"Three at the back? Early in the sack." Van Gaal won't be on these '14-'15 UEFA Champions League nights thread

- For the first time since 2001 a Swedish team qualified, Malmö
- Napoli are NOT in the CL having been beaten by Athletic Club
- A defender from Ludogorets stopped TWO penalties in their shoot out against Steaua
- Draw is tomorrow

I think it's time for a '14-'15 Champions League thread. Apt terrible thread title? Check. This ting is on!

this will be my last post in this thread

lol

Love this Ludogorets defender already: https://vine.co/v/MljLOh9hK6P

the defender from Ludogorets also scored his team's first shoot out penalty i believe.

He did! Legend.

Spent most of his career at Dinamo Bucharest too.

We managed to get knocked out of this competition twice before the thread started. I think we've hit a new low for Scottish fitba in Europe.

Funny outcome for Leverkusen, Benfica and Zenit seem comparatively manageable (considering joining a group with Barca & Paris was avoided narrowly, poor Ajax), but Monaco is an odd 4th team...

Group A: Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Olympiakos, Malmo
Group B: Real Madrid, Basel, Liverpool, Ludogorets Razgrad.
Group C: Benfica, Zenit St Petersburg, Bayer Leverkusen, Monaco.
Group D: Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Galatasaray, Anderlecht
Group E: Bayern Munich, Manchester City, CSKA Moscow, Roma.
Group F: Barcelona, Paris St-Germain, Ajax, APOEL Nicosia.
Group G: Chelsea, Schalke, Sporting Lisbon, Maribor
Group H: Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk, Athletic Bilbao, BATE Borisov.

Not a bad draw for Liverpool

ahahaha spent at least 15 seconds searching for man u there

it's even in the thread-title u doofus

feel bad for APOEL :(

this CL's Australia equivalent, and just as endearing!!

cannot help but sing ludogorets to the tune of the walker bros' 'no regrets'

Only Irish player in the CL plays for Apoel

Apoel reached the quarter finals in '11-'12 beating Lyon, they can't be that useless. I'd say I feel more sorry for Ajax. But I don't.

We don't have an EL thread do we? Good excuse to fanboy here. Depay tonight, ladies and gentlemen: http://youtu.be/hgZHXams1pU

7 goals and 3 assists in his last 5 games. Plus four year contract extension :-) Not been this smitten of a player since probably Van Basten when I was young.

quite honored they named a club after me

the things posting on ILX can get you

Hotspur Related ‏@HotspurRelated 23h
Fazio: "I look at the players at Tottenham and I think its possible to win the Europa League or something." #THFC

^potential Europa thread title material

quiet thread

It's half-hearted stuff from Liverpool so far

I haven't been that impressed with Markovic so far in general

10 man Arsenal now

With mercenary buffs like Falcao I can see they wanted to offload Wellbeck, but for ManU I still think it's a shame tbh

Luiz Adriano has scored five for Shakhtar vs BATE - they're currently 7-0 up away from home. Bayern currently having to settle for 7-1 away at Roma.

Adriano got 4 in 16 minutes.

+7 goals at Schalke +6 for Chelsea. I might need some possibility for a free TV recap tonight.

Manchester City struggled with the cold, says Manuel Pellegrini
• It was the same for both teams, admits Joe Hart

doumbia would be good craic in the epl, make it happen someone

https://vine.co/v/OWi7gmgiVAM

LOL i hadnt seen this

Some right trashing a in the CL last night. I thought CSKA and Schalke got points from some dodgy last minute peno calls.

https://twitter.com/FCBayernEN/status/524840638643441664

xabi

haaaa

dignity

Worst fears confirmed

Relentlessly, week in week out.

Well, yeah

idk things were looking p good until the first real goal and then they p much took the wheel

Yeah first 10 or 15 mins were encouraging tbf

The defence is a fucking mess

coutinho has not had a terrible game imo

He's been excellent yeah

seems like that first RM goal could only have been duplicated by coutinho-sterling in place of james-ronaldo

i mean i guess LAZAR needs some playing time and they're three down but coutinho seemed like one of the few creative players out there today imo

that is probably the least surprising last-minute turnaround ever from arsenal there

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/live-experience/cps/512/mcs/media/images/78464000/jpg/_78464694_balotelli.jpg

Lallana just wasn't sharp enough when he came on, always looked a half-second off when making decisions esp as Real took their foot off the gas for a period there in the 2nd half. Liverpool fans annoyed with Balotelli swapping shirts with Pepe going into the dressing room.

Arsenal have thrown away a three goal lead. Mitrovic with the equaliser.

Bayer's free kick routine, expertly finished by Son, was really sweet yesterday
http://gfycat.com/ifr/UnrulyTimelyArctichare

http://gfycat.com/ifr/UnrulyTimelyArctichare

they were the definition of a shit team with one of the best three centre forwards in the world
44% possession at home to a team vs a team with 10 men for most of the game

No David Silva or Toure, yet you'd want to expect better.

scholes said he would pick lampard instead of toure based on his cl performances and lack of defensive tracking, although his overall form this season suggests he is on the downslope anyway

lampard wasnt particularly great either, typical sturdy but unexceptional chelsea style performance in europe

fernando and fernandinho behind silva could work in a counterattacking team

this cumbersome translation of a german article is just about worth reading in terms of the general uselessness of english teams in europe (apart from the one coached by mourinho) relative to expenditure

http://spielverlagerung.com/2014/11/21/the-problem-with-english-football/

Chelsea were flying tonight. Just saw them goals, that's some 2011 Barca shit man, as much as I have to admit it.

