Chelsea Barca hots up! Quotes from bile to analysis! Pt 2
By dixon9
May 4 2009
During the last decade the vitriol and controversy between Chelsea and Barcelona has been prominent to say the least. With the match just days away, here are a selection of quotes from the players, managers, journos and bloggers – some will make you smile and others make your blood boil! (Part 2 of 2):
Terry: “We knew before the game that no team had kept a clean sheet here. Didier had one good chance in the first half but, other than that, they were on top for most of the game. The whole team defended well. We worked really hard on things during the week.
“I never expected it to be quite as hard as it was. Everybody is feeling it in their legs at the moment. We expected a really tough game but they piled on the pressure and they kept coming and coming and coming.
“Big Pete made some great saves. It was great to see him back in tip-top form. “Over the last few weeks he has been back to his very best and that has been massive. You go through periods in the season when you are not at your best.
“But it is good we have got such a good bunch of lads around to push you on.”
Cech: “The whole defence was brilliant. The biggest compliment though should go to Jose Bosingwa. It is the first time in his life he has played at left-back and he was up against Messi, which was really tough.”
Messi: “We will play in the same way against Chelsea as we did against Real and, playing like that, we will have many chances. If we do things as we did on Saturday then we will score and go through.
Blogger: Well, there’s always next week to look forward to. The immense rustling sound at the Bridge as 40 thousand plastic flags try (but fail as usual) to produce some sort of atmosphere and the tranquil calm of the Emirates where it is actually possible to sleep during the match.
Blogger: A neutral (with or without bold type) is someone who supports a club but will still watch other teams on television. They may then comment on what they’ve seen. Neutrals like to do this.Neutrals don’t like elitist tarts like yourselves who believe that they should be the only ones allowed to express their opinions.
Blogger: I don’t see how you can call Chelsea’s performance masterful. They were certainly organised, but they couldn’t keep the ball, needed a lenient referee, a large slice of luck (definitely a penalty on Henry - uncharacteristic Barça misses), and a great performance by Cech (backpass - hoof - save - hoof - save - backpass - hoof - save, etc.).
Blogger: Chelsea didn’t t score at Nou Camp and I expect Barcelona to go through to the final in Rome - For the good of football.
Blogger: You could see Chelsea were employing defensive tactics early in the game. Drogba was clearly isolated as he attempted to deal with each hoof up field.
Blogger: It was brilliant to see football played so intelligently against opposition of such huge reputations. As soon as Messi began to get forced sideways across the front of the Chelsea midfield you knew how well it was all working.
Laporta: “It will be difficult against Chelsea because they are a great team. But we like to play beautiful football and I am sure that our players can make it a beautiful victory.
“Our victory in Madrid makes us believe in ourselves even more. This team can show our soul again.
“It will be a great match but Pep Guardiola is managing the team in an exceptional way and I think Barca’s players will be heroes on Wednesday.”
After Barcelona’s 2-6 away thrashing of Real Madrid:
El Mundo Deportivo: “The best performance Barcelona had ever produced”. “Football has a God - Barcelona”. Leo Messi was described as “Maradona, Cruyff and Best all rolled into one,” Iniesta and Xavi as “those gigantic dwarves”, and Thierry Henry in just three words: “Oh”, “la” and “la”.
Spanish radio: “This side are better than the Dream Team,”
Canal Plus commentator Michael Robinson: “Barcelona, are the best team I have ever seen,”
AS: “Only in paradise can you see football like this.”
El Periodico columnist Emilio Perez de Rozas: ‘Hiddink might think he has won, but he has won nothing yet. He has drawn to lose. Chelsea’s display was one of fear, or one of pure envy, and nothing to do with strategy. Scared of being thrashed, they went face to face with Barca.’
El Mundo Deportivo: ‘Barca expected a different Chelsea, not the hard, crude and ultra-defensive team they faced. Chelsea unashamedly entrenched themselves, leaving Drogba shipwrecked on his own in attack, while in the middle Hiddink mounted a ‘Maginot Line’ formed by the five ‘beasts’ of Essien, Ballack, Lampard, Mikel and Malouda.’
