Group A - Barcelona, Chelsea, Werder Bremen, Levski Sofia

I guess Sofia have had the best start to the season (domestically)

Played 8 won 7 drawn 1 I believe

(Shows you the strength of some of these leagues in Europe)

Will be a tough game, but we should win comfortably in the end.

They are the best team in the world, so they don't have many weaknesses," gushed Van Bommel to Kicker about his former team.

The former Barcelona man suggested that it would be very difficult for Werder to keep them in check, and that the Germans' will to attack and play an open game would suit the Catalans perfectly.

"If you leave spaces for them, they are happy to unfurl their game without any mercy at all.

"Barcelona have players who like to dominate everything. They are a very well-balanced group, and allow for perfect squad rotation."

Inevitably, the discussion went to the individual talent the European Champions have at their disposal. "Barcelona have many stars, but the best of them all is Ronaldinho," he said, heaping praise on the World Player Of The Year.

"He is a very friendly and calm person off the pitch, and on it, he simply entertains. Not even his team-mates know what he is going to do next with the ball at his feet. With him, it is only possible to expect the unexpected."

he not saying anything thats a surprise consisdering he was a barca player

Interesting article in the paper today.

To sum it up, the Levski Sofia manager said "Chelsea and Barcelona are both a winning team, but Barcelona is an entertaining team too"

Mourinho replied "Very true, but that is because Chelsea do not have a 'Ronaldinho'. A player who will excite the crowd with his wonderful tricks"

By the way, it looks as though John Terry has recovered from his back spasm and will play

good, he owes me fantasy league points

S4P wrote:Interesting article in the paper today.

To sum it up, the Levski Sofia manager said "Chelsea and Barcelona are both a winning team, but Barcelona is an entertaining team too"

Mourinho replied "Very true, but that is because Chelsea do not have a 'Ronaldinho'. A player who will excite the crowd with his wonderful tricks"

jose should respond by playing both robben and cole and only two centre mids and subsequently thrashing them ....

COTR wrote:

S4P wrote:Interesting article in the paper today.

To sum it up, the Levski Sofia manager said "Chelsea and Barcelona are both a winning team, but Barcelona is an entertaining team too"

Mourinho replied "Very true, but that is because Chelsea do not have a 'Ronaldinho'. A player who will excite the crowd with his wonderful tricks"

jose should respond by playing both robben and cole and only two centre mids and subsequently thrashing them ....

Only problem is I don't think Joe Cole is fully fit yet. Robben should get a good run out though.

I don't think we'll 'thrash' them, but it should be a convincing 2 or 3-0 win, where we'll just play keep-ball for the last 20 minutes (and if we're just gonna do that which I expect we will if we're winning, I'll probably switch over to watch 'Pool)

chelsea will win 2-1 or draw 1-1 if sofia score first.
If chelsea score first it will be 2/3-0.

hopefully the team will be:
----cech--------
ferreira-carv-JT-cole/bridge (whats the difference?)
------essien----------
ballack-lamps-robben
--droggers-sheva--

what are your views on Gerrard?

he is a good player -not a great one- who does very well for liverpool. If he stopped giving the ball away all the time with glory passes he might make 'great' one day but i dont think he will because he thinks he is roy of the rovers. Oh and the media saturation about him in england makes my skin crawl.

Jose "Stoitchkov is the best player ever."

maradona dude. He played for barca too lol...

Puyol (but ur still the heart of the Club)

Messi

well i only one to watch the first 15 Mins. before My mother fucking Channel Drop the Match and started Boardcasting the Liverpool game. but i must say for those 15 Mins Bremen looked Great we are under the alot of Pressure from them.

Where was Motta to cover the Defense we was no where to be found until he fouls someone

Just got back from the pub. Very happy with our performance tonight:

The main objective in Europe (especially away) is to get something out of the game (points wise). We got all 3 points, so that's an excellent start.

Chances wise, we should've scored 6 or 7 (minimum if you include the goals). Both Drogba and Ballack were very unfortunate (especially Ballack) to hit the woodwork, and had Lampard's shot in the opening 5 minutes been half a foot lower, it would've rocketed into the net. Had Robben not been so greedy near the end, we would have scored then too.

We got a lucky break with 2 of Drogba's goals (although I think the 3rd might have been going in anyway).

