Europa League - Semi Finals

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

Good news for Benfica, their game at the weekend has been put back to monday night. So, we should be able to field a much stronger team against Liverpool.

what a shit, all games at the same time


what game will german tv show?

hopefully wolfsburg

oh wow thats cool

wolfsburg on KABEL1
hsv on SAT1

kabel1

ok but kabel1 is part of sat1/pro7media ag so it makes sense

Bad news for Benfica:

Gerrard and torres both showed semblances of form at the weekend. If I were a Pool fan I'd be far more confident of my sides chances now that I would have been two weeks ago.

For me, tomorrow is all about Fulham though. Fingers crossed.

Benfica got a 1-0 win in a massive game against their main title rivals Braga so I think they're not exactly lacking self confidence and momentum.

kas wrote:Benfica got a 1-0 win in a massive game against their main title rivals Braga so I think they're not exactly lacking self confidence and momentum.

It all depends on Rafa's team selection, and where he puts our players.

IMO i would like to see the same team selection/formation we had against Sunderland (4-2-3-1). Was one of the best performances of our season.

But what do i know? Rafa will be certain it was because "everyone tried" and therefore play Lucas.

What's wrong with liverpool fans? They sent back more than 2,000 tickets from their allocation of just over 3,000. Only a 1,000 scousers at the game. Very poor showing.

Liverpool fans aren't really football fans - they're musical singer wanabees.

If they don't get to sing YNWA at the start of every game then they're not interested.

YNWA? They think they are the Village people?

Antarion wrote:kabel1

LoL indeed.

But then again, a decade ago we had CL games broadcasted on a fairly unknown housewife channel, so there's nothing that surprises me anymore.

---

Dzeko is doubtful to play against Fulham due to a knee problem.

No Aquilani, how unsurprising.

----------------Reina-----------

---Johnson----Carra-------Agger------------Insua---------

------------------Masch--------Lucas-----------------

-----Kuyt-----------------Gerrard---------------Babel------------

--------------------------Torres-------------------------------------

DEFEND!

Aquilani is injured though...

Benfica need to improve their finishing comparing to games against Marseille, if they want to eliminate Liverpool. Not only Liverpool will be better defensively than OM, but they will also create some chances, and with Torres it's easy to see them scoring an away goal.

stinger wrote:Benfica need to improve their finishing comparing to games against Marseille, if they want to eliminate Liverpool. Not only Liverpool will be better defensively than OM, but they will also create some chances, and with Torres it's easy to see them scoring an away goal.

If Rafa's favoured lineup plays anything like expected the first leg will be a comfortable win for Benfica with the vast majority of possession. They'll just have to deal with a few humps into the channels to Torres and then defend him from there. We'll offer little else, simply because we have offered little else with this lineup all season long.

Second leg will hopefully be a very different story.

Apparantly Torres is out the second leg if he gets booked tonight

Quite looking forward to this one tonight, Benfica are a good footballing side, this is the type of quality you want to be playing.

Rafa's clearly going to set the team up negatively though. IMO this is completely the wrong tactic to adopt. If anything has been shown this season, its that if you're willing to attack away from home, you'll get rewarded. Simply getting that away goal makes a whole world of difference.

Tweesus wrote:Rafa's clearly going to set the team up negatively though. IMO this is completely the wrong tactic to adopt. If anything has been shown this season, its that if you're willing to attack away from home, you'll get rewarded. Simply getting that away goal makes a whole world of difference.

Rafa's proven over the years in Europe he knows how to do it over 2 legs so I'm confident. Yes we've had a major blip this season in the CL but it doesn't change the fact that we overcame Barca, Madrid, Inter, Chelsea over the last 5 years.

I think we'll set up compact tonight with the hope of nicking an away goal which is always possible when you have Torres. I'd happily take a draw, a score draw would be fantastic.

