Ajax boots Real Madrid out of CL.
Like everyone’s saying, Modric is no substitute for Ronaldo.
Courtois hasn’t been all that special since leaving Chelsea.
The young player, Vinicius, though, has been nice to watch (except for him openly bawling his head off while coming off the pitch, injured, against Ajax).
Why would anyone have said Modric is a Ronaldo replacement? They don’t remotely play the same position.
I do find their struggles somewhat puzzling. Ronaldo is a gigantic hole to fill, sure, but the talent on the rest of the team is still super high. You have Isco and Marcelo on the bench! I guess enough of the offense was flowing through Ronaldo that adjusting to a more equitable flow of offense is tougher than I was expecting. I expect them, ManU, and Chelsea (pending transfer ban appeals) to spend a ridiculous amount of money over the summer.
The fans (of which I’m not one) didn’t expect Modric to be the goal-scoring replacement for Ronaldo, but at the time CR went to Juventus, they somewhat unreasonably expected this year’s Ballon d’Or winner to further shore up the offense, to which many (again, unreasonably) felt he fell short of expectations. An oft-injured (and alienated/alienating) Bale and strangely underperforming Isco and Asencio are major contributors to RM’s bleak situation, to be sure.
Been hearing rumblings that Mourinho might be back at the helm of RM next season.
Heh - I like Solari’s reaction to that:
Oh man, PSG are amazing CL choke artists. Ole is a lock for permanent ManU coach now, right?
Yeah, but that last-minute penalty was, quite frankly, complete bullshit.
That’s a PK all day. Arm out from his body, making it bigger, jumping in front of the shot specifically to block it, correct call.
Just had my first look. Allow me to apply my vast experience: I’m in between BS and clear penalty given the only angle I had. Its not like he swung his arm over his head or straight out, so…A little tough luck there PSG. That’s footie.
“Arm out from the body”? A tiny bit.
I concede that, as the rules are currently written, it’s within the letter of the law, but nowhere near as cut-and-dried as you seem to think.
More generally, as a matter of what the rule should be, if that’s all it takes, they should make a pair of handcuffs part of the uniform, and just give players the choice of whether they’d prefer to be cuffed in the front or the back for the duration of the game.
The penalty was a marginal decision. I have no doubt though the defender knew exactly what he was doing putting his arm out like that.
The penalty was complete BS. He was jumping and turning away from the ball, he didn’t see the ball and had his hands in a natural position (when you turning in the air).
All analysis I heard took it as a given that the call was BS, and a lot of time was spent on ridiculing United players that seemed to think it was penalty in the after match interviews.
In any case, I think pretty much all the other teams are happy, because PSG showed they are about twice as strong as Man U at the moment. In both matches.
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Speaking as a United fan, I think the penalty was a soft one that you’d be very annoyed to have awarded against you, but nevertheless the correct call. Note that it doesn’t matter that the defender wasn’t looking at the ball - his arm made his body bigger (natural position or not) and this helped blocked the shot, which is illegal.
I don’t think any side will relish playing United at the moment. They were without several first team players last night and still managed to get through.
Solskjaer has worked wonders so far but they shouldn’t make a decision until taking stock at the end of the season about the entire management structure of the football club.
The teams I would want to avoid going forward:
[ol]
[li]Man City[/li][li]Winner of Liverpool/Bayern[/li][li]Barcelona[/li][li]Man U[/li][li]Atletico[/li][li]Ajax[/li][li]Tottenham[/li][li]Porto[/li][/ol]
Assuming Barca and Atletico go through, which they should, but isn’t certain. If Juve advance I’d probably put them either just ahead of ManU or Barcelona. Lyon would be at the bottom or just ahead of Porto.
That has to be a pretty encouraging group for the remaining teams.
I’d taken man u over Tottenham and Atletico.
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He absolutely was looking at the ball. Lets get that out of the way. But i do think its on the soft side.Like I said. Bad luck. It happens.
I also want to say …again…about that goal that was spilled by Buffon. Those damn shots that skip right in front of you are hard as hell to handle. Its why I preach over and over you cant score if you don’t shoot.
All the ESPN commentators said the call was correct. For what that is worth.
It’s a penalty every day of the year. His arm is there for a very specific reason, he damn near watches the ball all the way into the arm. Claiming that is not a penalty is arguing with one’s heart, not one’s head.
All the Dutch ones said it was BS.
I’m not sure if that says something about English bias on ESPN, or lack of football knowledge:).
I’m kind of surprised by the reaction of the British press. It is fine to luck out sometimes, but this is presented as a great and deserved victory. They were second best for 180 minutes and the three goals followed from 2 mistakes and a dodgy penalty. In the last 20 minutes they didn’t even manage to put up a last ditch effort to score… except for that one passage of play, nothing much happened (uncommon in a cup tie where one goal could change things).
All the comparisons with Ajax the day before are kind of insulting. Ajax did very well to match or even out play Real over two games (they lost the first one, but won the second one). It wasn’t just the result, but the games themselves that were the big news. Totally different form what Man U did, and believe me I don’t have any love for Ajax.
To late to edit, but possibly relevant:
For what it’s worth, FIFA knows the hand ball rules need to be changed. In November there were multiple news outlets that reported that they are planning to rewrite rules. Now the rule states the hand ball has to be deliberate. They want to remove that word to deal with situations like last night (not deliberate, but blocking the ball). I’m kind of in favor to be more clear and would welcome that rule change. However, that is not the rule at the moment. And no, the PSG player he didn’t see the ball coming since his back was turned towards the shooter. Glad we managed to clear that up.
Dusan Tadic plays the game of his lifeto help Ajax depose Real Madrid from Champions League yet wasn’t quite the player that 17th place Southampton needed.