international tournament, all sponsored stadia are renamed to protect the tournament sponsors. I never realised it applied in club competitions though.

[Crybaby Bunting]

Unless that means that Allianz is a minor Champions League sponsor in order to get around the ban. Sounds like an easy way for UEFA to make more money if people have to pay them to broadcast their own sponsership

[IAceI]

Man City have controlled the ball early on but Cani's goal shows the fragility of being caught short in the Champions League. Man City will have to get that break through soon and hope the dominant ball retention will come good soon.

[IAceI]

Marchena own goal gets Man City back into it and it's probably deserved. They've been the more aggressive team from the start of the match and keep flooding forward in droves. Seeing Yaya Toure bringing the ball forward and the strikers pouring up ahead of him is just brilliant.

[Lineker]

Would love to see Otelul get a point from tonight. But City losing would be even more fantastic.

[Matt]

There's no way Man Utd fail to win their opening 3 games, just no way.

[The Future]

Wouldn't mind Berbatov on, we need someone to unlock Gulati centrally cause all the crosses seem to be heading straight to the keeper. United NEED to win this!.

And wow poor Fabio just can't seem to last 90 minutes ever.

[MJB]

Wow that looked a harsh decision.

EDIT: Maybe not.

Rooney (pen) scores. 1-0 Utd. Thank God for that.

Edited October 18, 2011 by MJB