CL Group D Thread - AC Milan - Benfica - Celtic - Shakhtar

Juego de la Okkas wrote:Christ, I hate Rangers and Celtic. Such boring teams that park the bus and score from counters. How Celtic can get through solely on their home form is beyond me.

Both of them do that every year. Somehow other teams in their group drop points, they pull off good results thanks to the crowd support and parking the base and/or kicking the $h!t out of the other team...at least they always get thrashed in the Round of 16.

kas wrote:

Juego de la Okkas wrote:Christ, I hate Rangers and Celtic. Such boring teams that park the bus and score from counters. How Celtic can get through solely on their home form is beyond me.

Both of them do that every year. Somehow other teams in their group drop points, they pull off good results thanks to the crowd support and parking the base and/or kicking the $h!t out of the other team...at least they always get thrashed in the Round of 16.

Listen. Celtic got past the group stages just once....and that was last season. In the next round they faced Ac Milan who won the competition. But the scores were 0-0 and 0-0...how is this getting thrashed? kaka scored the winner in extra time.

Rangers also have got past the group stages once. That year they faced Villareal the scores ended 2-2 and 0-0, they lost on away goals, how is that getting thrashed?

To me it seems people don't like celtic and rangers when they actually win or avoid losing. The style is boring, but they will lose if they play another way. Benfica were better today, but 2 weeks ago they were fortunate to beat celtic i thought.

Completely disagree LRD. 2 weeks ago we should have won for more than 1-0. Yesterday at moments we were brilliant, at others our defence was abysmal.

Camacho has a bit of blame on it all as well. A few minutes after the second half KO I texted my dad that Binya should be replaced because he was making too many unnecessary fouls. He should have been removed then and Nuno or Bergessio put upfront next to Cardozo.

I dont know what happens at Benfica, every year we get new "fantastic" internationals and we never make it as a team, Porto goes and finds players that the majority of us think "WHO?" and they go and outplay and out score otehrs in Europe.

From the new guys:
- Edcarlos is ok but nothing special
- Luis Filipe - not good enough to play for Braga let alone Benfica
- Binya - Ok as a replacement for Petit, but loses his head too easily (Very well sent off btw)
- Maxi Pereira - Still not convinced. he is not pacy enough to be a winger and something lacking
- Rodriguez - Probably the better of all the new ones.
- Cardozo - Gained my benefit of the doubt two weeks ago and he still has it, yesterday was very difficult for him and he did well considering
- Di Maria - Needs a year in the weights room to bulk up and needs to be more quick to pass the ball and cross. He has the potential to become someone like Kaka, but he might never fullfill it
- Bergessio - Cant comment.
- Adu - Only saw highlights and a few minutes last time and he can develop further. Dont think he is or will be a superstar but can be a regular at Benfica (starting or coming off the bench).

And then there's Mr Leo, which i think is absolutely shite and not worthy of playing for us, dont like him and never will.

There's a lot of work still to be done to this team, now we just have to beat Milan at home and Donetsk away... yeah right!

pauloduarte wrote:Completely disagree LRD. 2 weeks ago we should have won for more than 1-0. Yesterday at moments we were brilliant, at others our defence was abysmal.

Camacho has a bit of blame on it all as well. A few minutes after the second half KO I texted my dad that Binya should be replaced because he was making too many unnecessary fouls. He should have been removed then and Nuno or Bergessio put upfront next to Cardozo.

Agreed, 100% right. (Although I had thought Nuno, not Bergessio)

And then there's Mr Leo, which i think is absolutely shite and not worthy of playing for us, dont like him and never will.

Couldn't disagree more, from the moment he joined Benfica, has been our best most consistant player, one of the best left backs in world football.

Leo is a class player. Saying otherwise is reckless
Binya...If Benfica does not punishes him hard, i'm going to be extremely disappointed.

I agree with LRD somewhat. Scottish teams are always mocked when they get thrashed, yet win they pull of a result, their style of play is criticised? They're no more defensive than many of the other sides in Europe including the top teams.

