The 2019/20 Champions League Thread | Vital Football

The 2019/20 Champions League Thread

Jules

Website Owner
Staff member
Manchester City are at home against Real Madrid tonight. City are 2-1 ahead after the first leg.

This match kicks off at 20:00 and is live on BT Sport 1.
 
Honestly if I see us fcuking about like Real Madrid just did to gift Man City the opening goal I will be going mad. You cannot get dispossessed in your own 6 yard box its is just a joke. What do they think they are doing? do they think it looks clever because all it does is makes you and your team look a complete bunch of dicks.
Without doubt the worst tactic anyone has ever dreamed up in football and if you do it you'll get exactly what you deserve.
It has no place in any level of football whatsoever.
 
This is now such an irrelevant competition.
Even fans of clubs in it will struggle to take any notice of these pointless matches.
 
Didn't realise Coutinho was still actually a Barca player...though maybe not for much longer! What were they playing at tonight.
 
Can't believe it. I've sat through the Athletico Madrid shaped shit last night and various other dull crap in Europe this week, and tonight gone out for a meal.
No surprise to me in the result, but I'm shocked at the magnitude of it. Hope there are some highlights somewhere.
 
Didn't realise Coutinho was still actually a Barca player...though maybe not for much longer! What were they playing at tonight.
I didn't realise he was on loan at Bayern. I asked my lad if he was on the bench and he said he was. I was somewhat surprised when he emerged from the Bayern bench.
 
Can't believe it. I've sat through the Athletico Madrid shaped shit last night and various other dull crap in Europe this week, and tonight gone out for a meal.
No surprise to me in the result, but I'm shocked at the magnitude of it. Hope there are some highlights somewhere.
Think of the worst comedy defending and multiply it by 10. Playing out from the back by Barca was like the whole Death Wish franchise with the sequels they haven't made yet on top. At least Verstigen (Barca keeper) had a 100% pass completion stat.......to Bayern players. And that was before the whole Barca team disgracefully downed tools for the last 20 mins.
 
This is now such an irrelevant competition.
Even fans of clubs in it will struggle to take any notice of these pointless matches.
Totally agree . Should have been scrapped. I still cant understand why its called what it is . Much preferred the "European Cup" format . But ifs another way money has spoilt the "beautiful game"
 
Flat track bullies?

There's a very strong argument for that. You can usually tell within the first 10 mins of a game whether they are going to maul a team or just slowly pass it ponderously backwards and sideways to little effect. I haven't got the stats but I also get the impression their XG conversion rate has hurt them in a lot of the games they have lost this season.

I thought Guardiola totally got his tactics and team selection wrong for this one. He lost this match still thinking about how badly they struggled against Lyon home and away last season. Essentially he was still focusing on those games instead of playing this one.
 
I thought Guardiola totally got his tactics and team selection wrong for this one. He lost this match still thinking about how badly they struggled against Lyon home and away last season. Essentially he was still focusing on those games instead of playing this one.
Surely not. Pep is the best coach on the planet, a veritable football god! That kind of man, with the resources to boot, cannot possibly have got it wrong.
That he has got egg on his face fills me with more amusement than his team getting beaten. Maybe he'll get it right next time around after another supermarket sweep of the world's best paid players. Failing that he might do better at PSG in a year or so.
 
Surely not. Pep is the best coach on the planet, a veritable football god! That kind of man, with the resources to boot, cannot possibly have got it wrong.
That he has got egg on his face fills me with more amusement than his team getting beaten. Maybe he'll get it right next time around after another supermarket sweep of the world's best paid players. Failing that he might do better at PSG in a year or so.

He has certainly consistently bought the wrong defenders. When you think about it he didn't sign their most influential attacking players either namely De Bruyne, Aguero, Sterling or David Silva.

He is a football purist and will not change his playing style no matter what. He believes retaining and quickly recovering possession when the ball is lost is king - i.e. you can't lose if you keep the ball. When it works it is great but if the opposition are very well organised and have pace, height and athleticism then he has nowhere else to go.

Another problem he sometimes encounters is he constantly plays a ridiculously high line with complete disregard to the pace and/or quality of the opposition which in combination with some distinctly average defenders is not a great idea. As Brian Clough observed - it only takes a second to score a goal.

You can see it coming a mile off against some opposition; home v Wolves and Traore panned out exactly as I predicted.

It's one of the things I will watch with interest with MAPP. I love and fully support what he is implementing with us but I do hope he is a little more flexible than Guardiola. I have commented previously how effective we were going forward in the home league game v Ipswich because we mixed it up so well and their defenders didn't know at any point in that game what was coming next and as a result were never settled.
 
I should clarify for the Lyon game that he didn't change his playing style or high line he just compounded his problems by changing the formation and personnel - the starting 11 contained 7 outfield players who are more defensive in nature.
 
Totally agree . Should have been scrapped. I still cant understand why its called what it is . Much preferred the "European Cup" format . But ifs another way money has spoilt the "beautiful game"

Absolutely. Most of the teams by the group stages are not champions and UEFA are reducing even further the number of places for actual teams who've won their own national league.
And a cup competition is, err, not a league.

The ultimate aim of the elite clubs is of course for them to all quit their national leagues and form a perpetual group of 16 to 20 of them in their own breakaway league. And it hasn't occurred to them just how insipid and unappealing that would be.
 
Absolutely. Most of the teams by the group stages are not champions and UEFA are reducing even further the number of places for actual teams who've won their own national league.
And a cup competition is, err, not a league.

The ultimate aim of the elite clubs is of course for them to all quit their national leagues and form a perpetual group of 16 to 20 of them in their own breakaway league. And it hasn't occurred to them just how insipid and unappealing that would be.

I wish they would get on and do it then we could have a top division as competitive and interesting as The Championship is, as opposed to throwing a cap over the three or four names that will keep re-cycling the spoils ad infinitum.