Caporegime
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Luck?
champions league draw
- Thread starter psd99
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Luck?
Its obvious isn't it? When Wenger said you need connections, he meant with Him upstairs. We're going to need divine invention to beat Barca so he's got the hotline ready.
Well there's only 16 teams left. Get a couple of hundred people making predictions on the draw and some are bound to get it right.
Fairly sure the guy said he had got it from somebody who knew, he also wrote which teams would be home/away first for every game and got all that spot on. Pretty surprised that people think it's far fetched that this could happen, you all know Jack Warner is one of the most influential people in football, I'll let that digest for a moment .. Jack Warner ..
Man of Honour
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Also don't forget the very reason why the competition was expanded to what it is now.
It wouldn't surprise me at all, however I'm not really bothered by it.
What does annoy me about getting Barca in the next round is it means we get a knock on the quotients and less tv money.
It wouldn't surprise me at all, however I'm not really bothered by it.
What does annoy me about getting Barca in the next round is it means we get a knock on the quotients and less tv money.
![[J.D.C]](/styles/overclockers/avatars/3.png){kind=avatar}
They haven't been dubbed possibly, "the best club side we've ever seen in world football", for all the last 5 years have they?!
Think harder.
Soldato
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Good luck Arsenal, gonna need it.
I can see Spurs beating AC Milan.
Chelsea and Man U should have no problems with their draws.
I can see Spurs beating AC Milan.
Chelsea and Man U should have no problems with their draws.
What's Jack Warner got to do with UEFA?
UEFA belongs to FIFA?? But it was more of an indication that one of the most corrupt men known to football fans is also in one of the very highest positions available in the game and that FIFA don't bat an eyelid about it, also that the papers investigate 2 others from FIFA in the last few weeks and found that they were both bent too, who knows what they could have found had they kept digging. In summary, I don't trust the people in charge of football, none of them, if we were to know the full truths of what really happens it'd probably shock us all beyond belief
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[J.D.C];18024373 said:They haven't been dubbed possibly, "the best club side we've ever seen in world football", for all the last 5 years have they?!
Think harder.
Who said anything about 'best side ever in the world' other than you just now?
You said Barcelona would be under pressure to perform and beat Arsenal comfortably. But this is the exact same situation they were in last year, and guess what - they performed and went on to beat Arsenal comfortably.
Barcelona have been one of, if not the, best in Europe for the past five years, so I can't comprehend how the 'pressure' of expectation is any factor in how they'll play against Arsenal in the round of 16.
Plank.
Ah, fair enough, just a general comment on the bigwigs in football then. Can't say I disagree with you, but I don't believe for one second the draw is rigged. You'd need to involve a lot of people for that to happen and if it became public knowledge the damage wouldn't bear thinking about. I don't think even UEFA/FIFA are that stupid.
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I don't see how pressure is really much of a factor at all. This Barca team have won everything there is to win, and the way they are playing at the moment I would have thought that if you asked a Barca player who they wanted prior to this morning's draw the response would have been 'I don't care', simply because they will beat them regardless of who it is.
United will beat Marseille, and Chelsea ought to win comfortably against Copenhagen. I don't think people should underestimate AC Milan. AC are 6 points ahead in the Serie A and playing some good football. Tottenham are excellent going forward and I can see them scoring a few goals, but AC are very dangerous going forward too. That, coupled with Tottenham's porous defence will likely lead to a fairly high scoring game. I see AC winning it over the two legs though.
I'd be amazed if Arsenal beat Barca, it would probably go down as the upset of the season. Barca are a better team than they were last year, plus they will all be well rested after the Spanish winter break. Arsenal really could get humiliated.
United will beat Marseille, and Chelsea ought to win comfortably against Copenhagen. I don't think people should underestimate AC Milan. AC are 6 points ahead in the Serie A and playing some good football. Tottenham are excellent going forward and I can see them scoring a few goals, but AC are very dangerous going forward too. That, coupled with Tottenham's porous defence will likely lead to a fairly high scoring game. I see AC winning it over the two legs though.
I'd be amazed if Arsenal beat Barca, it would probably go down as the upset of the season. Barca are a better team than they were last year, plus they will all be well rested after the Spanish winter break. Arsenal really could get humiliated.
See my quotes from Wenger in this thread
his admission that he knew Arsenal's draw in advance started the debate offSee my quotes from Wenger in this thread
Yes, seen your posts.
