usbcable:

the two teams are going for a Treble.
wish the two of them coyld just loose the match.
sadly one will play the final

@ eyoniggar we know Juve is no walk over but I'l rather we play them than FCB or FCB.

I happy say Guardiola is coming home. lets see who has most sympathy. at least Rafinha of FCB will be in the final. lol.

homesteady:

Nobody is underestimating any team here, instead you guys are the ones trying to underestimate barcelona! We are only saying that Barça can beat any team left in the semi final!

Like seriously? are you going to use a match that happened last year to judge form? do you even watch barca games? which barca fan does not know that our good form started this year?
If we don't expect to beat them, should we expect them to beat us?



What is this saying? Which team doesn't miss chances? Does 7-0, 6-1 scoreline show that they don't miss chances? what then happened in the 1st leg of both games?
Okay, both bayern and barca have met Man city this season - bayern in group stage, barca in the more tougher Round of 16...... yet barca won the both legs with higher margin (3-1) compared to bayern (3-3)
Have you even considered the fact that Bayern defense can be so porous and that Barça defense is also now very good at soaking in pressure?



You also need to be very objective and stop been pessimistic!

barackohandso:


Maybe he don dey hang out with Vermaelen too much

Eruditor:


I am just seeing this.

1. I made my post just before the draw was given and I stated why I preferred to face Juve now and any other team at the finals. My fear is not in beating Bayern but in doing so over 2 legs.

2. The Madrid match I referred to happened this year when we beat them 2-1 at the Nou Camp even after knowing we lost 3-1 at their home (also factoring the possibility of a head to head pairing).

As you can see, we didn't particularly play well in that game and we rode on luck to beat them as Ajanlekoko rightly alluded to (which I endorsed). We struggled against Celta and Sevilla as well, without failing to mention Valencia (even though we won all these games, there was more of serendipity to it than brawn)

3. If you compare chances Bayern created in those 7 and 6 goal games, to the goals they scored you can tell that they converted more of their chances into goals than we do. Take for instance the Man City game over 2 kegs where we created a plethora of chances but only put 3 past them including missing a penalty!

In the first leg of the games you are referring to, Bayern were stifled and reduced to half chances- it happens. I am judging them from their strengths and not weaknesses.

4. Yes Bayern's defence can be awful and I said we can exploit it but so can ours at times. Even at that the 2nd leg of the Bayern vs City game was played at the Etihad when Bayern had qualified and City needed to win the last 3 games to ensure that they did. Remember Bayern were leading 2-0 before Alonso's red card which stemmed the game in City's favor. In our own situation, we had done the hard job by beating City at the Etihad, so them coming to charge at the 2nd leg was almost undoable. Besides, City were in better form when they played Bayern than when they did us.

There are always different ways to look at things.

5. I am not being pessimistic. I believe we can beat Bayern at the Nou Camp. My trepidation is beating them over 2 legs. What if we beat them 4-2 at Nou Camp and lose 2-0 at the Allianz? What if we draw 2-2 at the Nou camp and 1-1 at the Allianz arena?

Eruditor:


I am just seeing this.

1. I made my post just before the draw was given and I stated why I preferred to face Juve now and any other team at the finals. My fear is not in beating Bayern but in doing so over 2 legs.

2. The Madrid match I referred to happened this year when we beat them 2-1 at the Nou Camp even after knowing we lost 3-1 at their home (also factoring the possibility of a head to head pairing).

As you can see, we didn't particularly play well in that game and we rode on luck to beat them as Ajanlekoko rightly alluded to (which I endorsed). We struggled against Celta and Sevilla as well, without failing to mention Valencia (even though we won all these games, there was more of serendipity to it than brawn)

3. If you compare chances Bayern created in those 7 and 6 goal games, to the goals they scored you can tell that they converted more of their chances into goals than we do. Take for instance the Man City game over 2 kegs where we created a plethora of chances but only put 3 past them including missing a penalty!

In the first leg of the games you are referring to, Bayern were stifled and reduced to half chances- it happens. I am judging them from their strengths and not weaknesses.