― a pleasant little psychedelic detour in the elevator (Amory Blaine), Tuesday, 25 November 2014 22:32 (Yesterday)

the fuck is this? john terry header from corner, useless goalkeeping error at near post, ludicrous own goal from corner and two simple counterattacking goals while schalke were chasing it

their most important attacking player this season was one who couldnt even get in the crap 2013 barca team, in a world of terrible defences its pretty clear what their main virtue is (arguably their back six is the best in the epl in every position)

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/79286000/jpg/_79286770_dortmund_bvb_4.jpg

I saw great beauty in the two counter attacking goals, the passing leading up towards them, but whatevs nakh

that barca team never gave the ball away, they were the least counterattack dependent of all great sides
those goals clearly resemble jose's madrid that scored about a dozen goals one season from the other teams' corners

they were the definition of a shit team with one of the best three centre forwards in the world

hugely otm but god, Aguero is a delight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxW3dToU_Tw

I know there are no good CBs any more but it makes me so angry that EBJT (being readied for the scrapheap 3yrs ago) is still able to consider himself one of the best defenders in the EPL.

this is the first time ive ever had any respect for terry precisely for managing to prolong his career beyond death

in any other side he would probably get burned but he has two of the best recovery defenders in the world next to him in azpilicueta and cahill, and matic ahead of him, which is very similar to gallas, carvalho and makalele during his prime

good central defenders is another matter, thiago silva the best by miles, bayern, madrid and dortmund all have three of them, kompany and maybe koscielny in england, probably mathieu deserves inclusion and mascherano, improbably, laporte and maybe mangala will get there shortly

Comedy goals in the Liverpool game so far. Mignolet spills a shot hit straight at him and someone bangs in the rebound. Ludogorets defenders let the ball bounce in the box twice and Lambert heads it in. Two shit teams, there's going to be a few goals at least I reckon.

Feeling for the guy but that was dire by Mignolet

Scandalous

are you fucking shitting me

Ikr decent second half performance and then go and concede a goal from a corner with 2 mins left. 3rd goal conceded from a set piece in the CL so far. Even so if they won it would still all be down to the next match against Basle.

Liverpool are struggling against Basel as if they are the main character in Kafka's Metamorphosis, having just woken up.

Xp fuck this, got punished instantly by Gerard :(

well-struck

holy shit dat goal

Whoa Walter Samuel... Didn't know he was still playing...

Have great admiration for Basel trying to get their foot in the door so consistently with Europe's best 16.

Man City through to the last 16

non-rampant totti

Yeah ridiculous really, he was a passenger for the entire game.

good article

http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2014/12/11/champions-league-60th-anniversary-wolves-honved-gabriel-hanot

seems a bit of a contradiction that the man so moral to be above committing a professional foul has no problem purposefully creating a water logged pitch to give his team an advantage.

yeah i thought the same thing but his argument would probably have been that it affected both teams equally, rather like the anatole france quote about rich and poor both being forbidden from sleeping under bridges

Paris St-Germain v Chelsea
Manchester City v Barcelona
Bayer Leverkusen v Atletico Madrid
Juventus v Borussia Dortmund
Schalke v Real Madrid
Shakhtar Donetsk v Bayern Munich
Arsenal v AS Monaco
FC Basel - FC Porto

From a Leverkusen perspective, Atletico doesn't feel like the total nightmare Real/Barca could have been. Nonetheless totally hopeless, and inevitable after bottling going through first in the last two matches...

https://twitter.com/PSG_inside/status/567377353509052420

https://twitter.com/PochoLavezzi/status/567368556757925888

uh

good game this

PSG should have a few cards and maybe a goal already

d Costa an intriguing mix of the bad and the ugly

this may be the game where I see ibrahimovic look all that

oh great goal

beauty

I predict a classic finish to this one

PSG hasn't looked this good in a while really wish they'd score a second one

dislike veratti

rong

luiz tho he's a fuckin eejit

like idk exactly how much 50m worth should buy you in eejit but I feel it ought to be a lot more than one

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31514168

nice one england

London, most tolerant city in Europe, man.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-Hb3f2IgAAJ12o.jpg

Churchill wd've been appalled to be associated with these ah never mind too easy

Remember that Chelsea fan who used to post here? Pete something? I remember him once tearing a strip off me for associating Chelsea with Rangers, he was all, "How dare you try to infect us with your tawdry sectarianism", or words to that effect (obv., as a Celtic fan, sectarianism could be inferred in my case).

Pete was a really good poster but iirc he fucked off after we intimated john terry might be a cunt

i think of pete most tuesdays whenever i disconsolately leaf thru the snotrag yuppie brochure masquerading as time out these days

(sudden urge to shout PARK LIFE after reading that post back, soz)