although there's only 1 classic matchup between legendary sides, there are a lot of appealing confrontations this round. The Spaniards try to go 3/3 and assert their position in the stupid "which euro league is the bestest" argument. The Qatari Derby. And there's even one for the hipsters. What more could we want?

Apr 2/10:
PSG v Barcelona
I love that Mourinho's assistant had to go on record saying that the rumors of his coach sending a DVD to Ancelotti about how to beat Barca were "crazy". Note he did not say untrue... Barcelona say they are nervous about Ibra (and probably a little mad that he's playing the 1st leg), but they don't sound that scared overall. PSG lacks structure at times, and will play the one team that does not. But they've got more than enough speed to cause some headaches for the diminished Barca defense

Bayern v Juve
the future Bundesliga champions seem to have brushed off their pitiful performance in the return leg against Arsenal by doing what they do best, which is dominate their domestic league. Hamburg, and the tail-end of a 9-2 thrashing, will attest to that. With Schweinie back on the pitch there should be none of the lackadaisicality shown against Arsenal. But Juve have been no slouches when it comes to domestic dominance, and you wonder if the result from the Italy-Germany semi at Euro 2012 won't factor into the psyche of the players as well.

Apr 3/9:
Malaga v Dortmund
Two teams doing well in this competition, not so well at home. BVB have a great core of young attacking players who are also making strides on the national squad. Reus in particular seems to be in fantastic form and might be the difference in this matchup.

Real v Galatasaray
Though they would not admit to it, clearly Real got a favorable draw here. They've settled down and seem to be in cruise control (won their last 6), but an early Gala goal could change their outcome in a hurry. Drogba is clearly the man for this kind of occasion, on paper, and his club have only lost 2 of their last 18 away European fixtures.

Wondering if we should do the usual stream-of-consciousness main thread, or sub-threads for each matchup.

We are enemies for the next 8 days. Then we go through.
Visca el Barça.


Shit talking is about to hit unprecedented levels.

Want BvB perform well and I expect them to go through.
Hoping Drogba/Snjeider can pull the upset as well.

here is what I had, predictably PSG-centered.

so today we got arguably the two most exciting match ups, with Juve/Bayern and Paris/Barca. Obviously, I care more about the latter, but I think the former might well provide the most exciting games. I really like what I've seen of Juventus this year, and Bayern is obviously a great team. I hope Pogba plays and shines.

as for Paris vs perhaps the greatest club team of all times...I must say, if I want to be objective, that it doesn't look too good for PSG. Mostly because the team is somehow really thin in the midfield now, the most crucial area in basically every game but especially against the tiki taka. It's weird, because I felt we had a glut there for a while, but Sissoko is gone (not too mad since he was a red card waiting to happen in every game), Bodmer and Rabiot on loan (doing good, too), Motta is hurt. So at this point, assuming Matuidi, Chantome and Verrati start (they're clearly the best options) the only defensive substitution Ancelotti has at his disposal if they get winded (and they will get winded running after the ball all game) is...37 year old Spice. Not a good look at all.

Also, if Tito and them did just a modicum of scouting, they will test young Marco's at times still questionable decision making skills and press him hard in Paris' 20 to 30 yards area. And he will get into Pirlo mode and attempt to dribble his way out of trouble. But since he's not quite as elusive as Pirlo, chances are he will lose the ball in a crucial spot once. Or twice.

Oh well, it's still an exciting game to be a part of.

The one thing that has me a little hopeful is how well our speed on offense should match up against their D. And Ibra, of course.

But Benny beat me by a few minutes... Typing and multitasking on a tablet kinda sucks....

i can't watch pique/masch anymore. too many risky tackle attempts, too many misses.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

wtf barca. psg looks like the better team by far in the first 25.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

good god, he's fast and fast with the ball especially.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

Outside of the foot, perfect weight, dinks it over to Messi who waits for the bounce and then perfect weight onto his left foot.

Quite hilarious...

also, two down on a set piece. awesome.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

messi out with a hamstring injury, masch with a yellow meaning bartra's gonna play. at least bartra's got some size in the back, but yikes.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

I mean...that's not even close.

well, actually, he got him, but that ball was far away from controllable.
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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

some real shit minutes, some real shit defense, but 2-2 away. frustrating not to be 2-1.

thiago silva is ridiculously good. really hope that offside goal doesn't end up mattering.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

His composure, positioning, reactions, timing, anticipation, and perhaps most importantly light feet combine to create arguably the best CB in the world. That play in the first half where he calmly stripped Messi in the box after a deflection summed it up for me.

he's the CB we need... but maybe not the CB we deserve.













fuck deservation though

he's amazing.

