The Official Football Thread

[Terrestrial Dream]

Congrats to Chelsea. Despite my dislike for players like Terry I am glad for Drogba and Lampard.

[ars89]

Wow Bayern can only blame themselves, so many missed opportunities. Also Chelsea is so damn lucky.

[Shinndou]

Congrats to Chelsea! I was rooting for them to win it, even if some people may argue that Di Matteo hasn't played a decisive role, I am glad he was able to lift the cup, he's a honest and good lad.

Bayern can really only blame themselves for lacking the killer instinct to end the game within the 90 minutes.

[Kakashi]

Great match, well done to Chelsea. Di Matteo was incredibly relaxed in the post-match interview. Rabid celebration when he got a hold of the trophy though, haha.

[Bri]

Congrats to Chelsea for their win. They rode their insane luck like a rodeo cowboy. They have been the worse side in pretty much every round since the group stages but somehow muddled through. Football died a little bit today.

[kayote]

i'm getting sick of this. during the barcelona match and after we have won.

it's not luck that we won. it's that we are better. if your striker or your most reliable player is not good enough to score when it really matters that's not bad luck or good luck that's not your best player. we also have a reliable player, and guess what he did, he SCORED when it mattered.

during the barca legs we had like 5 chances and we finished 3 of them. barcelona had 20+ and the finished 2. that's not bad luck that's better finishing. we had the players that won us the game. when it came time for them to be in front of goal they did what they were suppose to do. which is put it in the back of the net.

and football is about tactics, it's not that a side playes better football it's the side that wins.

against bayern. it'd not luck that we won, it's that they could not finish. i KNEW Robben would miss. you only have to see his world cup 2010 preformace. and yes he scored against Real but he choked in the final. that's not luck that's a player who chokes on the big occasion. and don't get me started on Gomez, you only have to see his preformance against real to see that he can't finish. he may have scored a lot of goals in the German league but this is the Champions League.

it was stupid to take muller off. just because Bayern were 1 goal up, it's the champions league final, what did you think were just going to give up or keep attacking and not score. we hadn't really had a shot on target, Kalou's doesn't count it was going away from the goal. and Bayern had like 10+ set pieces. corners mainly and they did nothing with it.

they can only blame themselves. not good enough

and don't start on this just cause we won i am saying all this. i believed we would win since the Napoli second leg. that was a turning point for the club.

*Sigh* rant over

[Concordia]

I'm happy the players like Drogba and Lampard got to win one; they deserve it.

But as a Spurs fan I'm also mega pissed that we won't be in the CL next year now. Oh well.

[kayote]

Originally Posted by Concordia

I'm happy the players like Drogba and Lampard got to win one; they deserve it.

But as a Spurs fan I'm also mega pissed that we won't be in the CL next year now. Oh well.

it's gonna be hard. Bale said he was gonna leave and modrich is going to go. it's a shame you have a good squad.

i doubt he'll come to us but as a chelsea fan i would love to get walker. Bosingwa is going.... sorry.

[Bri]

Originally Posted by kayote

it's not luck that we won. it's that we are better. if your striker or your most reliable player is not good enough to score when it really matters that's not bad luck or good luck that's not your best player. we also have a reliable player, and guess what he did, he SCORED when it mattered.

during the barca legs we had like 5 chances and we finished 3 of them. barcelona had 20+ and the finished 2. that's not bad luck that's better finishing. we had the players that won us the game. when it came time for them to be in front of goal they did what they were suppose to do. which is put it in the back of the net.

and football is about tactics, it's not that a side playes better football it's the side that wins.

I'm sorry but statistics says no. There is very little correlation between the amount of chances a team converts in one game to the next, or between the amount of saves it can make against opponents chances in one game to the next.

A team's objective quality/skill is based on the ratio of chances it creates versus the amount of chances it gives away. Conversion is mostly based on chance.

For those interested in football-statistics behind it, see PDO: http://jameswgrayson.wordpress.com/2...sv-pdo-part-n/
and http://11tegen11.net/?p=1731

[Shinndou]

Originally Posted by kayote

i believed we would win since the Napoli second leg. that was a turning point for the club.

Agreed. That game provided a decent injection of self-confidence. It's as if they finally remembered they weren't a bad team afterall.

Surprised by Di Matteo being so calm, I wonder if it's because he thinks he might still be sacked (Abramovich can be truly lunatic).

[Arturia Polaris]

Assuming anyone is interested, there's a video going around of the Chelsea celebrations inside the stadium (the actual players)

Essien at one point starts to grind Eva Carneiro (dat physician)

Just a tiny piece of info.

Arturia

PS: Congratz to chels

[germanturkey]

well, i'll eat my words. congrats chelski. bayern really lost that one more than chelsea won it though...

[Malkuth]

Is Chelsea the first russian team to win the champions' league

Teasing aside... congrats, they deserved it! and had a really tough run, which they approach with realism and a lot of work, attributes I expected of Bayern which made the same mistakes as Barcelona in the semi-finals.

[KyriaL]

Chelsea have won it! Drogba once again shows that he can stand up to the occasion, just like Cech who was a monster in penalties, as much or maybe even more than Neuer.

[Kokukirin]

I think Chelsea's performance wasn't great. In the Barca tie, they restricted Barca's chances to the minimum and thus maximized their chance to win. But in the final, Bayern managed many more decent chances that the forwards inexplicably failed to convert. Robben and Gomez in particular choked, somewhat predictably. The game felt more like a self-inflicted defeat by Bayern than a well-earned victory by Chelsea.

As usual, the Champion's League Semi-finals are better than the final.

Regardless, it's good to see Chelsea finally winning a CL while Drogba, Lampard, Cech are still around. They were so close to the trophy on a few occasions and they probably deserve to win it once, even under most unlikely circumstances.

[risingstar3110]

They really played like Chelsea back Mourinho~esque, with sold and compacted defense. Have to give them credit for that. Well they did have some lucks with Barcelona and Bayern completely ruined their own goal scoring opportunities how many times. But still that's some good defense

I was torn before this match, because i want Chelsea to get the CL spot , but does not want them to win. But i guess there is silver lining either way

It must be suck to be Bayern and Spur fans last night. So close to their target, but the ending ruins them all

[Shinndou]

For anyone interested, there's the Italian Cup Final tonight, it's Juventus vs Napoli.

[germanturkey]

guess what they're watching

[Solafighter]

Yeap, Merkel even did comment this moment. Just ridiculous.

[Haak]

The look on Merkel's face is priceless.