4. Yes Bayern's defence can be awful and I said we can exploit it but so can ours at times. Even at that the 2nd leg of the Bayern vs City game was played at the Etihad when Bayern had qualified and City needed to win the last 3 games to ensure that they did. Remember Bayern were leading 2-0 before Alonso's red card which stemmed the game in City's favor. In our own situation, we had done the hard job by beating City at the Etihad, so them coming to charge at the 2nd leg was almost undoable. Besides, City were in better form when they played Bayern than when they did us.

There are always different ways to look at things.

5. I am not being pessimistic. I believe we can beat Bayern at the Nou Camp. My trepidation is beating them over 2 legs. What if we beat them 4-2 at Nou Camp and lose 2-0 at the Allianz? What if we draw 2-2 at the Nou camp and 1-1 at the Allianz arena?

sebod:

Hmmmmmmm and what of 1-1 at the Camp and 2-2 at the Allainz? And you want us to believe there is no iota of pessimism in your write ups? I doubt it sir!

Eruditor:


I am just seeing this.

1. I made my post just before the draw was given and I stated why I preferred to face Juve now and any other team at the finals. My fear is not in beating Bayern but in doing so over 2 legs.
2. The Madrid match I referred to happened this year when we beat them 2-1 at the Nou Camp even after knowing we lost 3-1 at their home (also factoring the possibility of a head to head pairing).

As you can see, we didn't particularly play well in that game and we rode on luck to beat them as Ajanlekoko rightly alluded to (which I endorsed). We struggled against Celta and Sevilla as well, without failing to mention Valencia (even though we won all these games, there was more of serendipity to it than brawn)

3. If you compare chances Bayern created in those 7 and 6 goal games, to the goals they scored you can tell that they converted more of their chances into goals than we do. Take for instance the Man City game over 2 kegs where we created a plethora of chances but only put 3 past them including missing a penalty!

In the first leg of the games you are referring to, Bayern were stifled and reduced to half chances- it happens. I am judging them from their strengths and not weaknesses.

4. Yes Bayern's defence can be awful and I said we can exploit it but so can ours at times. Even at that the 2nd leg of the Bayern vs City game was played at the Etihad when Bayern had qualified and City needed to win the last 3 games to ensure that they did. Remember Bayern were leading 2-0 before Alonso's red card which stemmed the game in City's favor. In our own situation, we had done the hard job by beating City at the Etihad, so them coming to charge at the 2nd leg was almost undoable. Besides, City were in better form when they played Bayern than when they did us.

There are always different ways to look at things.

5. I am not being pessimistic. I believe we can beat Bayern at the Nou Camp. My trepidation is beating them over 2 legs. What if we beat them 4-2 at Nou Camp and lose 2-0 at the Allianz? What if we draw 2-2 at the Nou camp and 1-1 at the Allianz arena?

Eruditor:


I didn't say there was NO iota of pessimism. I am not all pessimistic. I want Barca to win. But I am prepared to manage my expectations if it doesn't not go our way. As it stands, we are on course to beating them .

philfearon:

Much Ado about nothing!!
5th May ain't far bro;no need giving yourself headache before the main event(cuz it won't change anything).

homesteady:


Why are you using the 2 el classicos as a benchmark? that's the reason for your fear! the both games were played in two different periods, and are like 4 months apart! meanwhile the both legs of the semi's of UCL are played in less than 2 weeks! the 2nd leg just one week after the 1st leg!
You should use games like the last 4 knock out games we have played as a benchmark!

Do you expect Barça to win against all opponents comfortably? okay! it might interest you to know that Bayern failed to win only six Bundesliga matches this season, Five of those came in games against teams in the top five!
I remember them getting raped by Wolfsburg 4-0!
Valencia and Sevilla are part of our top 5
Soooooooooo..........





Bayern 1 vs 0 City
22 TOTAL ATTEMPTS 8
9 ON TARGET 2

Barcelona 1 vs 0 City
23 TOTAL ATTEMPTS 14
11 ON TARGET 4

You are just basing your whole pessimistic argument on the 7-0, 6-0 games! even in those games, they also missed many chances!
If this barca team is good at missing chances, why then is everybody calling their front 3 the most dangerous?



