Dr. Eddies Wingman
Brighter than thousand_suns
Well. United took responsibility. Now there's at least one return leg where the home team has to go for it.
Official Football Thread
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Well. United took responsibility. Now there's at least one return leg where the home team has to go for it.
The Flash
Dennis Wilcock did 9/11
Probably but hopefully not.
TheSeventhSonRoberto
Rockin in Rio
man u lost! may you live forever in mediocrity! (obviously they'll bounce back next season but let me boast in this glorious season)
Dr. Eddies Wingman
Brighter than thousand_suns
Arsenal are on their way to an even more glorious trophy than last year's "4th place trophy", namely, the "finish above Man United in the league without actually improving from last year" trophy.
TheSeventhSonRoberto
Rockin in Rio
yes that trophy as mentioned above me
TheSeventhSonRoberto
Rockin in Rio
already Chelsea clinton scored a gol, not good news
TheSeventhSonRoberto
Rockin in Rio
went to the bank 3 hours ago and despite your wishes I didn't get mugged. I'll go out again at night maybe then your wish will come true. Back to football what a gol by bale. Game over Schalke don't have the offense to come back. Hopefully Galatasaray can pull it even against Chelsea.
Black Wizard
Pleb Hunter
I still think Manchester United can turn it around in the second leg.
Go Galata! 2-2 in London can still get them through.
Dr. Eddies Wingman
Brighter than thousand_suns
You're the one who is talking about hating all the time. If you believe others wish to see bad things happen to you, despite no such thing being written ... maybe that speaks more about you than about others.
Try smiling.
The Flash
Dennis Wilcock did 9/11
Now that the excitement is over, I'll talk about the game between Galatasaray and Chelsea in detail. Kind of like an analysis.
Jose Mourinho's teams always come out with a pragmatist approach and try to get the best result without spending much energy. Considering the team has been employing a more defensive-minded strategy in the past couple of weeks of Premiership, it was expected that Chelsea would come out more in control, laid back and look for the opponent's mistakes to score a goal that can be decisive due to away goal rule. Chelsea started with a defense lineup of Azpilicueta, Terry, Cahill and Ivanovic with Lampard and Ramires handling the midfield and with Hazard, Schürrle and Willian as attackers behind Torres. Oscar was injured before the game so he only entered in the last minute while David Luiz was ruled out before the game. Not knowing about Oscar's injury, I was surprised to see them start with Schürrle but it would start to make sense once the game started to progress.
Chances are you're not familiar with all Galatasaray players and their strategy but I'll try to explain. Galatasaray mostly start out with a 4-1-3-2 formation, with the "1" being a player able to go back to form a 3 man defense, allowing the team to play 3-5-2. While they start the games like that, most of the time the formation turns into 4-3-3 after a while. Roberto Mancini is known to experiment with formations during the games so it shouldn't be a surprise for you. For tonight's game Mancini shocked me and many Galatasaray fans by starting with 4-4-2 and with some odd player selections. Galatasaray started with a lineup of Fernando Muslera, Emmanuel Eboue, Alex Telles, Aurelien Chedjou, Hakan Balta, Felipe Melo, Selçuk İnan, Izet Hajrovic, Wesley Sneijder, Burak Yılmaz and Didier Drogba. Muslera, Eboue, Telles, Melo, Selçuk, Sneijder, Burak and Drogba are regulars of the team. Chedjou doesn't play often because of the foreigner restrictions, 23 year old Semih Kaya is the regular defender of the team and not Hakan Balta, Izet Hajrovic is a winger who very rarely plays. Mancini decided not to use the classic "1", and formed the midfield with Melo-Selçuk-Hajrovic. Sneijder started as a left winger, Burak started as a right winger with Drogba as the sole striker.
Hajrovic looked very out of place. He clearly wasn't ready for a game of this caliber and was grossly out of position. The game started very fast paced, not surprising since Galatasaray was lacking the key "1" midfielder on their team. Chelsea's strategy was obviously pressuring the Gala defense and using long balls to get the best of Gala's slow defenders. Andre Schürrle was very active, producing some fantastic runs and long balls that found their target. It was quite obvious that Chelsea were going to score early. In the 9th minute, Emmanuel Eboue tried to dribble the ball on the right side of Chelsea's half and lost the ball, turning it into a counter-attack, with Andre Schürrle's quick pass finding an open Cesar Azpilicueta on the left. Fernando Muslera tried to distract him but he passed to Fernando Torres who sent the ball to the back of the net easily. After the goal Chelsea continued to dominate the game with Gala defense looking in very bad shape, kinda reminiscent of the game against Real in Istanbul that ended 1-6.