Commentator was talking bullshit as usual "Chelsea really on the backfoot here" in the last 10 mins, after we'd completely changed the formation, and weren't really looking to go forward. Take nothing away from Levski, I'm pleased they got a goal (even if it was against us, it was deserved - they'd had 1 or 2 chances before that), but no way would they have scored imo, had it been 0-0 or 0-1.

By the way, beautiful dive from their striker wasn't it (after Cech's triple save)

Disappointment and pride. We really could have won this match, but I'm proud of my team regardless. Great performance by all really. Unbelievable how good our youngster Hunt was though. That was his first match for us from the beginning!

But like I wrote in the Werder thread, we are not at our limit yet. The team still needs to gel, especially in the defence (first match of Mertesacker for us, after three month injury!). But once that happens, and I expect it to happen soon, we'll show the world what we are really capable of. This was just a foretaste.

@ blut

I hope we have it easier when we come to Bremen

I can tell you, that when the updated score came through and it said "Bremen 1-0 Barcelona" there was more cheers from the people in the pub than when we scored any of our goals. Hard luck on you guys, but I imagine you played exceptionally well

Just hope we can convert our chances better v you and Barcelona than we did tonight

Hehe, thank you S4P.

But seriously, just give us some time to gel, and thankfully we have that time now, since the upcoming matches in the Bundesliga are not as tough as the last ones, and Sofia being our next opponent in the CL, and we will make it very hard for you guys to collect points in Bremen.

We just need some time. We are not at our limit yet.

The matches between you and Barca are going to be amongst the CL highlights this season. Really looking forward to them.

Well, to be honest, I think you've given yourselves a reasonable chance of getting out the group (if I'm honest, and I hope you think I'm being fair), had you lost tonight and both us and Barca been 6 points ahead of you, I think it would have been extremely hard for you to qualify (you would then have had to beat 1 of us in the return fixtures -if not both.

I look forward to the game in Bremen

Unlucky Bremen, you deserved the win, jammy goal at the end.

LOL @ Drogba`s 3rd goal

Of course. If we had lost today, it would have been almost impossible to advance. Now, a lot depends on the matches between you and Barca. And we have to win both of our matches against Sofia.

La Saeta Rubia wrote:Unlucky Bremen, you deserved the win, jammy goal at the end.

LOL @ Drogba`s 3rd goal

only the Did could've done that.

Very fortunate indeed, although he really should've scored in the 1st half (when he hit the bar).

Have you seen the keepers save from Ballack's shot? Arguably the save of the tournament so far.

Etoo 2-3 months injured, looks like he`s gonna miss crucial CL matches !

Leo Messi came off the bench to score a late equaliser and earn FC Barcelona a point in the 1-1 draw with Werder Bremen in the Weserstadion after Carles Puyol had put through his own net.

On the flip side, Messi entered the game as Samuel Eto'o was stretchered off with a knee injury that Frank Rijkaard confirmed afterwards could affect his meniscus.

Barça said before the game that they were well aware of the Germans' height and power, but they did not appear to ready as Werder attacked in numbers for the opening 15 minutes.

Aaron Hunt caused problems down the left, but in the opening minute he drifted inside and warmed the gloves of Víctor Valdés with a low drive.

The home side then went close when Torsten Frings swung a shot wide of the post before Miroslav Klose broke clear down the right but Lilian Thuram diverted his dangerous centre away.

At the other end goalkeeper Tim Wiese was called into action to save at the feet of Ronaldinho before he was off his line again to deny Eto'o with his legs.

Both sides had shots from distance fly off target before Oleguer lifted a cross in from the right where Ronaldinho chested down and Ludovic Giuly sent a shot goalwards that the keeper punched clear.

After an extensive period of pressure from Werder, the visitors began to settle into something of rhythm and enjoyed their longest period of possession in the closing minutes of the half.

The game continued to swing from end-to-end after the restart as Giuly headed wide from a corner before Klose did the same in front of Valdés.

After 11 minutes of the second half Werder took the lead, which they arguably just deserved, when Tim Borowski's cross from the left saw Puyol reach the ball before Klose only for his toe-poke to bounce past the keeper and into his own net.

Thomas Schaaf's team were lifted by the goal and Frank Buamann, Borowski and Klose all had shots is looked to double the home side's advantage.

The introduction of Messi in the 65th minute lifted Barça and they began to push forward as Bremen sought to protect their delicate one goal lead.

