Soldato
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Football as we know it died tonight.
UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL ... Bayern Munich v Chelsea ... *** Spoilers ***
- Thread starter Cosimo
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Caporegime
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Weren't 11 of them against Basel?
From what I've seen of him in Europe this season I'd love to see his chance/conversion rate, you know what they used to say about Andy Cole and how he needed 4 chances to score 1 goal..... replace Andy Cole with Mario Gomez
Before tonight, 38 shots, 21 on target, 12 goals.
He's mostly a tap in artist so when the providers aren't making him tap ins, he's not getting them, he's got the knack for being in the right place for tap ins, rebounds, but very little actual footballing ability.
Most of his chances tonight were massively overblown, the one he hit way over the bar, Cahill actually got in a great block, he didn't hit it off Cahill, but because Cahill's leg was in the way, the vast vast majority of the goal was actually not possible to hit, he was left with maybe the tiniest bit of the top left corner to aim at and he missed it.
His other chances were, well Neville was wrong on most of them, the one Ribery absolutely blasted across at him, come on, it was a shot, it went through about 6 Chelsea players and maybe a couple Bayern players, and he stuck a leg out to stop the ball, Nevill was bemoaning him not shooting rather than trying to control it, the ball was moving fast and seen late, no chance to score, he did okay to stop it at all.
He missed a couple half decent chances, but most of the ones they harped on about were very very weak chances to begin with, largely due to poor delivery or simply great defending.
Caporegime
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You and me both.
Soldato
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That's a bit unfair, it's no coincidence he's usually in the right place at the right time, that's good positioning and reading the game well, a valuable skill for any footballer. Van Nistelrooy is a perfect example of a player who always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Maybe your definition of actual footballing ability is something else.
Carrick had a 93% pass completion against City and according to you he's a poor player.
I'm not saying Scholes and Drogba on their day aren't still capable of the world class I'm saying neither represent the future for either clubs and thus continually relying on both is unwise. With Chelsea's money there's no reason whatsoever they couldn't of signed Falcao last summer who 'could' of caused just as many problems as Drogba did tonight and without doubt would have scored more goals over the course of the season.
If Chelsea go into next season once again with Drogba, Torres and Lukaku as their three strikers then expect another season of all three being rotated with none of the three nailing down the position.
EDIT:
I'm calling BS on this as well
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Soldato
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I've been out all day and avoided the result, just watched the game, extra time and the penalties. I'd extended the recording on my DVR when I set it, it stopped just as Drogba's penalty hit the back of the net 
Soldato
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hold x,a,b and press select ten times for infinite money.
Increase your chance of winning by lots....
Soldato
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Still well chuffed Chelsea won, they definitely deserved it. 
Although I think Arsenal will be winning it next time. Come on the gooners!
Although I think Arsenal will be winning it next time. Come on the gooners!
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Inter Milan won it two years ago, where do you think they got their money from? Tonight isn't the first time this has happened
Still well chuffed Chelsea won, they definitely deserved it.
Lol, did I watch a different match to you?
Glad Chelsea won but wouldn't go as far to say they deserved it.
Tactically Chelsea were set up astutely. The introduction of Torres sparked life into the chelsea squad, bayern munich's reply, throw on another centre half and take off your playmaker.
Chelsea knew they had a tough game ahead. RDM knew he was fighting for his job so he did everything he could do to win the game, if that means making it difficult to be beaten, didn't Mourinho teach us that's what has to be done?
Soldato
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I'm going to be up front about this and say I'm absolutely gutted that Chelsea won it, so expect plenty of bitterness in the morning.
You spelled Liverpool wrong.
Caporegime
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yea why not
What do you tell the other 190 odd countries then? Scrap their national teams because you don't qualify in the top 32 of Fifa's rankings?
Associate
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Isn't this the system for every league in the world?
If they want in then let them win games to get in to the top 32, have a 2nd rate cup for the teams 33-64.
The world cup always has whipping boys in there with no hope in hell of winning and someone of a high standard has missed out to let them in. All the groups with 4 high quality teams in would provide much better entertainment.
Caporegime
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It's a fine line always being in the right place at the right time..... for some its unbelievable ability to read the game, for others... they are largely what would get called at school goal hangers. They often ignore everything around them and go stand in/around/near the 6 yard box and wait for someone to kick the ball at them.
Thing is, IMHO, a player with great vision and ability to read the game should reflect that in their passing, defending, intercepting the ball, closing down, crossing, etc, etc, players who make a career on tapping in only, are very limited.
It's really hard to tell which player is which, lucky and lazy/selfish to a degree, or brilliant and make their own luck. After some of Gomez's performances for both Bayern, Germany, I see him play like a pile of turd frequently.
Either way footballing ability, actual technically great shooting, passing, crossing, positioning, tackling, marking, etc, etc. I guess footballing ability I would class as the physical parts of the game, footballing knowledge the ability to read the game, vision, tactically aware, positionally aware maybe. beyond tap in's I don't think he's very good at all.
Carrick, yeah, but Scholes when the rest of the team play, is brilliant, when the rest of the team are great, Carrick is still a turd who only passes sideways. I was using the pass completion rate to show that even in a bad game for the team, Scholes wasn't down from a 90%+ rate to below 70% and had a bad game, the team wasn't working. There were of course more people like Rooney, Valencia and Nani all hanging around in midfield for Carrick to pass to.
As for building a future on a player, irrelevant, so what, its got nothing to do with anything. Drogba could be fantastic for the next 4 years, at what point to you get rid of a player because X amount of years later, the team might need someone else, answer is, it's stupid to get rid of great players, when they can still play great.
Why couldn't Chelsea get Falcao, do you know he wanted to go to Chelsea, do you realise they just spent 50mil on Torres, do you realise Torres could have started firing on all cylinder's, do you KNOW that they were happy to spend another 40mil on another striker and put up the wages.... when Chelsea have spent the past 5 years trying to bring wages down? Could they have sold Torres to bring in Falcao, who would have bought Torres in that form?
It's really easy to say a rich guy can spend as much money as he has, doesn't mean he wants to, ever occur to you that he doesn't want to throw 80mil down the toilet every single year for the rest of his life?
As for what strikers to go into the title race next year.. who was the established left winger at Barca, at Chelsea, who started every game on the two wide positions for City, did Real only have one scoring striker, or 3 + ronaldo? The question is, who says they have to have one starting striker? The only team I can name who won a title this year who have a single scoring striker is Arsenal, who won nothing and if he had been injured we'd have been boned.
Your entire answer is completely theoretical and revolves around a bunch of what if's all as reasons to get rid of a great player, who is playing excellently, and was the biggest reason they just won the biggest cup and the biggest domestic cup.