Ronaldo will get all the headlines but have to say Marcello's been absolutely brilliant (a player I usually can't stand)

yeah marcelo was really great. props to him

This is bullcrap.

not really.

and i say this as a bayern fan

vidal should have been booted much earlier, for cause.

as it happened he dodged the bullet in a huge way

then ancelotti kept him, knowing full well the danger he represented, but knowing also he was the best chance for bayern to score a 3rd.

it was a risky gamble. after he went out based on his reputation alone, it was a foregone conclusion.

then later you could have said offside, or casemiro, or whatever.

the fact is the refs do tend to favor home teams. see: last week's nonexistent penalty that he missed.

that's when bayern should have forged clear ahead but didn't.

shit happens.

and respect to madrid. do i hate ronaldo? fuck yes. ramos? for sure. spaniards? a few. but madrid were better overall.

and yes it was a tough fucking match worthy of a final. it's sad but one had to go.

rest in pieces, bayern's CL campaign.

see you next year.

--

ETA: references:
https://www.theguardian.com/football...eam-sean-ingle

I switched back and forth between both games. Leicester didn't embarrass themselves in either game and the tie overall could've easily gone their way.

Anyway, who's watching what tonight?

Barca v Juventus just looks too good to miss.

How can anyone hate Ramos?

I only saw the second half but it was a good game. Bad decisions galore from the refs but Marcello's performance was something else. The burst he did past three players to set up Ronaldo for a hat trick was just *heart swell*

And how can it be anything else but Barcelona tonight? Well except for Symbols seems like pretty much everyone else agrees

I imagine Symbols in 1977, the week Star Wars opened, convincing his parents to take him to see the new Herbie film.

Hahaha there you go comment of the week right there.

ha ha ha ha ha ha

fuck herbie. annie hall ftw.

He's probably the only thing about Real that I really like ... well apart from Bale, Modric, Rodriguez, Ronaldo, their strip, the fact they just knocked Bayern out, Ramos's girlfriend, their stadium, their manager, their standing up to Mourinho, the way they're somehow able to make arrogance look cool, while Bayern and Man U just make it look, well, arrogant.

yeah madrid is really a great team. the best of recent years. i have great admiration for those motherfuckers. and i wish they'd disappear ha ha ha.


ramos is the cronaldo of defense. really fucking good, a bit of a dick, and plays for the enemy. i love it when he fails. which admittedly happens only rarely-- but the satisfaction when it happens! yeah. great player. damn.

https://www.theguardian.com/football...whistle-genius

Interesting piece about Ronaldo and the entitled and ridiculous Madrid fans whistling him last night.

he complained about it in the post-match interview

gotta say it was a good interview. he keep pushing the concept of "one has to know how to suffer" which sorta blew my mind, given how i live in the land of instant gratification

funny how many pop philosophers we have in the world

eta: i still hate him though. that's a given!

Hahaha that'll never change will it?

ha ha ha!

no. not while he plays for real anyway

you have to take my hate as a sign of respect/admiration though

this is an epic motherfucker. one can't just dismiss him

he's either superhero or supervillain depending on your side of the trenches

and for me he's blowing little messi out of the water these days

i've got the split screen on and im going bananas

dortmund is down by 1 early

but they're attacking (and hence the danger)

--

jeezus. monaco scores the 2nd such a beautiful goal, perfect passes, perfect header, really amazing team

i'm starting to like them to win it all

not just from this but also their previous encounters-- eg man city

then again it's maybe just their adversaries allowing this kinda dance. but no-- real talent there

--

from the visuals alone barca seems to be losing their shit

--

démbélé in for durm

a wasted substitution for what should have been a starting lineup

--

and now fuckit: dortmund scored. i'm tuning full-time to the better game :P

oh man man. germain comes in for mbappé, piszcek get his pass intercepted, a cross, blam, germain scores on his first touch.

i don't mind losing to a fun team like this.

eh who am i kidding. i don't like it.

but it's a consolation that it's been a good game.