In 30th minute, Roberto Mancini decided to bring Yekta Kurtuluş (a central midfielder) into the game for Izet Hajrovic. While Mancini's questionable move of playing Hajrovic at the start possibly caused the first 30 minutes to be a disaster, it was very big of him to admit to his mistake and use a substitition early in the game. With the game more evened out, nothing out of ordinary happened the rest of the half.
With another key move, Mancini replaced Hakan Balta with Semih Kaya. Semih Kaya is a very quick and fearless defender so he fit the mold of the game much better. Yekta Kurtuluş's effect showed itself in the second half. It wasn't really his effect but the effect of having that "1" player on the team. Melo and Selçuk started to play with more confidence as Galatasaray started to dictate the game. Chelsea lost their edge in the first half and couldn't find a way to react to the change Galatasaray brought to the game after half time. Obviously much more motivated, Galatasaray started to give Chelsea a taste of their own medicine by employing hard pressure. Chelsea started to lose control of the ball and their possession percentage started to drop. Eden Hazard was ineffective, Andre Schürrle lost his performance level once there wasn't any open spaces left. While Branislav Ivanovic played some fantastic defense on the right wing, Galatasaray started to attack from their right and from the middle. Felipe Melo was simply outstanding, not surprising with his level of form recently, outplayed Ramires and Lampard in every way. Galatasaray started to find decent chances with Selçuk İnan hitting the post near the goal after a Didier Drogba header. Just after one minute later, Chelsea defense had their only brain fart of the game by losing their positions in a corner kick, Aurelien Chedjou was left wide open near the goal and found the net after getting the ball with a fantastic Wesley Sneijder cross. Gala continued to dominate the possession for the rest of the game but couldn't find any decent chances apart from a great strike outside the box by left back Alex Telles, which was saved by Petr Cech.
Chelsea underperformed in the 2nd half and looked very timid, for no reason at all. Had they been more aggressive the score wouldn't be like this. I have to give props to Gala for their fight and coldblooded display in the 2nd half, not only were they fighting harder, they also managed to outplay a world-class team. The score was fair, though.
Branislav Ivanovic was the man of the match for Chelsea, was an absolute train out there, won pretty much every one on one battle in the game. Andre Schürrle performed well in the first but disappeared in the second, Willian was the sole bright spot for the team in the second half.
Felipe Melo was the man of the match for Galatasaray which is something that can be said about majority of their games this year. Yekta Kurtuluş and Semih Kaya were momentum changers, I also liked what I saw from Gala's 21 year old left back Alex Telles who looks to be on his way to becoming a very very good player. Reminds me of Marcelo to some degree, less technical but plays with more tenacity.
Chelsea have the advantage going for the next game and they'll probably get the job done, but Mancini's in game adjustments, the team's level of confidence and their tenacity gives me hope for reaching the Quarter Finals. Hopefully another good game is ahead of us.
Stats from the game:
Jose Mourinho's teams always come out with a pragmatist approach and try to get the best result without spending much energy. Considering the team has been employing a more defensive-minded strategy in the past couple of weeks of Premiership, it was expected that Chelsea would come out more in control, laid back and look for the opponent's mistakes to score a goal that can be decisive due to away goal rule. Chelsea started with a defense lineup of Azpilicueta, Terry, Cahill and Ivanovic with Lampard and Ramires handling the midfield and with Hazard, Schürrle and Willian as attackers behind Torres. Oscar was injured before the game so he only entered in the last minute while David Luiz was ruled out before the game. Not knowing about Oscar's injury, I was surprised to see them start with Schürrle but it would start to make sense once the game started to progress.
Chances are you're not familiar with all Galatasaray players and their strategy but I'll try to explain. Galatasaray mostly start out with a 4-1-3-2 formation, with the "1" being a player able to go back to form a 3 man defense, allowing the team to play 3-5-2. While they start the games like that, most of the time the formation turns into 4-3-3 after a while. Roberto Mancini is known to experiment with formations during the games so it shouldn't be a surprise for you. For tonight's game Mancini shocked me and many Galatasaray fans by starting with 4-4-2 and with some odd player selections. Galatasaray started with a lineup of Fernando Muslera, Emmanuel Eboue, Alex Telles, Aurelien Chedjou, Hakan Balta, Felipe Melo, Selçuk İnan, Izet Hajrovic, Wesley Sneijder, Burak Yılmaz and Didier Drogba. Muslera, Eboue, Telles, Melo, Selçuk, Sneijder, Burak and Drogba are regulars of the team. Chedjou doesn't play often because of the foreigner restrictions, 23 year old Semih Kaya is the regular defender of the team and not Hakan Balta, Izet Hajrovic is a winger who very rarely plays. Mancini decided not to use the classic "1", and formed the midfield with Melo-Selçuk-Hajrovic. Sneijder started as a left winger, Burak started as a right winger with Drogba as the sole striker.
