Barcelona vs Man United

Markus wrote:

Juligen wrote:

Markus wrote:Kaka proved by having a lethargic season domestically, scoring 10 goals in the CL and winning the competition is enough to win you the Ballon d’Or ..

what the hell Rai, he won for the 06/07 season, so if Ronaldo wins the 2008 best player, gets injured in 09 and doesnt play for the rest of the year, he wont be a deserving winner. Does even make sense for you?

You win a award for what you did, not for what you will do after the award.

All I said is to win this award today, you don’t need to perform at domestic level, just have a good campaign in Europe. It’s not a blemish on him whatsoever.

Ahhh, I get it. Sorry if I understand you wrong Rai.

Yeahh, I agree that you don’t have to set the world on fire to win those days, and that is ten times easier to win those awards if you play in Spain (except for Milan Italy isn’t getting much love) If Messi had the same season that Ronaldo is having right now, I think the debate would be over.

But I also think that if English teams continue to make a big impact in the CL and continue to buy the best players this will change very fast.

Calidad wrote:

kas wrote:Cruyff feels that the two teams are well matched technically, but he expects Barça to go through if the players don't make any stupid mistakes.

oops

Yeah, he should have also said:

"if they show some fight"

"if Rijkaard makes the right subs"

"if they run"

"if they don't miss chances"

"if they show some balls and don't just dump it long to Messi all the time"

"if they shoot more often"

etc.

I think barca should have marquez in defence with milito because he is the only one who can play teh ball out of defence.Personally i would rather use Sylvinho then Abidal since he attack better. and also i think Barca can play xavi-iniesta at home at against anybody and do well as long as they perform well which is the problem. i hope rijkaard takes the chance.

Regarding the Ballon D'or i dont see why this is so important. the award only has the importance that you give it. i mean ronaldo won it in a season where he only played the world cup and a month or two in la liga. all these awards dont really prove that much.

Marquez will indeed start with Milito, but I'm worried because all the ball distribution skills in the world won't help if you constantly get turned by attackers, miss your headers, and generally fall over clumsily when trying to slide tackle. That's been his game over the past season or two.

Abidal will probably be preferred for his physical strengths, but I agree that Sylvinho would be a good option too. Again, I guess the other side of this is that Sylvinho can at least come off the bench to give width, as Rijkaard likes doing sometimes (CL final 2006 being the best example).

Juligen wrote:

L r d wrote:

Glenn Hysén wrote:Ronaldo comes from Portugal's equivelent of the Channel Islands. We can't have someone from Guernsey winning WPOTY ffs

And Messi comes from beverly hills?

I read an interview with Ronaldo in some paper this morning. Apparently he promised his father before he died that he would be the best player in the world one day.

Errr, British boy may I inform you, that Argentina in Football Land is quite an Elite country; they gave many stars for this sport. But of course that Gleen point has absolutely no sense whatsoever; he is just trying to take the piss out of Ronaldo

I don't mean it like that. Messi just looks like a gypsy

The Barça I loved:





Cocu, Overmars, Kluivert, Frank de Boer and Rivaldo …

Rai, how many Dutch boys that Barca had?

Markus wrote:The Barça I loved:





Cocu, Overmars, Kluivert, Frank de Boer and Rivaldo …

plus Guardiola, Luis Enrique and Figo! Shame they had a rubbish defence though!

Juligen wrote:Rai, how many Dutch boys that Barca had?

Kluivert, Cocu, Overmars, Both De Boers, Zenden, Hesp, Reiziger, i think thats it?

Juligen wrote:Rai, how many Dutch boys that Barca had?

At one point the club was known as Oranje Barcelona, this is mainly the fault of Louis van Gaal who brought players such as the De Boer brothers, Kluivert, Zenden, Reiziger and Overmars. Then Gio came .. and one by one they left, Gio was the last Dutch player to play for Barcelona at the moment, Rijkaard should have known better, it’s no coincidence that Sneijder this season and RVN last season have single handily won La Liga for Real Madrid, Seedorf is having this influence for AC Milan, but they need at last 3 Dutch players to dominate Serie A (its scientific fact)

Barça must sign Van der Vaart ASAP

Calidad wrote:Ronaldo does deserve to win WPOTY (though I don't understand the Utd's fans obsession with it)

It's all to do with what happenend last year and also Beckham in 99. Been over it many times but both times are seen as an injustice. He came second in the ballon d'or and third in the wpoty, even he refused to give Messi second place he was visibly shocked! The problem with the Ballon D'or is that Henry Winter England's representative who actually had seen all the great performances in the league(understandable foreign journalists see less of it) chose Maldini first and Ronaldo 4th. A lot of it seems biased as well.