Do you think Arsene Wenger, one of the most honest men in football, wouldn't make a LARGE song and dance about it if the draw was being rigged? He suffered at the hands of corruption while at Monaco, in fact I believe it was one of the reasons he went to Japan - to get out of French football because it was corrupt. If the draw was rigged and Arsene knew, then he would be the first to blow the whistle.
Basically, we could only draw one of four teams today and I think a lot of people felt that we would be drawn with Barca. Logistically you just couldn't fix the draw for the biggest club competition in the world. Bobby Charlton was meant to be doing the draw today but got snowed in, was he in on it as well?
Who said anything about 'best side ever in the world' other than you just now?
You said Barcelona would be under pressure to perform and beat Arsenal comfortably. But this is the exact same situation they were in last year, and guess what - they performed and went on to beat Arsenal comfortably.
Barcelona have been one of, if not the, best in Europe for the past five years, so I can't comprehend how the 'pressure' of expectation is any factor in how they'll play against Arsenal in the round of 16.
Plank.
Right, let's leave the playground stuff out of it.
What I'm getting at, is the fact last year when Arsenal faced up to Barcelona, nobody expected Barcelona to wipe them away so easily as they did. Remember the first 30 minutes or so when they literally kept the ball for 90% of the time?
People had given Arsenal a decent chance going into that game/s, regardless of Barcelona's form. It was built up as these two great attacking sides and who would out-score the other.
I'm saying now, after last years demolition, surely the expectation is on Barcelona to not only win but to win again by a series of goals, no?
I definitely think, regardless of what anyone else says, there is more pressure than last year on Barca because unlike last year when people gave Arsenal a chance (still not considered favourites I grant you), this year, people are literally waving them goodbye before a ball is kicked.
Your opinion is that this holds no bearing. I'm saying it MIGHT.
No idea why all the animosity had to come out over such a minor suggestion.
In an ideal world you'd hope somebody would blow the whistle, which in essence he has, he's said that it's pre-arranged without making a huge stand, which I think would be disingenuous anyhow, going up against FIFA/UEFA or generally corrupt people in life is usually a bad idea, as they have much lower standards for themselves and will do anything regardless of how it looks. I also don't think Wenger is whiter than white and will play the game too at different points (probably nothing shocking, as you say, you'd expect his morals to have remained from his early days in French football)
Guess we'll have to agree to disagree then
Also, bear in mind Arsene's right-hand man is Boro Primorac. This is the man who basically blew the lid off the whole French corruption stuff in the early 90's after Marseille tried to bribe him and was ostracised as a result. He is Arsene's most trusted colleague, so there is a precedent for whistleblowing there.
As I said, I'm not buying it. Arsene might have said he knew we were getting Barca, but it was destiny, not a rigged draw.
Also, bear in mind Arsene's right-hand man is Boro Primorac. This is the man who basically blew the lid off the whole French corruption stuff in the early 90's after Marseille tried to bribe him and was ostracised as a result. He is Arsene's most trusted colleague, so there is a precedent for whistleblowing there.
As I said, I'm not buying it. Arsene might have said he knew we were getting Barca, but it was destiny, not a rigged draw.
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So far in the Spanish season Barcelona have played 15 matches and won every one save two (1 draw, 1 loss). The vast majority of these teams are far below Barcelona's stature, so again I don't understand how they'll be negatively affected by the expectation to dominate or whatever you're on about?[J.D.C];18024900 said:
And I could rave about the proximity of Jupiter to the Emirates affecting the game and it would have the same impact of your 'opinion', as it is completely undemonstratible in fact and I could go on self-convinced 'regardless of what anyone else says'.
Any 'animosity' you perceive could perhaps have come out of the fact that you responded 'think harder' to someone saying they didn't understand your (non-)point? Being the first one to bring 'the playground stuff' into affairs as it were?[J.D.C];18024900 said:No idea why all the animosity had to come out over such a minor suggestion.
Well, I doubt we'll ever truly know, there's a reason stuff like this is kept out of the public domain. I don't doubt Wenger and Primorac hate corruption, but the fixing of a draw isn't really that bad in the grand scheme of things, Arsenal would have to play Barca at some point if they wanted to win the thing, so it hasn't changed much, they're just playing them as early as possible now
That's true, and it's the only niggle in my mind, that Arsene may think "Well, we'll probably have to play them at some point, so let's just do it". But then again, there's about an extra £6 million to be won if you get through to the semis, and about another £4.5 million for reaching the final (that's prize money so add on TV and sponsorship as well). So, if I was Arsene and I knew it was a fix, I'd be thinking "Why should my team lose millions of pounds in potential earnings because of corruption?"
Mind you, he seems adverse to spending money so maybe he won't miss it