2008-2009 UEFA Champions League: Manchester United Dispose Of Arsenal 3-1, Iniesta Saves Barcelona
May 8th 2009 05:32
The semifinals of this year's Champions League ended yesterday (make that the day before yesterday) on two very different notes. On the one hand, Manchester United finished the work started last week by easily beating Arsenal 3-1. On the other hand, Chelsea and Barcelona delivered a thrilling game - made even more dramatic by questionable refereeing and last gasp efforts - which ended on the score of 1-1 thus sending Barcelona to the May 27th finale.
After a lackluster performance at Old Trafford last week, Arsčne Wenger promised to fans that they would see a very different team on the second leg. Unfortunately for him, his squad didn't really have time to dictate the tone as they found themselves down 2-0 by the tenth minute of play. First, Park capitalized on Gibbs' accidental fall in the box to make it 1-0. Three minutes later, Cristiano Ronaldo, fouled by Van Persie who was trying to repair a giveaway by Gibson, scored on the free-kick and practically ensured Manchester United's place in the finale with a 3-0 aggregate score.
Similarly to the first leg, most of the action took place in midfield as Arsenal struggled to play their flowing football against a pressuring United side. Van Persie was practically invisible throughout the game and Walcott was beautifully shut down by Evra and Rooney. With Fabregas and Nasri unable to get a real good at their passing options before having two-three blue jerseys surrounding them, Adebayor was pretty lonely in front.
At the 60th minute, Cristiano Ronaldo scored his second of the game on a textbook example of the perfect counterattack with only three players touching the ball: Park, Rooney and Ronaldo. It's at this point that Wenger finally decided to bring more punch in front but, down 4-0, there was no way the Gunners would be coming back. Still, they got a consolation goal at the 75th minute when Fletcher took down Van Persie inside the box. The midfielder touched the ball first but from the angle of play, there was no way the referee would have seen that. Plus it was a tackle from behind so the decision was pretty easy. The goal didn't hurt United but Fletcher's red card means that United will have to go without an energetic midfielder in the final. Yes, they have Scholes on the bench but he can't go a full 90, even less if he has to spend as much energy as Fletcher does.
So, that was a pretty anticlimactic game to end the semis. Was it enjoyable? Yes, but not as much as the match on Wednesday which opposed Barcelona to Chelsea.
After the “attack versus defense” demonstration that took place last week, many people were looking for Chelsea to risk themselves a bit more in the second leg. Well, the Blues shocked everyone by getting the first goal of that match-up at the 8th minute of play when Essien perfectly volleyed the ball to beat Victor Valdes. After that however, Guus Hiddink's men returned to their shell and viewers were once again exposed to the attack-defense game. The difference from last week was that this time around, Chelsea actually built some decent counterattacks but simply couldn't cash in on their opportunities. They might say that the referee had a hand in it when he refused to give Chelsea a penalty even though he had five occasions to do so but I say Chelsea only have themselves to blame for the loss. Here's why.
First, there were two instances where Drogba was “taken down” in the box. I write “taken down” with quotation marks because it was obvious to me that both plays were blatant dives. If Drogba was at least willing to fight for a little longer, then he might have gotten the call but dropping yourself to the ground for every contact won't get you anywhere. Second, there was that Pique hand-ball inside the box during the second half. There are two ways to look at it. Either the ref didn't give the penalty because Pique didn't actually “play” the ball (though he did impede on Chelsea's attack) or, more realistically (in a psychological/emotional sense), he simply didn't want to screw up Barca even more after giving that red card to Abidal for a non-existent contact. So, in his mind, why would that call (the one on Pique I mean) matter anyway? Chelsea were leading 1-0 and Barcelona were down to ten men.
After all, it makes absolutely no sense that a team down ten men still plays better and more voraciously than a full-strength side especially when it looked like Barcelona were running out of time. If Chelsea are looking for someone to blame, they must look at themselves who still let Barca come to them wave after wave after wave until the levee exploded. On Barcelona's only shot on target for the game, Iniesta sent his team to the May 27th finale. Sure, now that it ended 1-1, all the ref's non-calls are magnified but if Chelsea had won 1-0, people would only joke about it and move on. So yeah, poor refereeing but not as bad as people make it out to be. In my mind, I still haven't seen worse refereeing than in 2002 when South Korea eliminated both Spain and Italy with the referee's help. Better luck next time Chelsea. Maybe by then you will have learned your lesson.