For example example 4 places choose Ronaldo as num 1. They were Angola, Portugal, i think Norway and one in asia. So really it seems a bit like the eurovision.

WPOTY is more a popularity contest and right now nobody is more popular than Ronaldo so he should win whatever happens. That said if he really does wish to be the out and out best, then he should go and outperform Messi in these two games.

Markus wrote:The Barça I loved:





Cocu, Overmars, Kluivert, Frank de Boer and Rivaldo …

You got that right.

99/00= Nada
00/01=Nada
01/02=Nada
02/03=Nada
03/04=Nada

Ah that team was awesome.

It’s so easy to go for the negatives.

Markus wrote:It’s so easy to go for the negatives.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/uefa_cup/1283427.stm

Great game.

Gary McAllister>>>>> Patrick Kluivert.

Markus wrote:The Barça I loved:





Cocu, Overmars, Kluivert, Frank de Boer and Rivaldo …

I LOVED that team.

I was watching an old derby match the other day...Kluivert in the middle, Rivaldo on the left, some c**t on the right, a midfield of Cocu-Gabri-Guardiola...



......and a defense of Reiziger-De Boer-Bogarde-Sergi, with Hesp (who wasn't that bad at his peak) in goal

kas wrote:I was watching an old derby match the other day...Kluivert in the middle, Rivaldo on the left, Greatest player ever on the right, a midfield of Cocu-Gabri-Guardiola...



......and a defense of Reiziger-De Boer-Bogarde-Sergi, with Hesp (who wasn't that bad at his peak) in goal

kas wrote:I was watching an old derby match the other day...Kluivert in the middle, Rivaldo on the left, some c**t on the right, a midfield of Cocu-Gabri-Guardiola...



......and a defense of Reiziger-De Boer-Bogarde-Sergi, with Hesp (who wasn't that bad at his peak) in goal

I too don't remember our ex Premiership winning LB.

Roger Hunt wrote:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/uefa_cup/1283427.stm

Great game.

Gary McAllister>>>>> Patrick Kluivert.

"Barcelona's 18-year-old rookie keeper, Jose Manuel Reina, looked as nervous as a man who had shipped eight goals in his last two games."

Read a stat that of the 8 quarterfinalists (and certainly 4 semifinalists), Barça is the one with the most youth team graduates playing for their teams:

Cesc, Reina, Valdes, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Messi, Bojan, Giovani, etc.

kas wrote:Read a stat that of the 8 quarterfinalists (and certainly 4 semifinalists), Barça is the one with the most youth team graduates playing for their teams:

Cesc, Reina, Valdes, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Messi, Bojan, Giovani, etc.

you forgot to mention Çesc...

Barrilete_Cosmico wrote:

kas wrote:Read a stat that of the 8 quarterfinalists (and certainly 4 semifinalists), Barça is the one with the most youth team graduates playing for their teams:

Cesc, Reina, Valdes, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Messi, Bojan, Giovani, etc.

you forgot to mention Çesc...

I guess he is the etc

pique

Quique

Chinque

When Liverpool played Barcelona, what tactics did Liverpool use on Messi?

double up on him

or

have Arbeloa keep tight on him

?

Batman wrote:When Liverpool played Barcelona, what tactics did Liverpool use on Messi?

double up on him

or

have Arbeloa keep tight on him

?

The rash

Batman wrote:When Liverpool played Barcelona, what tactics did Liverpool use on Messi?

double up on him

or

have Arbeloa keep tight on him

?

Arbeloa had two great games but he had riise ahead of him (I think) doing the job rooney will be doing

Liverpool done a good job on him, but wasn't it his first game back in 3 months?