Santi Gimenez: ‘The toughness exhibited by Chelsea, and the complicity of referee Wolfgang Stark, has had repercussions. The players returned to work for a recuperation session which was of special importance to three players who suffered most from the forcefulness of the English. Thierry Henry, Andres Iniesta and Leo Messi stayed in the dressing room receiving treatment for the numerous blows they received.’
…on referee Stark: ‘Premier League directors begged UEFA to assign this Bavarian sympathiser of Bayern Munich and personal friend of Michael Ballack. They knew that with Stark they were playing with a safety net, something which was demonstrated by his grotesque refereeing.’
Blogger: Well, I can’t speak for all cules, but as a tiki-taka fan, I would be absolutely disgusted if Barca pulled a Chelsea (not that I think Guardiola would do so) and I would have no bones condemning them if they did such. I like football to be played as the beautiful game, not as some cautious bore-fest. Frankly, I’d far rather not have the likes of Milan on the box, let alone pay for the dubious privilege of seeing it live.
Which is why I far prefer the average La Liga game to the stodgy fare of most Premiership fixtures (most of my mates back home, who are used to the Prem, can’t understand how I can retain enthusiasm for football - they’ve given up long ago to follow rugby instead).
Blogger: Stick me down as a technocrat if you must, but as a United fan I’d be happy with 0-0 at the Emirates next week. If United can match that next week, yep, I’d take it.
Blogger: Neutrals? Ask yourself this question; Should we win at the Bridge next Wednesday for example, and put in a great all-round performance of guile and attack, say, resulting with a reasonable amount of goals, how many of those that have attacked us on these blogs do you think would come back and praise us? You know the answer to that and so do we!
Blogger: As for the disappointment in it not being a beautiful game? My sympathies - and a recommendation you supplement your football viewing with ice skating where artistic merit actually merits a score.
Blogger: Despair at Lampard and the England footballers he typifies. Shuffles from one side of midfield to the other following the ball, pointing to his team-mates, making no tackles. Ring any bells England fans?
Compared to Barcelona, Spain and any top international footballer, Lampard looked exactly like the donkey he is when not arriving in the box to get on the end of more talented team-mates efforts. Could you see last night why England will never win the World Cup?
Blogger: Barcelona tonight reminded me very much of Arsenal at their indulgent worst. Lots of possession, very little cutting edge. No clear cut chances at all in the first half, and three in the second is hardly becoming of a supposed super team, one which is supposed to sweep all and sundry aside in a blitz of goals. Chelsea are a very different and much tougher proposition to a creaking Lyon and a Bayern team who were without many key personnel.
Terry: “Xavi’s different class. He’s at the heart of everything Spain and Barcelona do well. I admire him; he’s a really nice guy.”
Hiddink: “All in the rules, with some normal friction. I don’t want a team who says, ‘Okay, we cannot achieve what we want, so please take our wallets and run away with them.’
“No, we don’t know fear and we can’t say ‘sorry’ for not conceding a goal. When you play a team like Barcelona you must give resistance. We were not able to play as we wanted, offensively, so we were forced back. Sure, we showed a little bit [of] a lack of initiative in some periods of the game, but many, many teams – big teams – have not been able to resist Barcelona there and conceded three or four goals. We didn’t want to do that.
"Barcelona should credit themselves that we did not create more.“We didn’t want to play ‘anti-football’, but their complaints do not surprise me. They are used to scoring, and had done in every game there for a year, so their failure to do so will have been disappointing. That’s a normal reaction. Tactically, we did what we had to do and, even then, they had their chances.
“We were outplayed once or twice, and Petr Cech pulled off a good save to stop [Samuel] Etoó. But, if you can’t easily win, you must not be easily beaten. We’d like to have played a better [attacking] game, but we’ve proved on several occasions this year, and at the beginning of the season, that this team likes to play football. But the emphasis is being a winner, not just giving in and starting to cry when things do not go well.”