After a lackluster performance at Old Trafford last week, Arsčne Wenger promised to fans that they would see a very different team on the second leg. Unfortunately for him, his squad didn't really have time to dictate the tone as they found themselves down 2-0 by the tenth minute of play. First, Park capitalized on Gibbs' accidental fall in the box to make it 1-0. Three minutes later, Cristiano Ronaldo, fouled by Van Persie who was trying to repair a giveaway by Gibson, scored on the free-kick and practically ensured Manchester United's place in the finale with a 3-0 aggregate score.
Similarly to the first leg, most of the action took place in midfield as Arsenal struggled to play their flowing football against a pressuring United side. Van Persie was practically invisible throughout the game and Walcott was beautifully shut down by Evra and Rooney. With Fabregas and Nasri unable to get a real good at their passing options before having two-three blue jerseys surrounding them, Adebayor was pretty lonely in front.
At the 60th minute, Cristiano Ronaldo scored his second of the game on a textbook example of the perfect counterattack with only three players touching the ball: Park, Rooney and Ronaldo. It's at this point that Wenger finally decided to bring more punch in front but, down 4-0, there was no way the Gunners would be coming back. Still, they got a consolation goal at the 75th minute when Fletcher took down Van Persie inside the box. The midfielder touched the ball first but from the angle of play, there was no way the referee would have seen that. Plus it was a tackle from behind so the decision was pretty easy. The goal didn't hurt United but Fletcher's red card means that United will have to go without an energetic midfielder in the final. Yes, they have Scholes on the bench but he can't go a full 90, even less if he has to spend as much energy as Fletcher does.
So, that was a pretty anticlimactic game to end the semis. Was it enjoyable? Yes, but not as much as the match on Wednesday which opposed Barcelona to Chelsea.
After the “attack versus defense” demonstration that took place last week, many people were looking for Chelsea to risk themselves a bit more in the second leg. Well, the Blues shocked everyone by getting the first goal of that match-up at the 8th minute of play when Essien perfectly volleyed the ball to beat Victor Valdes. After that however, Guus Hiddink's men returned to their shell and viewers were once again exposed to the attack-defense game. The difference from last week was that this time around, Chelsea actually built some decent counterattacks but simply couldn't cash in on their opportunities. They might say that the referee had a hand in it when he refused to give Chelsea a penalty even though he had five occasions to do so but I say Chelsea only have themselves to blame for the loss. Here's why.
First, there were two instances where Drogba was “taken down” in the box. I write “taken down” with quotation marks because it was obvious to me that both plays were blatant dives. If Drogba was at least willing to fight for a little longer, then he might have gotten the call but dropping yourself to the ground for every contact won't get you anywhere. Second, there was that Pique hand-ball inside the box during the second half. There are two ways to look at it. Either the ref didn't give the penalty because Pique didn't actually “play” the ball (though he did impede on Chelsea's attack) or, more realistically (in a psychological/emotional sense), he simply didn't want to screw up Barca even more after giving that red card to Abidal for a non-existent contact. So, in his mind, why would that call (the one on Pique I mean) matter anyway? Chelsea were leading 1-0 and Barcelona were down to ten men.
After all, it makes absolutely no sense that a team down ten men still plays better and more voraciously than a full-strength side especially when it looked like Barcelona were running out of time. If Chelsea are looking for someone to blame, they must look at themselves who still let Barca come to them wave after wave after wave until the levee exploded. On Barcelona's only shot on target for the game, Iniesta sent his team to the May 27th finale. Sure, now that it ended 1-1, all the ref's non-calls are magnified but if Chelsea had won 1-0, people would only joke about it and move on. So yeah, poor refereeing but not as bad as people make it out to be. In my mind, I still haven't seen worse refereeing than in 2002 when South Korea eliminated both Spain and Italy with the referee's help. Better luck next time Chelsea. Maybe by then you will have learned your lesson.
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