--

sokratis a hero. god damn. dortmund has not quit.

Barcelona aren't clicking right now *as we've just seen) but blowing little messi out of the water? Look at the stats for this season. He's still outscoring and out-assisting Ronaldo. And bear in mind he plays far deeper than Ronaldo does now (who's pretty much a pure striker these days) and due to the way Barcelona play has to divide goals with Neymar and Suarez far more evenly than Ronaldo (as the focus of pretty much every attack that Real makes) has to. The previous couple of seasons Ronaldo has definitely had the edge but this season so far I'd say you're basing far too much on a very small amount of games.

Messi: Apps: 45; Goals: 45
Ronaldo: Apps: 38; Goals: 31

We can argue about Ronaldo playing less games and I think he may well end up out-scoring Messi by the end of the season but let's stop this 'blowing little messi out the water' nonsense. The guy's got a season record so far of a goal per game, from an essentially midfield position.

ha ha ha ha

i knew that'd rile you up

(sorry, wasn't on purpose)

barca out tho

(and congrats to monaco. well deserved win)

i'm sleepy. i'll read/reply later

Total masterclasses from Juventus right there.

@ demonyo - so by "lately" i didn't mean yesterday and last week or the last few months but recent years in general

i don't look at the stats of la liga, but maybe it's the way real plays that makes cronaldo stand out more as the difference maker at least in games i watch-- namely champions league + international matches.

yes, marcelo was the amazing one this week yet cronaldo scored the goals. and it's always him for some reason that comes out of nowhere with a piece of genius and completely changes the complexion of a game right where it makes a difference. he just handles those crucial moments so fucking well. nobody else does it like him.

it's not just the ballons d'or he's taken from lionel but also there are the champions league cups and the euros and all these amazing victories while messi wilted at 2 copa américas and world cups and had a fit and quit playing for his team.

yes it's a team thing but also (again maybe due to the system of play) i haven't seen messi single-handedly change the direction of an important game lately the way cronaldo does. he does it of course. but his teams don't make it as high as his archrival's. who are probably going for la duodécima this years unless someone (something) stops them.

tldr; i've seen it's possible to shut down messi in big games-- but cronaldo... good luck trying.

--

i gotta watch that juve game today if possible. yesterday's split screen was mind-boggling and exhausting and not good to take in strategy and tactics. so apparently it deserves its own viewing and i should

There's a lot to agree with there, not least that Ronaldo has had the edge lately, I just took objection to the blown out the water bit. I wasn't snapping at you it's just this Messi v Ronaldo thing is out of hand now. Neither are at their peak anymore so it seems a bit pointless making overall claims about them based on it (not that that's what you were doing).

Bottom line for me, at their respective peaks Messi was the best player I've ever seen and nothing that I've seen from Ronaldo at any time in his career makes me question that. Ronaldo is bigger, stronger so it makes sense his career will last longer but for about 5 years Messi was playing at an almost supernatural level, doing things I've never seen anyone do. As brilliant as Ronaldo has been, I've never seen him do anything that made me think only he could do that. In that sense I put Ronaldo in the category of players like Zlatan, R9, Raul, etc and probably better than any of them. I put Messi in a different category, with players like Maradona, Zidane, Cruyff, etc, whose greatness, while backed up by stats, seems less reducible to them.

ha ha ha hah ahahahahahahahaaaaa

[this post is # 8-420, on 4/20 and 11:2... 1 (my time). pity i didn't make it at 420. but it was 4:20 somewhere when i saw it.

fuck hitler, btw

but anyway, short lunch break

@ demonyo

yeah i agree, messi pre-scandal and at his peak was otherwordly and played in a different dimension. no question. he was on top of everyone then.

but i think the pair are still considered the best players right now--aren't they?

so post-panama papers yeah i think lio takes 2nd chair unfortunately in all fairness

sad but true

last he won he had that funny suit as i recall ha ha ha

eta: i don't think it's so much physical as much as a mental/focus thing

(but he used to never get injured and now he does, too)

It's pretty incredible how ling those two have been the top two world players. Wonder if that'll be toppled next time round.