April 01 2010 at 01:55PM

Lisbon - Benfica's Argentine forward Javier Saviola has been ruled out of the Europa League quarterfinal first leg against Liverpool on Thursday, the Portuguese club said on their website (Sport Lisboa e Benfica).

The 29-year-old picked up a foot injury in Benfica's win over Braga on Saturday and did not train with the rest of the squad on Wednesday.

The Argentina international, who has scored 11 goals in 24 league matches since joining Benfica from Real Madrid last year, could be sidelined for up to four weeks and is also likely to miss the second leg against Liverpool on April 8. - Reuters

Benfica will destroy Liverpool FFS. Saviola out but he's hit and miss anyway.

All kinds of trouble for Valencia. Injuries were already depriving them of all but 4 first team defenders and now Alexis will miss out as well. I guess they will have a makeshift backline something like:


Bruno-----Maduro------Dealbert-----J. Alba

L r dd wrote:Benfica will destroy Liverpool FFS. Saviola out but he's hit and miss anyway.

Your predictions in the CL render any predictions in this competition null and void

Luis wrote:

L r dd wrote:Benfica will destroy Liverpool FFS. Saviola out but he's hit and miss anyway.

Your predictions in the CL render any predictions in this competition null and void

3-1 Arsenal * barring any Alumunia fuck ups. Did he fuck up? yes.

2-2 and Cesc doesn't break his leg it's 3-2 one out very close. genius stuff.

You also probably predicted United to destroy Bayern.

L r dd wrote:

Luis wrote:

L r dd wrote:Benfica will destroy Liverpool FFS. Saviola out but he's hit and miss anyway.

Your predictions in the CL render any predictions in this competition null and void

3-1 Arsenal * barring any Alumunia fuck ups. Did he fuck up? yes.

2-2 and Cesc doesn't break his leg it's 3-2 one out very close. genius stuff.

Pretty stupid to make an prediction based on that assumption though isnt it? The chances were that he was going to make at least one fuck up.

It's like saying Man Utd would win on Tuesday (or any day for that matter) barring any Rio fuck ups.

BoBo Vieri 32 wrote:

L r dd wrote:

Luis wrote:

L r dd wrote:Benfica will destroy Liverpool FFS. Saviola out but he's hit and miss anyway.

Your predictions in the CL render any predictions in this competition null and void

3-1 Arsenal * barring any Alumunia fuck ups. Did he fuck up? yes.

2-2 and Cesc doesn't break his leg it's 3-2 one out very close. genius stuff.

Pretty stupid to make an prediction based on that assumption though isnt it? The chances were that he was going to make at least one fuck up.

It's like saying Man Utd would win on Tuesday (or any day for that matter) barring any Rio fuck ups.

Your post makes no sense.

But no i don't think it was stupid to include that clause because it came true.

It makes perfect sense. Do you have reading difficulties?

It was always going to come true meaning the initial prediction was pointless.

Well actually it wasnt guaranteed which was the point. Do you like arguing about little stuff?

Barca are a better team than arsenal if you make mistakes and help them you wont win. But for rio if i say man utd 4-1 and the 1 is a mistake from rio thats part of football. I don't view it the same.

Anyway you don't deserve knowledge from prediction specialists but im glad you agree i wasnt wrong..even if we disagree on the point of my prediction

L r dd wrote:Well actually it wasnt guaranteed which was the point. Do you like arguing about little stuff?

Barca are a better team than arsenal if you make mistakes and help them you wont win. But for rio if i say man utd 4-1 and the 1 is a mistake from rio thats part of football. I don't view it the same.

Anyway you don't deserve knowledge from prediction specialists but im glad you agree i wasnt wrong..even if we disagree on the point of my prediction

It was guaranteed. Barca were going to create alot of chances, Almunia would have a busy night, it was inevitable that he would fuck up at least once.

Rio got merked by Olic and it led to Bayern's winning goal. It was inevitable that Rio would fuck up.

I never "agreed" that you wern't wrong. Clearly you were wrong, but your predictions are almost always wrong, no surprise there.