Charge at us in camp nou? did we watch the same match? was it not that match they kept on showing Guardiola funny reactions after our boys do something spectacular?
That was like our best match sef! if not for the heroics of Hart, it could have ended 7- 0 or more! he even received man of the match, so I don't know where this your claim of charging at us is coming from!
Man city in better form during group stage? like seriously? and CSK Moscow beat them blue? was it not just by luck they qualified for the next round? And I remember clearly, they won their epl match 4-1, while we lost to Malaga at home!!
Your claims are unfounded!




We can beat them!

barackohandso:


Seeing the text in bold, I'm confused as to why you still have your long epistle. No one said it was going to be easy

dmcdad:

It's actually 6th and not 5th.

homesteady:


Why are you using the 2 el classicos as a benchmark? that's the reason for your fear! the both games were played in two different periods, and are like 4 months apart! meanwhile the both legs of the semi's of UCL are played in less than 2 weeks! the 2nd leg just one week after the 1st leg!
You should use games like the last 4 knock out games we have played as a benchmark!

Do you expect Barça to win against all opponents comfortably? okay! it might interest you to know that Bayern failed to win only six Bundesliga matches this season, Five of those came in games against teams in the top five!
I remember them getting raped by Wolfsburg 4-0!
Valencia and Sevilla are part of our top 5
Soooooooooo..........





Bayern 1 vs 0 City
22 TOTAL ATTEMPTS 8
9 ON TARGET 2

Barcelona 1 vs 0 City
23 TOTAL ATTEMPTS 14
11 ON TARGET 4

You are just basing your whole pessimistic argument on the 7-0, 6-0 games! even in those games, they also missed many chances!
If this barca team is good at missing chances, why then is everybody calling their front 3 the most dangerous?



Charge at us in camp nou? did we watch the same match? was it not that match they kept on showing Guardiola funny reactions after our boys do something spectacular?
That was like our best match sef! if not for the heroics of Hart, it could have ended 7- 0 or more! he even received man of the match, so I don't know where this your claim of charging at us is coming from!
Man city in better form during group stage? like seriously? and CSK Moscow beat them blue? was it not just by luck they qualified for the next round? And I remember clearly, they won their epl match 4-1, while we lost to Malaga at home!!
Your claims are unfounded!




We can beat them!

Eruditor:


As it stands- with all their injuries. But they have Pep, and they take more chances. So I am expressing my fear, yet hoping we win.

homesteady:


Why are you using the 2 el classicos as a benchmark? that's the reason for your fear! the both games were played in two different periods, and are like 4 months apart! meanwhile the both legs of the semi's of UCL are played in less than 2 weeks! the 2nd leg just one week after the 1st leg!
You should use games like the last 4 knock out games we have played as a benchmark!

Do you expect Barça to win against all opponents comfortably? okay! it might interest you to know that Bayern failed to win only six Bundesliga matches this season, Five of those came in games against teams in the top five!
I remember them getting raped by Wolfsburg 4-0!
Valencia and Sevilla are part of our top 5
Soooooooooo..........

Bayern 1 vs 0 City
22 TOTAL ATTEMPTS 8
9 ON TARGET 2

Barcelona 1 vs 0 City
23 TOTAL ATTEMPTS 14
11 ON TARGET 4

You are just basing your whole pessimistic argument on the 7-0, 6-0 games! even in those games, they also missed many chances!
If this barca team is good at missing chances, why then is everybody calling their front 3 the most dangerous?

Charge at us in camp nou? did we watch the same match? was it not that match they kept on showing Guardiola funny reactions after our boys do something spectacular? 
That was like our best match sef! if not for the heroics of Hart, it could have ended 7- 0 or more! he even received man of the match, so I don't know where this your claim of charging at us is coming from! 
Man city in better form during group stage? like seriously? and CSK Moscow beat them blue? was it not just by luck they qualified for the next round? And I remember clearly, they won their epl match 4-1, while we lost to Malaga at home!!
Your claims are unfounded!

We can beat them!