Also Rangers-Villarreal were two very exciting games with attacking football from both teams. Likewise Celtic had a right go at Utd. Naturally in some games they will be forced to play it tighter. They can't afford quality players like Kaka or Messi the space to operate, or they will get destroyed. Kaka, unlike Messi learns to deal with it, and doesn't whine like a bitch.

lampiao007 wrote:Leo is a class player. Saying otherwise is reckless
Binya...If Benfica does not punishes him hard, i'm going to be extremely disappointed.

What did you lot think of that tackle by the way? Was nasty he really set out to injure Brown.


By the way Celtic hype is as bad as Arsenal's...Boruc has claimed Mcgeady can be better than Ronaldo. And mcmanus has called Boruc the best keeper in the world

L r d wrote:
What did you lot think of that tackle by the way? Was nasty he really set out to injure Brown.

To be honest I dont think he did it to hurt the other guy. Binya is a very "basic" player, not very intelligent in releasing the ball, and from what i seen of him so far, he doesnt control his effort very well during the game, which means he starts fouling players more and more as the game goes.

The image might look like he went to hurt the player, but I think he went to try and put his foot in front of Brown to obstruct Brown from the ball, but he is not as clever and good player as he thinks he is.

In any case he should get 3 games from Uefa and be punished internally by Benfica, which they always are, even with Yellow Cards they pay internal fines.

L r d wrote:

lampiao007 wrote:Leo is a class player. Saying otherwise is reckless
Binya...If Benfica does not punishes him hard, i'm going to be extremely disappointed.

What did you lot think of that tackle by the way? Was nasty he really set out to injure Brown.


By the way Celtic hype is as bad as Arsenal's...Boruc has claimed Mcgeady can be better than Ronaldo. And mcmanus has called Boruc the best keeper in the world

I was horrified, tnh. Benfica should come down on him badly. We may win a player in the long run. No excuses, it should never have happened

L r d wrote:
Benfica were better today, but 2 weeks ago they were fortunate to beat celtic i thought.

Then Benfica must've been a lot better than Celtic yeserday as they were clearly the only team that deserved to win in Lisboa. Just count the chances of that match, I don't see how anyone can think Benfica were lucky.

Binya, I don't know if he actually meant to brake the guy's leg...I find that too harsh of a reality to accept.

I'm going to go with Paulo on this one and just say I think the guy was incredibly reckless. He should be punished for not controlling his actions, very very serious concequences could've come of that 'tackle', but I don't think it was a 'Roy Keane' moment...not completely at least.

He was probably frustrated and still thinking about Camacho's 'for men' comment and let it all go to his head, causing him to do something very stupid.

Thought Benfica should have scored at Celtic Park but also felt Celtic deserved to score too

In Lisboa, felt Benfica deserved a goal more than Celtic but also felt Celtic should have scored at least one too.

Overall I think the results have balanced out well. Almost like two draws anyway – Benfica get 3 points, Celtic get 3 points.

Fair, I think.

Ps Cardozo looks like a good player just now. If he moves to the next level he could be a sensation.

Aiden McGeady

He played very well against Benfica in Glasgow. Indeed he was literally the difference between Benfica and Celtic. (I know, I know, Lusiao’s ass had something to do with it!)

Although he has a copious amount of talent and skill he will never it make it as a top player because he lacks the physical requirements to get to that level.

Or so I have said in previous posts on here.

Wrong again…perhaps!

He is working very hard to improve his acceleration, pace, stamina, and strength with a sports scientist from Lille, Gregory DuPont. He is working on specific leg muscles to improve his explosive sprinting ability.

"Maybe it's all in my head but I feel that I can just nip the ball past defenders and just go. It's given me another dimension to my game. I've been working a fair bit with Gregory and he knows what he is talking about. He's been brought in from Lille and he's been great with all the players."


http://www.theherald.co.uk/sport/headlines/display.var.1817276.0.0.php

Time will tell if he has the strength of character to persevere with this regime. If he does he might become a very effective player. If not he'll still make a good living at Celtic for the rest of his career.

