i saw those photos earlier and laughed so hard i forgot to post a reply.


ow. he's fucked. a pity that such a good player can't help to act like a little kid. he's hilarious, but damn, he's shooting himself in the nuts. i heard he was banned for a long time in holland for biting, and they called him "the cannibal". the mike tyson of football! -- extremely talented but out of control.

okay i found one more, not as funny, but still--

Seems like he's getting a slap on the wrist at the moment. Wanker.

So a below par Man U are champions of a below par Premiership. Thank God for the relegation battle and the fight the the 4th CL spot. But still not a vintage season.

not to mention 2 mouth watering CL semi-finals! Is it tomorrow yet???

Yeah, definitely. It wasn't a criticism of football overall this season, just not a great one for the Prem, quality wise. Can't wait for today (Tuesday) and tomorrow's CL games. I'll be ordering in the tapas for both matches.

Van Persie's goal *kisses finger Italian style* MWAH. And a frankly brilliant cross from Rooney too.

goetze to Bayern!!! nooooooo

http://www.goal.com/en/news/15/germa...p-signed-gotze

HOLY SHIT! i agree that's bad. i mean it's great for bayern (in a way), little goetze is fucking magic, but it skews the bundesliga ecosystem where bayern is the only big fish in the pond. that i don't like. i want a healthier pond all-around, not one huge fish that eats all the little fish before they even grow. if at least we could get a real-barcelona style rivalry that would be nice, but we're heading towards total domination-- unless klopp can do something. the reus-gotze pair was something out of this world.

balls... bring kagawa back?

who is goetze going to replace now? kroos? this is way too much and i don't like it.



brats and beer and sauerkraut!!! ha ha ha.

Is that even possible in New Mexico? Won't they just stick chilis in everything?

Anyway, news just in, starting lineups for Barca and Bayern:

Bayern Munich: Neuer; Lahm, Boateng, Dante, Alaba; Schweinsteiger, Martinez; Robben, Muller, Ribéry; Gomez

Barcelona: Valdes; Alves, Bartra, Pique, Alba; Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta; Pedro, Messi, Alexis.

WHEY!

Man this game better be as good as I'm hoping it to be. COME ON BAYERN!

WHEY!

Man this game better be as good as I'm hoping it to be. COME ON BAYERN!

we have trader joe's


alright! watch martinez vs. messi duel.

and i'm glad boateng is playing!

If you have time before the kickoff, here's Zonalmarking's tactical preview

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2013/04/...tical-preview/

Fuck!

shit, the goal came exactly from where i predicted (wings -> cross -> header) but javi martinez is on iniesta and ribery (!!) is back on messi's pocket. haven't seen him play so far back.

i'm nervous as shit for the 2nd half. gomez isn't much of a dribbler as you've all seen, the lumbering beast, but bayern needs a 2nd axis of attack with ribery so pulled back (the other sorta being the right with lahm/robben/mueller). mueller tends to lean right.

but beatiful match, damn! TENSE. VERY TENSE.

yes, i can see another goal coming from either side (unfortunately the bayern one looks more likely). but lets go barca!

its over...

no! i want 4-0!!!

HOOOOOOLy ASSSS!!!!

Thank You Santa Claus!!!!!!!

Amazing performance by bayern

I'm drinking a beer to kill this feeling of nothingness. Amazing job by Bayern. Can they be stopped?

lol just lol. Who the fuck is Messi? Why the hell he was still on by the 60th minute I've no idea. Any normal person would've taken him off for Fabergas (who has actually been ok in the last coupla matches). Tito decided to stand there looking confused and not say anything.

Easy tiger. easy. As President Charles de Gulle intervened and pardoned Jean Paul Sartre after his arrest in 1968, commenting that "you don't arrest Voltaire." you don't just sub "Messi"

Well that was painful.