So I'm off to Seville for a week on Wednesday. Turns out Sevilla are playing Celta Viga at home on the Thursday. Just bought my tickets for it!

What was insane is that it cost £24 per ticket and they're decent seats. It costs me £30 to go see my local team Preston North End. For Symbols, PNE are a league down and middling at that. To see a top 4 team (and winner of the Europa cup three times in a row) cost less than a fucking championship team. How did it get to that state?

Have a great time h8kurdt. Massively envious here!


I think they're still considered to be but honestly, I'm not sure. I think we're currently back in the standard situation where the best we can do is pick 11 players who are best in their specific positions. A few years ago Messi and Ronaldo were clearly playing above the level of everyone else, regardless of position, but I'm not sure that's the case now. I imagine Neymar will be the number 1 sooner rather than later but will even he transcend his position the way Messi and Ronaldo did?


I'd say it's both but on the level of focus, while Messi's clearly no slacker, I wonder if we'll ever see another player like Ronaldo. As a person, I admire him far more than I do Messi. His determination. The fact he's had to work for everything he's achieved. The ultimate football ubermensch.

Real vs. Atletico
Monaco vs. Juventus

That's the perfect semi final for me. Plus it all works toward my bet of Man United and Juventus to get to the first also.

Yeah, that's perfect. Part of me wants Atletico to go through but a Juventus-Real final would be more conclusive.

I never really saw any of Monaco's games. Are they actually any good? Like realistic chance of winning good?

I saw the Man City games and there a team clearly getting better as each game goes on. Whether they can beat Juventus is another question.

I want "el Aleti" to fuck "el Madrí" up with a totally ugly, petty, anti-spectacle hyperdefensive game, and then lose the final 7-0.

Just put Lukaku to score against West Ham tomorrow in my accumulator. And as demonrail knows (sorry man) he's scored in the last 9 9! games against them. Here's to the football gods he does it again tomorrow.

monaco is not a team that will dominate a game with possession and not by parking the bus either. they can be scored against from what i've seen.

but what they will do beautiful is these explosive, precise, deadly counters that will punch the air out of the other team.

granted this i only witnessed against man city and dortmund, teams that are not at their top form currently.

but the quality of their strikers is just fantastic. mbappé, falcao in form, germain as an almost griezmann, carrillo... i think this team can cut open the guts of any defense. and they're not invulnerable, but their goals are... so pretty... and abundant.

really fun team to watch regardless, deserved spot on the semis, i think on a good day they could win it all

and enjoy them this season, before they get pilfered by bigger clubs

I hope he does so you get your money, in a 2-1 West Ham win (like that's gonna happen). Fully expecting you to hammer us (pardon the pun).

Oh yeah, the Man City games. I forgot that was them.

watch some excerpts of their dortmund games though. some gorgeous goals

Depends on how you go about it, I guess:

Suspect in Borussia Dortmund Plot Hoped to Profit Off Attack, Officials Say

Suspected Borussia Dortmund bomber and speculator was total 'fool': analysts

Officials: Greed drove BVB attack suspect

Borussia Dortmund bus bomber was no terrorist — just a greedy trader, prosecutors say

Prosecutors suspect market speculator could be behind German soccer club attack

:eek::D

i just heard on npr this afternoon he took out a loan to buy dortmund stocks

what a fucking dork

hang him by the huevos

holy shit bayern down 2-1 at halftime vs. relegation-fighting mainz

with boateng and martinez resting, alaba had to be central midfielder, bayern got scored on, alaba got knocked and kimmich came in, bayern scored real pretty, then mainz again from pentaly

bayern defense in disarray! and the attack lacking a bit

oh, an neuer w/ a broken foot out for the rest of the season. his replacement looks like needs more practice

ancelotti is making coman warm up last i saw. there he is running around the pitch right now

What is it they say about a fool and his money? :D

Seriously though, what a shit match.