Yes im just fucking with y'all im at work and not watching.

aaaaaand 3

neymar

go home and rest up for next year bayern.

get a new medical department.

goodbye bayern. barca ain't porto. beautiful game!

bayern on its last leg though. playing the bench. seriously. a blessing in disguise. get everyonee on a stretcher before permanent injuries.

==

catching an interview w/ piqué saying how they knew bayern vulnerable to counters.

(alwasy from the center, always always)

oh now someone in german asking neuer. i wish i understood wtf hes saying. "schlf schlf schlf messi" "situazion".

hahah. everyone is bad mouthing neuer for saying something "i'll show messi who's boss", but i like it when players have a little bit of personality ya know? standard interviews are so boring they might as well not be conducted... "its a team game....we'll do our best....they're a great team....bla bla bla" That's why as much he annoys me I appreciate joey barton. makes the game more interesting

ha ha ha ha. neuer might be a cocky bastard but he's earned the right. the way he stopped the suarez attempt was amazing.

piqué's interview was a bit bland like that but did reveal some tactical points-- how they're more comfortable without the ball now, and how they expected bayern to have the ball, and how they defended well & got them on counters where they knew bayern was vulnerable.

the list of bayern's injuries is too long to count. rode also! even lewandowski, supposedly fit, with his mask-- what could he do? the way he freaked out when he was tripped... i'd be scared shitless to break my face again.

i don't know why pep took out muller. he was the one closest to score. they should all go home and sleep for a week now.

bayern was definitely not at full strength here. and thank god! looking forward to both ties return legs. i really hope madrid doesn't make it into the final. i've seen enough classico's thank you.

It'd be a shame if you saw tonight's result as being due to Bayern's shortcomings. Barca were incredible. Not just Messi (although he was incredible) but Rakitic, Alvez, the whole team just got it right tonight. Mesmerising. This talk of injuries reminds me of the Mayweather-Pacquiao aftermath. Yes one side was depleted but the other side was so good that I don't think it really mattered. I honestly don't think Bayern were bad tonight but Barca, individually and tactically, were absolutely brilliant.

yes but i'd like to argue that they were absolutely brilliant in part because bayern gave them the room to do just that. of course they occuppied that room (the room was not) but the room that there.

same as bayern was brilliant vs. roma or porto -- yes they were brilliant, but also the others let them.

takes 2 to tango.

much respect to barcelona though. and yes, messi in particular. today he was ON.

I admit that Pep got his tactics suicidally wrong. Going man for man with Messi, Neymar and Suarez meant they lost all control of the game and that their 3-man defence would inevitably tire towards the end. If it'd somehow worked he'd probably be declared a genius from now to eternity, but realistically, how could it? Nobody would've criticised him for packing the defence in the hope of nicking an away goal but to try and stop that frontline for 90 minutes with just 3 defenders, at the Nou Camp ... well no, Pep, love you to bits but, just no.



The zonalmarking review is gonna be fascinating

Bayern clearly ran out of gas in giving up so many gols in the waning minutes.. it happens. Really they probably just lost it mentally after that Messi goal, it became, "Fuck it we're screwed anyway."\

Zonalmarking review is up

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2015/05/...st-15-minutes/

Didn't notice that Pep had switched back to a 4 man defence after 15 minutes.

no, they were not "out of gas" in any way... they actually were in better shape than barcelona... but after messi's goal they were actually forced to press further forward, which left them more vulnerable to the dreaded counters...

...dingleberry!


that was an awesome read. that's as good as it gets in football analysis.


it was the big talk of the guardian live game blog. and cox tweeted about it (i posted link above). i actually tuned it just after the switch because i got caught in work and spaced it (!!!!!). will rewatch this evening, with that segment included, and cry in my beer, ha ha ha ha.

Hey i didn't watch, but anytime a team gives up 3 goals in less than 20 minutes and its the end of the match tends to equate to some gas running out. Thanks for the clarification..No need for name calling now.. even if it is SYG

but but but but

Yeah Gary Neville was wetting himself over the tactics of man-marking each player then switching to 4-4-2 on the commentary.

I ended up having to watch it in the pub so missed all that. I wasn't even that sure about the initial 3 at the back. I was watching with a friend and we were both, "it looks like he's gone man-for-man but he can't have, surely"

i linked this in the previous page but i'll repost here:

https://twitter.com/Zonal_Marking

he's the one thing that's gonna make me finally get on twatter.

that second goal by Messi was from another planet.