The Times, Matt Hughes: This little local difficulty was useless as preparation for facing Barcelona, like limbering up for an assault on Everest by going for a stroll in the park or warming up for the Ashes with a few games of Twenty20. Then again…
If Murphy is capable of taking advantage of the presence of a single holding midfield player with one searching through-ball, it does not bear thinking about what Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta would be able to do, which is why Hiddink will revert to the 4-2-3-1 system that has served him well. Only if Chelsea are desperately searching for a goal will he push two strikers up front.
Hiddink: “Of course I was thinking of the opposition this week. We have practised a little bit and we used this opportunity, but I like the team to see what the possibilities are.
“I think about different formations and like to have a flexible team. I don’t want them getting surprised that we have two strikers playing together and asking me, ‘How do we do that?’ We have to use some principles and practice on that.
"It will be a difficult game, let’s be honest. A negative scenario could happen and I don’t want them panicking if we decided to use a different system.”
Malouda: “We’re really happy to play together and there was a lot of movement and we all scored, so there are a lot of positives,” he said. “We really enjoyed ourselves and it was a great boost for our confidence because we scored three goals at home before the Barcelona game.
“The main concern for us is the battle in midfield with Iniesta and Xavi. We know that Barça will be happy if we go crazy and give them a lot of space, but that’s not the plan.”
Richard Williams, The Guardian: High up in the press box at Camp Nou on Tuesday night, the seat next to mine was occupied by a battery of half a dozen of those barrel-shaped devices used to record the speed of fast bowlers and formula one cars. On this occasion they were pointing downward and spread out like the ribs of a fan, aimed at a full coverage of the pitch in order to track the movement of the players. And 24 hours later, as the second of this week’s Champions League semi-final first-leg matches reached its interim conclusion at Old Trafford, there was an unmistakable feeling that 180 minutes of football in Barcelona and Manchester had delivered a combined spectacle of a kind that only the blazered ex-managers on Uefa’s technical committee would find wholly satisfying.
These were not bad matches. The current squads of Barcelona, Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal would be incapable of producing performances wholly sterilised of interest. Nevertheless two games eagerly anticipated by the uncommitted as well as those more intimately involved ended up being notable for chalkboard strategy rather than emotional engagement.
A price has to be paid when three of the last four contestants in Europe’s top club competition emanate from England’s Premier League, a hothouse of competition in which the margins between success and failure are so fine – and potentially so economically damaging – that nothing can be left to chance. They play to their coaches’ instructions, or they don’t play at all.
Blogger: Whereas Barcelona resemble a team of diminutive but deadly ninjas, masters of stealth, speed and precision, Chelsea are more like a crack commando trophy winning unit fed on a metaphorical diet of steroids and six inch nails.
I find the disdain of those who can only see the more obvious and photogenic beauty of Barca’s approach rather immature and childish.
Blogger: I found Barca’s approach far more tedious than Chelsea’s. 27 passes per minute, all of approximately 6 feet in distance, most of them sideways or backwards, but all of them to the combined effect of moving the ball precisely 18 inches closer their opponents goal.
The fact that there was no Plan B shows Barca’s tactical limitations and also why they will bow out of the competition next week. And rightly so. (A Liverpool fan believe it or not!).
Blogger: Last weak the Guardian was commenting on Chelsea’s defensive worries. Yesterday it was Hiddink’s technical nous. It seems to me he had done his homework and organised Chelsea effectively, which nullified Barcelona’s attacking threats. That seems fair enough to me despite the Catalan’s bleating.
Blogger: I thought I was actually tuned in to the semi final of the European diving championships. Alves and Drogba were disgraceful.
Blogger: My own hatred of Chelsea is based on the horrible Harris, Webb, McCreadie, Dempsey, Hollins side of the early 70s. There was a false dawn when Alan Hudson appeared, but it was, very, false.
Blogger: Football ‘purists’ are largely those who have never played the game to any serious level, and so come to expect inch-perfect passes, sublime footwork skills and super shooting as the only way to enjoy a game.
Maybe it is, from the comfort of your sofa and with the benefit of all those glorious slo-mos...Try the game for size yourself and you’ll soon see that skill can be measured in various ways...it’s what makes football so popular, the fact that we can’t all be Messis or Ronaldos, yet we can all participate.