Messi wasn't fit and probably should've never played (and definitely should've been sub'ed) but I don't think he was the difference. Bayern were just better all round. I wasn't expecting such a thrashing but Barcelona just weren't at the races.

i feel so hard done(is this an expression? im a bit drunk) by bayern that i hope that if real madrid makes it into the final, they destroy them. i find bayern's perfection sickening. bring on la DECIMA!!!! or even better go borussia (but gotze's leaving makes it all so bittersweet). rooting for borussia was like rooting for the future but now the future is gone. it is a post-apocalyptic bayern-esque world (dramatic enough for you?)

Yes you do. When a player is playing as bad as he did, then you sub, no matter who he is. At least Fabergas would've been able to run further than 5 paces without nearly dying.

And again, Fabergas has shown to actually be a decent player (I'll admit he should never have left Arsenal though) and his goals in the last couple of games he's played show that he would've been the player to use.

But with PSG the reverse actually happened.

And without Messi, RibEry would have been free to move up more and this would have ended 6-0

but then again, a half dead messi saved barca at psg ya know? ive watched the last few games. febragas looked lost. he scored a goal. but he doesn't understand his place. hindsight is 20-20. if they took messi out and bayern won by the same exact score people would have have been railing as to why messi was taken out. maybe they would have lost by more? i can't take alexis much more. its time for tello. sure he makes a few errant passes here and there but he can actually fucking finish an opportunity!

like minds!

a fully fit Messi might've nicked a goal or even two but the battle was lost in midfield and defence where Bayern were effectively free to attack at will, while stifling Xavi out of the game and using their height advantage to perfection.

Barcelona's era of dominance is over. The question is if Bayern can be as radical and as exciting during their period at the top. Taking nothing away from them, they've shown they can be ruthlessly efficient in destroying opponents, but will they ever capture the imagination the way Barcelona did?

The saddest part is that with four games left to play, it feels like we've already watched the final.

come on man, you're playing to the german stereotype. it's like the brazilian samba dancing thing.

there was a french muslim and a black austrian on the left wing, and there was a dutchman on the right, and they played fast, inspired, and dribbled like south americans. there was a spanish mule-faced beast that ruled the midfield (he must be basque cuz he ain't tiny). and sure, his partner (who also ruled) was this teutonic warrior type-- that just one. the header for the first goal came from a brazilian (dante). yes he didn't finish, it was mr. space-detective, who is a nerdy frogmouthed guy, all gangly like he isn't past puberty. this team is great, i love it because it's great, it has great players, and as a team they are malleable as hell, they can play beautifully and they don't just pass well, they also have power and speed and play as a whole-- except for robben who is a bit of a ball hog (but he's great).

it was the wings. it was going to be all along the wings. and height, and power and athleticism. i said so two weeks ago-- the center for barca (only up to a point, clearly), the wings for bayern.

i wish i could have read the zonal marking predictions ahead of time, they got the formation right (it was an obvious one), but the strategy was wrong (it wasn't possession vs. possession) except for the last paragraph--he got the last paragraph correct. this is it:


so, yes. wings!

barcelona had 62% possession and couldn't score. and bayern pressed magnificently, especially in the 2nd half when you'd have thought they'd be more tired, but they also sat back and let barca come to them. i don't think anybody expected ribery to play where he played-- on the attack he'd have to run this huge long sprints because he sat back so deeply going after messi. shit, everyone took turns marking messi.

okay im still kinda dizzy from this ha ha ha. but i like bayern more because they can pass almost as well as barcelona, but they can also run fast and duel in the air and shoot from afar and adapt to their opponent. hats off to heynckes, he did this. he captured my imagination last year, and after they beefed up their defense this year (javi martinez + dante) i knew they were heading for glory.

of course not all is said and done not yet no no no.

but next week: mandzukic is back! (and he can dribble better than gomez)

--

ps-- i really wanted pizarro to score a goal so i could post this:



pizza and wyngz!!! hell yeah.

maybe next week.

