Europe Champions League Final - 2006

Don't know who has a better team, but I plan on taping the game.

If Arsenal come out in the right frame of mind, nobody can stop them.

Barcelona have individual stars, but do not play a "team" game half as well as the Gunners, when they are on form.


I am a born and bred Gooner. If Arsenal lose on Wednesday, I shall cry like a girl, after I have finished my obligatory curry and two pints of lager.


AR-SE-NAAAAAAAL!

I don't really like both Barca and Gunners, but I love to see Ronaldinho plays, it's like some sort of a soccer god, he has great moves and I also think Barcelona don't lack a "team" game.
Anyway, I like Juventus, and after Arsenal have knocked them out, I would rather to see them lose.

All these big named continental Euro teams are all very well, playing in their own leagues, but put any one of them into the English Premier league for a whole season, and they would find it very hard.

The Spanish and Italian leagues each have two or three major teams who go round looking like superstars when they play all the other minnows in their respective league fixtures.

The english premier teams, barring the bottom three or four, are all pretty hard to play against, and each team plays 38 league games per season, plus FA cup matches, League cup (whatever it's called these days) matches and then Champions league and Uefa matches if they are good enough to get in.

On average, an English Premier team will play two hard, bone crunching matches a week, right through the season.

It would be interesting to put Barca or Juve into our league for a season, just to see how they'd fare......

I think you under estimate these teams.
Still, they are the best in Europe, and if Barca made it to the Champions League final, I don't think they will really have a hard time in the English Premier League, they have beaten Chelsea, the best English team...

Anyway, have you heard about Juve's scandal all their board resigned after being accused of trying to influence match results by assigning certain referees for certain matches - " match-fixing".
Now I've also heard that they may be relegated to the Italy 3rd division, now that could be interesting.

Eliran, I'm not underestimating them at all. What I was saying is that they do not have half as hard a season as the average English Premiership team.

To come out on the pitch, nicely rested after playing a not very hard game about a week beforehand, is not quite the same as coming out after only playing a very hard match not three days ago.

Barca have the time and energy to hone their technical skills, and would probably have an injury list as long as your arm if they played a whole season in our league.

Anyway, it should prove to be an exciting match, and I'm looking forward to it.


Yes, the Juve corruption thing is going to get really interesting over the coming weeks, methinks.

La Liga and the Premiership have pulled away from the rest of Europe in recent years. If Barca did struggle in our league it'd be down to the physicality of it, you said it yourself, "bone crunching". The spanish league is extremely strong though, in terms of technique particularly, Sevilla were simply much better than Boro the other week, who were well beaten. Now, yeah, Boro have had an up and down season but Sevilla were far too strong for them on a technical level.

The other side of it links in with the physical aspect of english football and that is, the leniency or lack there of in football across countries. Liverpool have brought over a number of spanish players who all commented on the nature of how we play the game over here. Even though they knew to expect something they were all still a little taken aback. Luis Garcia and Xabi Alonso have both adopted the new style very well and both made the transition pretty quickly, especially Alonso who is a class apart. He epitamises the spanish game, such an elegant footballer, the best passer in the league for my money.

The other thing is the pace of the game though, the premiership is frenetic to say the least, we tore Juventus apart last season through tempo alone, they simply weren't ready for it. The spanish game is a slower one but still faster than Italian football yet they retain the ball so much better. One of the things Benitez 1st said when he came to Liverpool was he wanted to increase the pass per game ratio. It's simply quite a bit less in this country. We now retain the ball even better than we used to and we've always been a possession side.

Ultimately though, it'd take any side a number of seasons to adjust to playing in a new league. It'd be like a cup competition almost for the 1st season, playing all new opponents week in, week out, for example. I honestly think all but the top so many sides in the Premiership would struggle, badly, in La Liga.

bm

HALF TIME!

Arsenal down to ten men due to our goalkeeper being sent off.(atrocious decision)

Arsenal scored making it 1 - 0. HOORAH!

Arsenal under incredible pressure in the ten minutes leading up to half time, but go for the break, still 1 - 0 in the lead.

My sphincter is twitchin like a twitcher that's got a severe case of the twitches.

Search will now be carried out for tranquilisers.

Oh, PS......KitchenPete is in the crowd somewhere (lucky b*stard) but I don't think I've seen him yet.

There was a bloke that looked like him, but it was hard to tell, as he was picking his nose at the time and his hand was covering half of his face.
I shall keep looking.......

Thanks for the online reports, Ellpus!

Those of us at work are only getting information from you at this point.

Yes, I may not need to watch the video tape after all, what with LE giving the play by play.

What happens next, LE?

Problem for Arsenal: Barça wins 2-1 at this moment (seven minutes to go..)

I flipped it on for a few minutes just in time to see the tying goal at around the 75 minute mark. Looked like a shocking breakdown in the back by Arsenal. Curious to see the go-ahead on the replay.

Game over, Barcelona is Champion...

Unlucky Arsenal, sometimes it doesn't quite happen. Exciting times lie ahead for your team though I'm sure, well played. Chin up. I've really ended up liking Henry as the years have gone by as well, feel sorry for him, deserves to be a champion of Europe. He should stay on, this is real progress for Arsenal in Europe, no doubt about it.

Talking to me, Ashers?

No to Lord Ellpus I suppose, he's the Arsenal fan

That's ok, I'm not even a soccer fan...