Eruditor:


You are answering your own questions. Before bringing Madrid in, I said the average Barca fan will say they expect to beat Madrid over 2 legs (the same way they are boasting about Bayern) yet the 2 legs we played against Madrid (even when we were in crazy form and them, otherwise) we needed luck to beat them by the odd goal.

Lesson 1: over 2 legs we lost to Madrid.

When it suits your argument, you go 17 matches back to judge Bayern. When it doesn't suit you, you insist we judge Barca based on the most recent UCL games. How convenient?

So A. Madrid that beat R.Madrid 4-0 in the league had nothing to fear when playing the latter in the UCL? How did that work out for them and their pseudo- bravado?

from the statistics you provided above which team had more attempts? Which had more shots on target? Yet both teams had only 1 goal. Goes to show you what I meant when I said Barca haven't made good, all the numerous chances we have created in many games. So your very statistics defeats you.

Yes Bayern missed many chances in the 6 and 7 goal games. But they scored 6 and 7 goals. Can you bring out the total number of chances Bayern had in those games so we can calculate their conversion percentage? That's a good way to analyse figures. As for you last question, I don't think anything could be more un-intellectual. You have 3 attackers worth atleast 400M pounds. That have scored about 100 goals together. Won't that be regarded as a dangerous strike force, even if they fluffed say 400 chances while at it?

What would any good analyst say about another team that has only say 50 goals out of 150 chances created? They would say the latter is more efficient seeing that they have a 1/3 chance conversion rate compared to the 1 in 4 of the former.

Firstoff, read my posts well and toss away the extraneous nothingness you were drivelling at WRT "charge at us". I said, "City trying to charge at us was undoable"- meaning, they could not charge at us at the Nou Camp. Secondly, that City win at Stoke was their first in 4 games prior to Barca. During the UCL group stage they were doing alot better in the EPL and necking it with Chelsea. So yes their form was better then.

Look at it this way, if a team's current form in the last 4 games is L L D W while another teams' is W W W L. Which team has a better run of form?

Sooooooo......?

Yes. But I am praying we do it over 2 legs.

homesteady:

It seems you did not understand what I wrote! Two sides meeting in the league competition is far different from the same 2 sides meeting in the UCL knockout stage!

For petes sake, the league games are months apart undecided undecided don't you know many things will change before the 2nd leg?
Unlike a knockout stage game where the 2 legs are just a week apart!
So your madrid 3 vs 2 Barcelona analogy is just not sensible!
And why do you keep referring to the win over madrid as luck? undecided luck asin how? is beating madrid just 4 days after winning man city luck? undecided was Mascherano Alves pass to Suarez luck? WTH is the luck there?

MR Man, my point there was - Barcelona can't win every team comfortably especially top 5 teams! undecided I wasn't talking about form! If your supposed perfect bayern could not win about 6 games against their top 5 teams, why do you expect Barça to not just win, but win comfortably against the top 5 teams?
I don't get your point with the Atletico vs madrid example, because I haven't said anything in relation to their games!

Na wa oh! So 1 more shot is not negligible?
City 1-2 Barcelona
13 TOTAL ATTEMPTS 16
5 ON TARGET 4

Okay we scored 2 goals here in just 16 attempts! are we now better?
Bayern 6-1 Porto
21 TOTAL ATTEMPTS 2
that is a goal per every 3.5 shots

PSG 1-3 Barcelona
8 TOTAL ATTEMPTS 11
a goal per every 3.6 shots
Bayern played against 'PORTO' with their makeshift defense
Barcelona played against 'PSG', yet the difference is just 0.1!

You should know that stats like this don't really show which team has the deadlier attack!
For example, barca plays Almeria, barca won the match 5-1, they had 15 shots on target - (a goal every 3 shots) and Almeria had only one shot on target( a goal per one shot) does that mean that Almeria have a deadlier forward line? undecided
I hope this short on target issue is solved with this long lecture!

I just saw that after the stoke 4-1 trashing, they won Newcastle 5-0, then they played barca!
before they played Bayern, they lost to stoke and played a draw with arsenal! screenshot below!

I remember people were even saying man city will win barca at that time sef! even their yeye players were making mouth!

I'm sure you are playing for us to lose so that you can gloat at us!