Hajrovic looked very out of place. He clearly wasn't ready for a game of this caliber and was grossly out of position. The game started very fast paced, not surprising since Galatasaray was lacking the key "1" midfielder on their team. Chelsea's strategy was obviously pressuring the Gala defense and using long balls to get the best of Gala's slow defenders. Andre Schürrle was very active, producing some fantastic runs and long balls that found their target. It was quite obvious that Chelsea were going to score early. In the 9th minute, Emmanuel Eboue tried to dribble the ball on the right side of Chelsea's half and lost the ball, turning it into a counter-attack, with Andre Schürrle's quick pass finding an open Cesar Azpilicueta on the left. Fernando Muslera tried to distract him but he passed to Fernando Torres who sent the ball to the back of the net easily. After the goal Chelsea continued to dominate the game with Gala defense looking in very bad shape, kinda reminiscent of the game against Real in Istanbul that ended 1-6.
In 30th minute, Roberto Mancini decided to bring Yekta Kurtuluş (a central midfielder) into the game for Izet Hajrovic. While Mancini's questionable move of playing Hajrovic at the start possibly caused the first 30 minutes to be a disaster, it was very big of him to admit to his mistake and use a substitition early in the game. With the game more evened out, nothing out of ordinary happened the rest of the half.
With another key move, Mancini replaced Hakan Balta with Semih Kaya. Semih Kaya is a very quick and fearless defender so he fit the mold of the game much better. Yekta Kurtuluş's effect showed itself in the second half. It wasn't really his effect but the effect of having that "1" player on the team. Melo and Selçuk started to play with more confidence as Galatasaray started to dictate the game. Chelsea lost their edge in the first half and couldn't find a way to react to the change Galatasaray brought to the game after half time. Obviously much more motivated, Galatasaray started to give Chelsea a taste of their own medicine by employing hard pressure. Chelsea started to lose control of the ball and their possession percentage started to drop. Eden Hazard was ineffective, Andre Schürrle lost his performance level once there wasn't any open spaces left. While Branislav Ivanovic played some fantastic defense on the right wing, Galatasaray started to attack from their right and from the middle. Felipe Melo was simply outstanding, not surprising with his level of form recently, outplayed Ramires and Lampard in every way. Galatasaray started to find decent chances with Selçuk İnan hitting the post near the goal after a Didier Drogba header. Just after one minute later, Chelsea defense had their only brain fart of the game by losing their positions in a corner kick, Aurelien Chedjou was left wide open near the goal and found the net after getting the ball with a fantastic Wesley Sneijder cross. Gala continued to dominate the possession for the rest of the game but couldn't find any decent chances apart from a great strike outside the box by left back Alex Telles, which was saved by Petr Cech.
Chelsea underperformed in the 2nd half and looked very timid, for no reason at all. Had they been more aggressive the score wouldn't be like this. I have to give props to Gala for their fight and coldblooded display in the 2nd half, not only were they fighting harder, they also managed to outplay a world-class team. The score was fair, though.
Branislav Ivanovic was the man of the match for Chelsea, was an absolute train out there, won pretty much every one on one battle in the game. Andre Schürrle performed well in the first but disappeared in the second, Willian was the sole bright spot for the team in the second half.
Felipe Melo was the man of the match for Galatasaray which is something that can be said about majority of their games this year. Yekta Kurtuluş and Semih Kaya were momentum changers, I also liked what I saw from Gala's 21 year old left back Alex Telles who looks to be on his way to becoming a very very good player. Reminds me of Marcelo to some degree, less technical but plays with more tenacity.
Chelsea have the advantage going for the next game and they'll probably get the job done, but Mancini's in game adjustments, the team's level of confidence and their tenacity gives me hope for reaching the Quarter Finals. Hopefully another good game is ahead of us.
Stats from the game:
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TheSeventhSonRoberto
Rockin in Rio
I was expecting the crowd to be more loud for Galatasaray , but wouldn't that be something if no English team reaches the quarter finals. If Arsenal gets eliminated in a couple of weeks then I am 100% rooting for Barcelona.