Fair enough but I wouldn't read to much into Lewandowski's injury. I've seen plenty of players play fine with those masks. Robben's injury is a far bigger blow, though.

see here's the thing-- last time bayern played without robben they did well regardless. i'm not saying barcelona is porto, but bernat and gotze are plenty able on the wings. plus plus plus (midfielders, defenders, etc).

lewandowski is the piece that makes the total football machine effective because he can score in that sort of commotion. otherwise the goalpoacher is muller who is great but less magic.

i get that robben can break down defenses with his dribble like nobody else, but he can also render the tikitaka nulll... wait, he's bayern's messi in the power of breakdown... yes.

at least on the left there's gotze and/or bernat. but no alaba. no ribery-- not yet anyway. badstuber re-injured out for the season.

ah ah ha, bayern is fucked. barcelona is in full force, yes? at least the deadly trio upfront? this year the wheels are coming off bayern's cart.

looking at things right now, barcelona should win the cup. barring some tactical miracle from st. pep-- that he'd have to perform twice, plus the final. very long odds.

I would make Barcelona favourites, too, but all I meant about Lewandowski was his face injury shouldn't affect how he plays. ... Unless Barca's defenders decide to get a bit loose with their elbows, which we all know they will.

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2015/05/...erns-build-up/

--

eta: bayer 2 bayern 0! final score

hurray tevez! the bernabeu is going to be harder though.

Gordon Bennett, what a game.

i just skipped the lot and read the bayern segment

(bayern is NOT going to win this year)

to NOT score away goals is a terribly risky proposition. i don't think they'll try to kill the game and not score. they'd have to do that also on the return leg.

so basically they're saying the only way bayern can win is to go on penalties.

sure, weirdest shit has happened, so why not.

but it won't happen. bayern is finished for the season. they should go home & rest.

No robben?? Sucks for bayern.. so will Robben go down as the Karl Malone of futbol or then Charles Barkley?

bayern under siege, and no robbery to launch a fast counter

smells like doom

idiotically missed the first 20'; because of work (i finally got into work and forgot everything else). apparently it's something that jonathan wilson will write 16 pages about, per the guardian.

well now comes more pain in the 2nd half-- is alonso going to miss the 2nd leg because of yellows?


Graecum est; non legitur

My usual streams are fucked for the Barca game so I've had to sack off watching it. Some good stuff going on though. An intense game that's for sure.

Oh and Ronaldo is such a dick :rolleyes:

i got my legal legit paid for fucksucker.com working-- it's great but it EATS BANDWIDTH and my internet is capped.

been saving it all month for today ha ha.

cronaldo: his PR people arranged that so it can be featured in his personal museum yes?

Ha!

hey if you cant watch you can still read this:

https://twitter.com/Zonal_Marking

prrrrp! 2nd half

Karl Marlone is one of the greatest basketball players of all time, who never won the biggest trophie, always finished second or third.. same with Barkley...then i remembered its only in World Cup that Robben always loses, and has been on league teams that won their leagues so he is officially better than malone or barkley.. maybe Karl should have tried futbol??

shit i feel like i just got punched in the fucking throat

messi is great though

--

AGAIN.

well, fuck. i shouldn't have gotten my hopes up for a 0-0 tie.

I just saw that goal checking the score.. looked like Grantland recommended "try not to score" almost worked for Bayern.. at least for 75 booooooooring minutes or so ;)

...

I'd like to think you're baiting, but you're such a dingleberry that I can't tell.

they were not "trying not to score"

in fact they had taken the game to barca's half after 45 minutes under siege.

it had gotten balanced.

messi is messi though.

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.