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"I don't understand the criticism of the Barcelona players,"
"I am sure if the first leg had been at Stamford Bridge they would have been more conservative, thinking about the second leg.
"They have accused us of playing hard but they kicked us, too. Daniel Alves is not a player who goes around hugging people on the pitch, as I found out.
"It will be a hard game but we have to make home advantage count and with our support we will reach the final. Nobody is thinking about not reaching the final. It would be a massive blow to not get there now."
He continued, "We have passed the Nou Camp test and our aim is much closer now."
Due to Chelsea's inability to score in the first leg, Barcelona remains favourites, as one goal at Stamford Bridge will require Chelsea having to score two, due to the away goal ruling.
"It is good that people see them as favourites. The key is that we score first and then let's see what they do, because that changes the scheme of the game."
"It is born out of hypocrisy and fundamental insecurity. There have been two kids on the block for the past 12 years. Suddenly, there is a third and that one is threatening to be more successful than the others and they don’t like it." P Kenyon.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009:05:05:08:13:43 by dixon9.
My heart says a Chelsea win with LOADS of controversy....and you and the Mancs to go to penalties.
My head....The more I think about both matches I haven´t got a clue - ANYTHING could happen with either semi (and probably will).
.
"It is born out of hypocrisy and fundamental insecurity. There have been two kids on the block for the past 12 years. Suddenly, there is a third and that one is threatening to be more successful than the others and they don’t like it." P Kenyon.
Iniesta at it again (sorry, I know, it's getting
boring, but in general their arrogant attitude is a good incentive for Chelsea - let's just hope the refs don't fall for/with them)
"We will be thinking, 'Attack, attack, attack'. That is the Barcelona way," claimed Iniesta.
"Chelsea play football the way they want to, and they have had success that way. But we will not play their game.
"It is hard to play beautiful football when the other team are not playing beautiful football themselves. We think beautiful football is the only way the game should be played. They play it very tough and have some tough players. I think the referee will need to have a good game so that we can play our flowing football."
"It is born out of hypocrisy and fundamental insecurity. There have been two kids on the block for the past 12 years. Suddenly, there is a third and that one is threatening to be more successful than the others and they don’t like it." P Kenyon.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009:05:06:02:21:44 by dixon9.
[www.as.com]
Guillem Balagué
A friend of mine, a recognized journalist in the United Kingdom, said that Chelsea is a ghost club with ghost fans. That it does not exist, that disappears if nothing happens. He should know what he's talking about, because he has been a member for 20 years. It has been a fashionable club that went from a pastime, content with their own mediocrity and memories of a fleeting moment of glory in the sixties, to a newly bombastic club capable of paying excessive prices, going to the stadium to show off, well-dressed and quiet. Stamford Bridge has songs that are not theirs and an anthem that seems like a television theme. It was the first major stadium to empty out, even with Mourinho (or perhaps because of him) and must be unique in the last decade that has not sold their tickets in advance of semifinals.
The fans were heard little in the Camp Nou (although most of the travellers are classic, shaved hair and tattoos, who prefer to pay for a trip than for a membership fee) in part because they fear Barcelona. They saw the game against Valencia in England and Chelsea are suspected to play very similar to them, but the fans not fully confident in their team. Some daring (Tony Cascarino in The Times) have said that Barcelona is over-rated. Did it to provoke. In general, the island also knows that Barca is making history.
We constantly sell out but that Rosenborg match from 3 seasons ago has stuck. Of course, 50 quid a pop at that time for not the most high-profile of matches on a Tuesday night was a large factor - I´d love to see how many Liverpool and Man Utd fans would have paid that much!
You only have to look at how the media ignore so much of the fans transgressions from other clubs. Other big clubs have the odd match with empty seats yet they are always reported as a sell out. In others, the away followings have been pathetic and in some cases fans are seen leaving early from the ground without so much of a dickie bird from the media.
Chelsea are the ideal whipping boy - and seeing as other big clubs consititute so many of thir viewers or readers it is not likely to change.
"It is born out of hypocrisy and fundamental insecurity. There have been two kids on the block for the past 12 years. Suddenly, there is a third and that one is threatening to be more successful than the others and they don’t like it." P Kenyon.