Eruditor:


LOL. I should be telling you this.

is sensible. Barca lost 3-1 months before. Barca was aware that the league could go down to the head-to-head comparison, so Barca would want to first of all: get 3 points from Madrid and then beat them with a healthy goal difference. Barca could only do one of these things which was to get the win on the day- same thing Dortmund did against Madrid last season, same thing Madrid did against Dortmund in 2013, same thing Porto did to Bayern in the first leg, and same thing Schalke did against Madrid. But in the course of looking at it over 2 games- Barca does not have a head to head advantage over Madrid and my hope is that it is not the case with Bayern. That was my point.

Yes we were tired after playing against City. But RM had lost to schalke and Bibao plus they had drawn with Villareal and won Levante just before playing us. Their form was sketchy to say the least. We barely beat them because we were lucky- especially considering how the first half went.

mentioned how Wolfsburg beat Bayern 4-1. I cited how A. Madrid did that to RM in the league and in other games yet when it came to the UCL it was different. So stop comparing apples and oranges. It is like someone mentioning Malaga to argue that Barca beating PSG over 2 legs was nothing. When you want to juxtapose Bayern and Barca you should so with their strengths and run of form, not with freak results they suffered.

Barca had 2 goals in 16 attempts at the Etihad. That is a goal every 8 attempts. For this analysis to make sense we should compare it with City vs Bayern too at the same ground. In that game, Bayern scored 2 goals in 7 attempts. Meaning 1 goal every 2.9 attempts. Again they convert better.


Please drop the BS on makeshift defence. Bayern are depleted by injuries to very key players including defenders. What would we be without Leo? Bayern didn't have their own "Leo" in Robben. So they played with a makeshift attack, no?

You are confusing yourself with the poor interpretation you are giving to hard facts. Deadlier attack is the one that creates more chances or the one that converts it? If the former, FCB possess the deadliest attack in world football. If the latter, then on that day, Almeria's attack was more deadly seeing that they converted the only chance they got. If we had done same, we would have won 15-1!

This is rather disingenuous of you. I was referring to when Bayern played City at the Etihad. City had won 3 or 4 games leading to that game from the month before, and went on to win 5 more games after it, losing to only West Ham and drawing with QPR. Compare that to their run of form just before hosting Barca and only the Stoke and Newcastle wins stand out.

It is the same way some Barca fans are talking smack and we are warning them.

I am one of you. I am not petty as to wanting Bayern to win so that I would gloat. To those whose hearts are pure, all things are pure.

ddippset:
This la liga gives me sleepless times. Just 2 points ahead with athletico at the Calderon. Sevilla and Valencia still have to play real madrid. If both sevilla and Valencia drop points to Madrid , then athletico madrid might be 7 points ahead and have 3rd position already locked down by the time they host us. Now the question is ; would athletico do us a favour? Lose to us and deny madrid? Is it something conceivable?

ddippset:
This la liga gives me sleepless times. Just 2 points ahead with athletico at the Calderon. Sevilla and Valencia still have to play real madrid. If both sevilla and Valencia drop points to Madrid , then athletico madrid might be 7 points ahead and have 3rd position already locked down by the time they host us. Now the question is ; would athletico do us a favour? Lose to us and deny madrid? Is it something conceivable?

sebod:

Athletico would never do us any favour. I can even remember those years when they will beat us flat only to lose cheaply to Madrid. Nevertheless, I believe we already possess the firepower to dismantle them anywhere any day this season. Our players too are aware of what is at stake and are as well motivated to fight till the end. God helping us, barring no injuries to major players, we are winning la liga.

homesteady:


Me 2 oh! if we were given half the luxury chelsea are enjoying in their league, I would have been so happy! they are passing the next team with about 10 points, half is just 5, it is too much sef! If only we were passing madrid with 4 or 3 points, it would have been very good!
That 2 points gap is toooo dangerous!

I believe the fight between Valencia and Sevilla for the last UCL spot will make one of them collect point from Madrid!

If it doesn't happen, hmm na war with atletico madrid be that! because I'm not sure they will fancy us winning them 4/4 this season!