Posts Tagged ‘Barcelona’

We’re through!

Thursday, November 8th, 2012

It’s no surprise that my predictions were wrong again but I don’t care about that today because we’ve won our Champions League group and actually managed to do it in a fairly convincing way, so I’m happy. Well, I say it was convincing but that’s largely ignoring the first half – I can’t believe we managed to concede first again. We really must sort that little habit out.

The win’s especially pleasing because Man City are having a nightmare at the moment and their 2-2 draw against Ajax on Tuesday puts them in a precarious position. They’re now relying on other results to see if they get through or not, which is always a bad place to be in. The big story from their game was Mancini’s criticism of the officials afterwards, having had a winning goal disallowed due to it being offside. Replays do seem to suggest that it wasn’t but, as I’ve said before, that’s football – swings and roundabouts. They can’t blame that on their defeat – they shouldn’t have conceded the two other goals if they wanted to win.

Talking of winning, Celtic managed to pull off the seemingly impossible by beating Barcelona 2-1 at home, with the winner being scored by an 18 year old substitute. A fantastic result for them and a real fairytale way to do it – I’ve always thought of Celtic as my ‘Scottish team’, so I’m pleased for them. Barcelona are still favourites to win that group but it gives Celtic a real chance of getting through to the last 16.

Anyway, enough about other teams, for now I’m going to enjoy the fact that we’re comfortably through to the last 16 – I’ll be keeping an eye on the Champions League fixtures table to see who we might be facing. Hopefully we can go all the way again this year – here’s the last time we did it:

I never tire of watching that …

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Champions League crunch time

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

It’s a pretty important week in the Champions League for British teams, with crucial games for Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Celtic and, of course, Man United. In previous years I’ve always been confident that we’ll progress fairly easily in the competition and at least make the quarter finals but after last year, when we got knocked out in the early stages, I struggle to be so certain.

We’re playing Braga tomorrow night in the return leg from the game last month, when we went 2-0 down and came back to win it 3-2. I’m hoping for no such drama this time and hope we finally start to assert ourselves in this competition and secure our place in the last 16. That’s what I’m hoping for – we’ll have to wait and see what actually happens.

The other big games this week are Man City v Ajax and Celtic v Barcelona. City haven’t been producing much form recently so it’ll be interesting to see how they come out for that fixture. Celtic are playing Barcelona, which needs little more saying about it really. They lost 2-1 away to them in October but it was a spirited performance so it will be interesting to see if they can cause a bit of an upset this time, playing at home. I hope so – Barcelona are obviously a fantastic football team, perhaps the best, but I do find them a bit boring sometimes, if they’re just playing their game of ‘keep the ball’. If Celtic get an early lead it could be a really interesting game and Barcelona’s big names will have to pull out all the stops, which is always good to watch. Like this…

Anyway – my predictions for this week:

  • Celtic 1, Barcelona 2 (sorry Celtic)
  • Man City 2, Ajax 3
  • Man United 2, Braga 1

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Building up to the Manchester derby

Thursday, April 19th, 2012

It’s a good job I’m not a betting man because I would have lost some money on last night’s Champions League semi-finals. My prediction for the Real Madrid v Bayern Munich result wasn’t too far out but it was a bit of a shock to watch Chelsea sneak a 1-0 win over Barcelona. It was a fascinating game of football to watch and I am, surprisingly for a Man United fan, pleased for Chelsea – I think they deserved it. They really stuck to their game plan and didn’t let Barcelona rattle them, which I think was key for the win. We all know how good Barcelona are at keeping the ball and relentlessly plugging away to create chances but Chelsea showed last night that if you stay solid, keep your structure and block them out as much as possible, it makes it difficult even for Messi to score. OK, so they had a bit of luck too and Barcelona could have scored three or four but they didn’t and that is, at the end of the day, what football is all about – scoring more goals than the other team.

It’s going to be a big couple of weeks for football from now – Man United have got a home game against Everton on Sunday and I’ll be watching the second legs of the Champions League semi-finals next week, of course. Then it’s all about us against City on Monday, 30 April – the big Manchester derby. It’s possible that game will have a big influence on who is going to win the Premier League in 2012, so it’s about as important as it gets for us. Me and a couple of the lads have managed to get tickets as well; we don’t normally go to derby games but this one is just too important to miss and there are even a few lads who have moved away coming back for it. There are five of them, making it twelve of us in total, meaning our big group of mates will be hitting the town together again for the first time in years. We’ve got a couple of Manchester serviced apartments booked, so watch out if you’re in town that weekend – it could get messy!

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Champions League semi-finals

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

In a strange way I’m happy Man United aren’t playing in the Champions League semi-finals this week. As much as I obviously like it when we win big competitions, it does get quite stressful at this stage of the tournament and it’s very difficult to actual enjoy watching the games – I’m normally too nervous. So it’ll be nice to sit back and watch the Champions League semi-finals this week and next without having to stress about how we’re playing. Bayern Munich and Real Madrid play their first leg tonight with Chelsea against Barcelona tomorrow. The Chelsea players have said in interviews that they believe they can beat Barcelona and of course they have to be positive about it but they are definitely the underdogs. Barcelona are undoubtedly the best team in the world at the moment and if the likes of Messi and Iniesta are on form – which they always seem to be – it’ll be a very tough game for Chelsea. Good to watch though.

I’m not the sort of fan to wish ill on our rival clubs – I know a lot of people will want to see Chelsea get properly beaten but I really don’t mind who wins, I’m just looking forward to a couple of good games of football and hopefully lots of goals. For what it’s worth, here are my predictions for the Champions League semi-finals:

  • Chelsea v Barcelona first leg: 2-1 to Barcelona.
  • Bayern Munich v Real Madrid first leg: 2-2.
  • Chelsea v Barcelona second leg: 4-1 to Barcelona, making it 6-2 on aggregate.
  • Bayern Munich v Real Madrid second leg: 3-2 to Real Madrid, making it 5-4 on aggregate.

So if I was a betting man I would put a bit of money on a Real Madrid v Barcelona final. I won’t give a prediction for the final result until the semi-finals have been played because you never know, Chelsea might just pull off something unexpected.

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