Binya given a 6 match suspension for his actions against Scott Brown.

6 matches seems a bit harsh to me, but, I hope that it helps Binya reflect on his play, because apart from his stupidity when going for the tackle, he has the makings of a good player.

Interesting game tonight... I need Kaka to score for my EB Cup fantasy team, but wouldn't mind a few benfica goals to balance out the evil

Well, tell you what, Benfica to win 2-1 with Kaka scoring the Milan goal???

We would all (except Milan fans) be happy then!

How about 3-2 for Benfica, with 2 Kaka goals? Be kind to our Milan cousins

pauloduarte wrote:Well, tell you what, Benfica to win 2-1 with Kaka scoring the Milan goal???

We would all (except Milan fans) be happy then!

@ the bulk

I've always been very impressed by McGeady whenever I've seen him. Technically sound and a very skillful player. He needs to leave Scotland though and test himself in a higher calibre league

bluenine wrote:How about 3-2 for Benfica, with 2 Kaka goals? Be kind to our Milan cousins

pauloduarte wrote:Well, tell you what, Benfica to win 2-1 with Kaka scoring the Milan goal???

We would all (except Milan fans) be happy then!

Hell, make it 8-7 with Kaka scoring 7, i dont really care... lol

Hey, I just want to win my fantasy matchup - 2 goals would be enough.... I don't want kaka to score more goals than Ibra this CL!!

so lets settle for 8-2

pauloduarte wrote:

bluenine wrote:How about 3-2 for Benfica, with 2 Kaka goals? Be kind to our Milan cousins

pauloduarte wrote:Well, tell you what, Benfica to win 2-1 with Kaka scoring the Milan goal???

We would all (except Milan fans) be happy then!

Hell, make it 8-7 with Kaka scoring 7, i dont really care... lol

Two 2-1 results tonight in this group and both away wins.

Shakhtar a goal up already.

I may be right.

It looks as though Milan are perhaps satisfied with the draw...

We played really really bad, especially in the 2nd half.. I congratulate Benfica for the desire and energy they displayed, I almost wanted them to win!

Kaka, Seedorf and Serginho absolutely dreadful

The Benfica-Milan result could have gone either way as both teams had chances to win it.A draw was probably fair though,but Kaka missed a clear chance when he had just the goalkeeper to beat in the last 2 minutes.

briz wrote:The Benfica-Milan result could have gone either way as both teams had chances to win it.A draw was probably fair though,but Kaka missed a clear chance when he had just the goalkeeper to beat in the last 2 minutes.

Twice.
Again, I think Milan were content with the draw and didn't really go for it.

Our opinions are always affected by who we think will/should win, or who we want to win. Last nights game is a good example of that. Until Pirlo scored Milão were the better team, Benfiquistas may well think that was because we showed them to much respect, or that it's a reflection of our season, we only ever start to play after our opponents have scored against us, Milanistas may well say that they were content to be one goal infront, and just defended their lead.
In the finish, I thought we were a little unlucky not to get the three points. And, that's been our C/L campaign cry, our luck in front of goal hasn't existed. So far in the group games we have needed over 30 shots for every goal scored, and Milan takes about 5.

Benfica - Milan 1-1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AemIumLIphM

I also thought that over the game, specially in the second half, Benfica created many more chances. Bad luck, poor finishing and Nesta stopped Benfica from winning this one.

Johninho wrote:Our opinions are always affected by who we think will/should win, or who we want to win. Last nights game is a good example of that. Until Pirlo scored Milão were the better team, Benfiquistas may well think that was because we showed them to much respect, or that it's a reflection of our season, we only ever start to play after our opponents have scored against us, Milanistas may well say that they were content to be one goal infront, and just defended their lead.
In the finish, I thought we were a little unlucky not to get the three points. And, that's been our C/L campaign cry, our luck in front of goal hasn't existed. So far in the group games we have needed over 30 shots for every goal scored, and Milan takes about 5.