After weaving his way along the edge of the area Messi released a shot that Wiese saved in the 76th minute, but the Germans did not heed the warning.

The Argentinian's second run along the box, with two minutes left on the clock, saw him roll the ball to Deco and receive an exquisite pass in return from which he was able to stroke in the equaliser.

It was a fine way to earn a point that was merited, but Werder will feel that they should have hung on to record a Victory

La Saeta Rubia wrote:Etoo 2-3 months injured, looks like he`s gonna miss crucial CL matches !

Very sorry to hear that (and I suspect it will be the excuse of some fans - not necessarily Barcelona - if we beat them in 1 of the 2 games), but it's great news for us (Champions League wise). I know people rave about Ronnie, and he is the best player in the world, but (other than his minute of magic where he scored a great goal in the Camp Nou) he has never really looked great against us.

Leo Messi on the other hand, frightened the life out of us, but I think Wayne Bridge (and I hope he gets the nod) will do a much better job on Messi. It will be good to see Eidur coming back to the Bridge (and I'm sure he'll get the reception he deserves from us fans).

By the way, if I was Puyol or Thuram, I'd be petrified about meeting the Did right now

After tonights results, I will be delighted with 1 win and 2 draws from our next 3 matches (Barcelona HOME, Barcelona AWAY, Werder Bremen AWAY).

Hell, I'd even take 1 win, 1 draw and 1 defeat.

Just as long as we get 4 points from our next 3 matches, I think we should qualify. I know it's very early to say so, but right now, it really is ours to fuck up (if we finish 3rd)

@LSR: jammy goal? Come on, don't be so blindly biased, it was class. Very hard on Bremen and perhaps our performance didn't deserve it, but don't needlessly knock the goal.



@S4P: I'm going to say right here right now, I won't use Etoo as an excuse if we lose. I have full trust in Gudjohnsen. There may be some "if Etoo was there he would have finished that" , but no full-out excuses.

It was a great goal by Messi from a great assist by Deco, Chelsea couldn't do a play with such class.

Anyways, in the first half we were pathetic, if we played like this even Espanyol could beat us. We can't continue with this crap football, Chelsea will TRASH us if we play like we did today. Even if we won I would be so disappointed by the poor football displayed. It's simply not acceptable, with the players we have we should do so much better.

The worst players were Oleguer (why the fuck did Rijkaard start him?!), Ronaldinho (he was terrible, couldn't even get a decent pass) and Motta (as always, bloody useless).

In conclusion a performance to forget, congratulations to Bremen for having the balls to play attacking in the first half (something that not even teams like Chelsea,Valencia,Madrid have done agaisnt us recently).

VISCA EL BARÇA!!

cule604 wrote:It was a great goal by Messi from a great assist by Deco, Chelsea couldn't do a play with such class.

Anyways, in the first half we were pathetic, if we played like this even Espanyol could beat us. We can't continue with this crap football, Chelsea will TRASH us if we play like we did today. Even if we won I would be so disappointed by the poor football displayed. It's simply not acceptable, with the players we have we should do so much better.

The worst players were Oleguer (why the fuck did Rijkaard start him?!), Ronaldinho (he was terrible, couldn't even get a decent pass) and Motta (as always, bloody useless).

In conclusion a performance to forget, congratulations to Bremen for having the balls to play attacking in the first half (something that not even teams like Chelsea,Valencia,Madrid have done agaisnt us recently).

VISCA EL BARÇA!!

Great point

It's in our nature to attack, no matter which team we play against. Our philosophy is actually very similar to Barca. We are the most attacking Bundesliga side, for years under our coach Thomas Schaaf, and one of the most attacking club sides in Europe.

kasnani wrote:
@S4P: I'm going to say right here right now, I won't use Etoo as an excuse if we lose. I have full trust in Gudjohnsen. There may be some "if Etoo was there he would have finished that" , but no full-out excuses.

Oh no, I wasn't thinking of you guys in particular (more the anti-Chelsea fans who will be cheering you on). Of course Eto'o is a massive blow for you guys, but it gives Eidur a bit of time to prove what he can do.

Hopefully for us, Sheva will start to find the back of the net soon. But I just fear that if we don't take our chances (and I lost count how many great chances we fucked up yesterday), we will lose quite badly (although we won't stop playing against you like we did for the last 10 mins yesterday).

By the way, I got my ticket for Chelsea-Barcelona today