Juve is certainly making this interesting.
Gotta say Liverpool look the most exciting out of the 8 quarterfinalists.
Please, let Madrid lose.
That would please me as well.
If that happens I’d like Juve to win it all. Otherwise Liverpool.
Screw Madrid and UEFA. Why don’t you just give Madrid the trophy. Don’t bother with the rest of the tournament.
Wasn’t watching live, but reading play by play. After actually seeing it, that penalty is a lot softer than I was expecting.
The defender not only hooks a leg around in front of the player in a vain attempt to play the ball (that’s a foul right there), he pushes the attacker from behind while he’s doing it. It’s a direct kick foul. It’s inside the penalty area. Ergo, it’s a penalty. If you don’t call things like that penalties, all you do is encourage attackers to flop dramatically to “draw” the penalty call.
Gigi Buffon will look at his comments post-game later and will consider many of them to be rather silly. I wonder what he said to Oliver to get sent straight off?
Rewatched it again, yeah, that’s a pk. For some reason my recollection was the defender brushed his back while going by and got his foot on the ball.
Buffon pushed the ref, didn’t he?
I never thought it was in Man C’s best interests when he departed from there. Then again, if it simply boils down to him being replaced by Aguero, then maybe it didn’t hurt MC.
Meant to post this on the weekend. My eyes popped out of my head when I saw this, and from !!!Cavnanni!!!of all people.
The defender reached the ball first, not a penalty. And Vasquez went down like he had been shot.
I wonder if the ref got the wrong card out, I have seen them issue a yellow for such protests, rarely a red.
The referee clearly should never officiate anything higher than a 6th form practice game from now on.
The penalty may have been soft but not outrageously so. The referee’s angle perhaps made it look more of a penalty. The defender got the ball but there are limits to how much you can “go through” a player to get the ball. This was borderline one of those limits imo. I was gutted to see Real win though.
I simply MUST address this very incorrect assertion of the LAW (regardless of whether it is in fact true or not). There simply is NO aspect of Law 12 that precludes a player from committing a foul simply because they touch the ball first. The concept that a player who contacts the ball first has not committed a foul is a remnant of a relatively brief period of time some 20 years ago (IIRC) when FIFA and IFAB, in language attempting to guide referees in interpreting Law 12, stated that a foul was committed if a player attempting a tackle from behind did not first touch the ball. This language has long since vanished from anything official, but to this day, the fascination it created with whether or not the defender touches the ball before the “fouled” player does remains. But, it should be pointed out, even when the language WAS in place, it was never the case that touching the ball first exonerated you.
For reference, see Law 12 of the 2017/18 Laws of the Game.
Now, I’ll deal with the foul itself.
First of all, Benatia hits Lucas’ back before anything else happens. You can slow down the video to see this (his body is suddenly jerked forward before the ball is reached by either player). So the foul has already happened before we get to the issue of whether or not Benatia touches the ball with his leg before it hits the chest of Lucas. You can also see this from the original long shot of the action, since it shows the incident from the side.
Secondly, Benatia’s leg never clearly contacts the ball. I’ve watched that from all the angles that were available at the time, and it’s not clear that the ball is ever contacted before it hits the chest of Lucas, and then goes flying off, since Lucas is, you know, being shoved from behind and not able to control what happens with the ball.
But as for whether or not Lucas “went down like he had been shot”, let’s just say that this assertion shows you may have a bit of bias in looking at this incident, since, whatever might be said about Lucas’ reaction to being pushed over from behind, he certainly didn’t dive to the floor of the pitch.
Michael Oliver keeps his red card in the back pocket, his yellow card in the shirt pocket. When he reaches to the back pocket, it’s because he’s reaching for a red card. It’s not a mistake. As for WHY it was a sending off, at this point, I can only speculate. I have not seen any report from the referee on what Buffon did. But it’s pretty clear it must either have been egregious physical contact, or something very, very bad verbally.
Liverpool came out firing on all cylinders this afternoon as opposed to the lackluster effort against Everton the previous week after the first leg of the Man City tie.
I’ve got to stay off the Liverpool blogs, way too many conspiracy theories regarding the Champions League being fixed.
How can it be fixed against Liverpoo? They received the ideal semifinal draw.
I think the idea is that Liverpool are a very strong counter-attacking team. Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are attacking teams, who will push up and leave space at the back that can be exploited through counter-attacks. A team that sits deep and defensive, like Italian teams are known to do, will negate that counter-attacking strength.
That’s very reasonable. But I think regardless that playing Roma is a more preferential semi-final matchup than either of the other two.
Not to change subjects and it’s true that I haven’t seen them all, but the second leg of Marseille-Leipzig in the NIT quarterfinals this week was the most entertaining game I’ve watched all season. Payet was brilliant.
If Barcelona goes undefeated and wins the double, will their season be considered a failure?
I don’t think it should be, but I bet it will if Real Madrid wins the Champions League. If any of the other 3 teams, especially Liverpool or Roma, win I think it will be viewed as a success.
Liverpool chokes away a 2-0 lead to draw with soon to be relegated West Brom. I assume they’re looking ahead to Roma.
This Salah guy, he’s pretty good!
Go Baggies!
Barca wrapped up the domestic double (pretty much) today with a 5-0 thrashing of Sevilla. Probably Iniesta’s last important match of his career with the possible except of the upcoming El Clasico. Probably one of the top 10 midfielders of the past 30 years. Gotta be a bittersweet end for him.
eta switched from top 5 to top 10.
Quite the cracker of a goal de Bruyne got. Silva’s wasn’t too shabby either.
Damn! So much for my Millwall/Yeovil FA Cup final psychic conjuring.
Sure, I’m glad my Blues are in, but that doesn’t quite compensate for their porridge-like showing this season.