Fuck.

We should still have it though.

not sure why you would pick Spice over Verratti in this game, when he is basically useless in recovering possession. I counted 1, o-n-e, steal from him in the first half. I guess part of it is he might be a better decision maker going forward, and he did make a few decent passes early, but then again young Marco is no slouch passing the ball. The other part is, Beckham's the wily veteran and won't make the kind of rookie mistakes Verratti is still prone to, but there he goes with THAT OH SO FUCKING AWFUL HEADER INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE PITCH OFF A CORNER KICK, right into traffic, specifically right into Dani Alves's feet. Then the pass goes to Messi on Jallet and Alex's side, so you know that was a wrap. It's annoying, because there's no reason whatsoever why a midget team like Barcelona should score on you on a corner kick. None. It's even more annoying because they had totally muzzled Messi up to that point. He was having a complete shit fest of a game, and they just gift wrapped him a goal on that single play.

Thiago Silva is obviously the man of the match for PSG (almost as obviously as Iniesta was for Barca), but I'm going to focus on Matuidi. BLAISE. BLAHZAY BLAISE. A L'AISE BLAISE. Not an exceptional game by his lofty standards but I'm so happy he got to be the hero.

fuck that dry ass fox play by play dude for not getting his name right even once. I'm not going to trip on the sharp u, since the sound doesn't exist in English, but it's not MA-TOO-DOO-EE, you cuntface, it's MA-TOO-EE-DEE like it's spelled. Not that difficult.

and yes, that was a bad offside miss there. Not even going to try and claim it was compensated by the soft PK call, because Sirigu clearly fouled (even if Sanchez inzaghied it out like a little bitch).

I think I would start Menez over Lavezzi in the return leg.

>fuck that dry ass fox play by play dude for not getting his
>name right even once. I'm not going to trip on the sharp u,
>since the sound doesn't exist in English, but it's not
>MA-TOO-DOO-EE, you cuntface, it's MA-TOO-EE-DEE like it's
>spelled. Not that difficult.

both guys had it wrong in their own special way.

the last goal by PSG was really created out of nothing. A hiiiigh (almost wild) looping cross by Jallet that somehow finds Ibra, who's lucky enough to be up against non-giant Dani Alves, heads to MatUIDI who kicks a valiant effort that somehow gets semi-deflected and rolls in. All this started by an Alex pass no less. Every move seems intentional, but at the last minute of injury time there is usually a 99% chance something gets messed up.

we're not dead yet...

I have take the performance with a bit of a grain of salt because they were in a hole so early from that simply unfortunate misdirection that resulted in Alaba's goal....but that's no excuse for the mistake after mistake committed by Juve. Some credit to Bayern because they were class as usual but the fact that I couldn't tell if Aaron Ramsey or Pirlo (insert troll face) was playing holding mid for Juve sums up how poor of a performance it was. Arguably Pirlo's poorest game of his career, considering the stage....I mean giving away ball after ball after ball, i couldn't believe how terrible he was. Props to Muller though who, after Kroos went down, moved inside and stuck Pirlo all game long.

Juve's best stretches were when they started pressuring Bayern higher up the pitch and playing a bit faster...but it was far too inconsistent and infrequent because they just settled into their slow pace for long, long stretches with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Props to Bayern for taking advantage of an awful performance. I'm still shocked at just how poor Juve was, highlighted by Pirlo.

No one?

that Ozil pass on Ronaldo's goal was class. So was Benzema's first touch on his goal. But Gala's defense was really suspect on both goals. Also, Sneijder was surprisingly playing like utter shit. Hmmm...angling for a job with his beloved Mou next year?

and now the feed went off

Definitely some shoddy defending. Ozil's pass was definitely class, and ol boy was definitely out of position. Essien's pass was so odd. It was almost immaculately placed. It dropped straight down it seemed after going over the defenders... One of whom needed to be on Benz... The ronaldo factor displaced him...

really really like Dortmund's all out style, the way they all swarm to the ball is great. With that said at the European level that doesn't necessarily translate into success. Malaga seemed solid, especially in midfield, so the return leg will be far from a cakewalk for Dortmund who had a couple of chances they should've done better with.

Kinda surprised by how sluggish this thread has been. Is this karma for me poking fun at our English friends?