Haha. True. I wrote a really convoluted defence but no, you're right. But then it really is a Bayern thing more than a German one. Anyway, at first I refused to look beyond how awful Barcelona were (and I'm convinced far lesser teams than Bayern would've beaten them tonight, if not as completely) but it's clear that there's something special going on with this Bayern side. Barca diehards will no doubt point to Messi's lack of fitness and their threadbare defence but Bayern were brilliant tonight. Martinez was the stand out for me. I couldn't really work out his position/role but he definitely had Iniesta in his pocket. If Bayern can keep him and Schweinsteiger and continue to build around them they could be the dominant force for at least as long as Barcelona managed.

ribery vs messi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ2oJY_OuNE

damn, it makes me tear up a little. i'm gonna rewatch the whole thing before i go to sleep.

A horrible humiliation for Barcelona. As a fan, it pains me.

The Zonalmarking analysis is up: http://www.zonalmarking.net/2013/04/...t-performance/

Glad it isolated Martinez for special praise. Man of the Match, for me.

And am I the only one struggling to get excited about the Dortmund v Real match? It just feels like a playoff for who finishes runner up in the final. I hope Real go through just because of the chance of some Mourinho controversy but, as a match, would it even be a contest? Time for Ronaldo to show his greatness, although I'm not even sure that'd be enough against this Bayern side.

i'm excited about dortmund/madrid and i want dortmund to win.

the last dortmund/bayen matches have been won by bayern but haven't been massacres--- dortmund actually knows how to play bayern and last year they beat them handily. don't discount them so quickly.

i'm worried about how the gotze news will affect them though-- i myself am generally bothered with it too for reasons i blabbered on i think a page back. but the issue today is dortmund have a great team spirit which i hope will not be bruised. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2...gotze-transfer

and yeah martinez was king definitely. he shut down iniesta and was *everywhere*. you know in the first part of the season people were watching him play and saying "oh, he's good, but is he really worth the 40 million euros they paid for him?" it was a bit of a headscratcher. and now, oh, this is his best match to date but not his only great one. this year he's been doing amazing.

the same thing happened with mandzukic by the way. started the season as an inferior substitute for gomez and is ending it as the best starter on that spot. i don't know what bayern does in training, but i've seen them transform two good players into giants. is javi martinez worth it? hell yes he is now. and manzukic is now worth a lot more than he was last year.

In any other scenario I'd prefer Dortmund to go through. It's just the fact that Bayern have played them so many times already. I do think it would be a closer match with them than with Real, though.

Anyway, funny story: I just popped out to get a coffee and the Polish guy in the shop seemed unusually downbeat. I asked him what was wrong and he just shrugged and said "Bayern Munich".

haaa haaa haaa. maybe he'll be happy today when piszcek/kuba/lewandowski make a killing.

and you're right that real/bayern is the only question mark left in this tournament.

(but it's time the bundesliga, like rodney dangerfield, gets some respect. remember how you and h8kurdt were telling me last year that the prem was the best, etc?) ("oh, look at those picturesque germans and their quaint ownership and financial rules")

anyway, confession: i have to be out on some business today (couldn't be rescheduled and it's vital) and ouch, i'll have to miss the game, but maybe i'll be able to catch parts of it on my laptop. hence i'll have to stop looking at the internet after some point.... i hate to watch the replay for this but i'll have to.

http://www.goal.com/en/news/11/trans...s&ICID=HP_BN_3

jesus, lewandowski now too? bayern is really pissing me off..

Sure, no English team can currently compete with Bayern or Dortmund but if we take the two leagues overall, subtracting the top two sides from both, I'm not sure that the Bundesliga is anything special. In terms of strength in depth, how many German teams are left in the Europa Cup? I'm not just criticising the Bundesliga but just as I think the Spanish league's reputation is overinflated because of the success of Barca and Real I also think there's a danger in seeing Bayern's and Dortmund's success as any kind of reflection of the Bundesliga's strength as a whole.