Knowing they can't.

LOL

Goddamn.
Talk about a Cinderella story with Malaga.

Where was this Galatasray last week?!

Holy shit is right.

Wow.

INFUCKING CREDIBLE

Samething GALA same thing!! Do it!!

damn.

Still an amazing day of football.

dudes smashing balls from the outfield past keepers who are generally out of position is all fine and good, but a dude controlling the positioning and coming up with a creative touch in the box to find the side netting against an otherwise well-played defense will always be a superior goal to me.

He ain't gonna get no shine though because Drogba's was that good.

in MLS. Just for a couple of years.

MLS was definitely in talks with Drogba following his Chelsea exit, but the rumor was that essentially he'd go to whoever paid the most, and no one in MLS wasn't able to match what a player at his level could still fetch.

prolly for the best, Champs League is better with dudes like him making an impact.

the spin coming out of the Parisian camp this week has been that they will try their best, that this is like a final to them, with a not-so veiled undertone that they are satisfied with the result if the road stops here for them. Ancelotti is playing it somewhat cautious, with Beckham starting again instead of Verratti. All of this is somewhat understandable but I'm confident that because many of the players will be coming in with an edge be it against Barca (Ibra, Motta) or from their own situation (Menez), none of them really believe in the party line. It would still be a massive upset to go into Camp Nou and pull it off, but crazier things have happened in this competition. Malaga knows what I'm talkin about.

I'm hearing that Messi is still not confirmed for today. Not that it really matters, Fabregas is more than able to cause headaches for the Paris D, as his triple this weekend will attest to.

I think Messi plays. He's been in all the training sessions including today's noon session.

Leaving work early... shh... tell no one.

big test for young Marco. Not happy about Menez (yo nighttripper do we have a good nickname for him yet?) starting on the bench but he could be valuable as an impact player

PSG : Sirigu - Jallet, Alex, Thiago Silva (c), Maxwell - Lucas, Thiago Motta, Verratti, Pastore - Ibrahimovic, Lavezzi.

FC Barcelona : Valdes - Alves, Piqué, Adriano, Alba - Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta - Pedro, Fabregas, Villa

see, even though it's a good thing from the team stand point, we took a big L on the nickname front when Nene left. Because (make'em say UNGGGGH) menenenez was a great two player nickname to me.

now that Jeremy is devoid of his partner in ball hoggery, he's become much better but I'm not so sure about a nickname.

in any case...FREE MENEZ, GODDAMMIT.

Really seems to be that simple.

Seems so obvious...

there was definitely space for a second goal once Pastore put us up. Kinda wild how many times Barca shot off-target, not used to seeing that from them

OK I'll be right back, need to go custom-print a FREE MENEZ tee-shirt

PSG had their chances to put this away but once he came on, Barcelona dominated.

HUGE sigh of relief if we draw Barca though. :)

which of course means I hope that Real Mad do.

I'm tired of Real Mad/Barça matches honestly.
Even if we had won those last two...
there's just too many. It's exhausting.

first thing I'm gonna say is, fuck you very much Carlo. I'm pretty sure Paris wins that game if Menez starts. Lavezzi was straight up garbage all game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he fights defensively, and Menez dgaf, but Lavezzi is a dumb player offensively. He did nothing but turn the ball over all day, so why the fuck should I care that he's grittier on defense?

also, Chantome is a *much* better player than Thiago Motta nowadays.

also, why would you sub young Marco? w/Maxwell, he was your best player.

fuck, man. We had room to get through, easy. Even without Blaise.

oh, before I forget...Villa, Jordi Alba and Pedro are some dirty, conniving, little douchebag whores. Matter of fact, fuck Busquets too, fuck this whole Barca team except for Messi and Iniesta. I get the mystique of the club, but this particular incarnation is not all that likable. The Germans are going to run straight through them, if Madrid doesn't get them first.

FREE MENEZ.

there were two or three times in the second half (before the goal), where you could clearly hear 'AAAAAAA-LLEZ PARIS! PARIS EST MAGIQUE!'. That made my day. They didn't do that to us au Parc, so we won on that front.

also, Flaco was good.

doesn't change my view on the game that much, but it does make me about 12% less mad at Carlo (although that Beckham sub was still grade-A BS)

they've been saying he had hamstring issues ever since Lucas arrived and he lost his starting job. He didn't look hurt scoring after a 50 yards rush the other day...

FREE MENEZ