UEFA Champions league semifinal

Guess who?

Yup.

Real and Barça go at it again tomorrow(Wednesday) at 11:45 Am God's time on FX.

Now Pep and José officially hate each other.

Should be good.

“@GrantWahl: Barcelona lineup: Víctor Valdés; Daniel Alves, Mascherano, Piqué, Puyol; Busquets, Xavi, Keita; Pedro, Messi, David Villa.”

No Iniesta.....

Mascherano is center back. Puyol is left fullback?

End of round one.

Judges have it 1 voting for Real, 1 voting for Barça.

One judge has it even.

Mascherano gave the classic "dive" gesture on a Dimaria fall and got away with it.

Yellow to Ramos, yellow to Mascherano, straight red to Pepe for a challenge on Dani Alvez.


Real will play with 10


Mourinho gets sent off as well.

Ronaldo takes a dive on Puyol. No call

Haha. The TV caught Mourinho in the stands writing a note and passing it to the bench.

It would seem to be a violation of the banned person participation rule.

Leo crashing the goal gets one past Iker .

Then Abeyador almost gets a red for a mugging. Ref gives un Amarrillo instead.

Leo gets another all by himself. Takes the series tie away from Real.



Real will have to score 3 at Camp Nou next Tuesday or Barça goes to Wembley

I gotta say, for all Messi's genius, the player of the game was Puyol. He handled Ronaldo on the wing and helped in the middle, and went forward.

That guy has to be the best defender in the world.

Well when he's put on a team with exactly zero other people with any defensive aspirations what so ever, it makes him look even more heroic. The Geico caveman is like a wrecking ball version of Park Ji-Sung, just tireless.

Kind of shameful how much of a role officiating took in the game, plus the gamesmanship of both teams was just disgusting. Dani Alves should be stuck in a room and force to repeatedly watch the Brian Mullan leg breaking foul on Steve Zakuani and gain a little perspective on how stupid his rolling around for a touch really is. I was excited to watch this game, but matches like that are why soccer gets such a bad rap in the United States.

But man that 2nd Messi goal was amazing... Hard to believe he's only 23, think he'll quit at 28 out of sheer boredom?

"Ow! My eye, my eye!"

Soccer guy.

Watch the NHL playoffs if you want to see athletes taking hits and not whining.

Yeah, we should be watching a mans sport where they never fake injury...

DaTruRochin wrote:Well when he's put on a team with exactly zero other people with any defensive aspirations what so ever, it makes him look even more heroic. The Geico caveman is like a wrecking ball version of Park Ji-Sung, just tireless.

Kind of shameful how much of a role officiating took in the game, plus the gamesmanship of both teams was just disgusting. Dani Alves should be stuck in a room and force to repeatedly watch the Brian Mullan leg breaking foul on Steve Zakuani and gain a little perspective on how stupid his rolling around for a touch really is. I was excited to watch this game, but matches like that are why soccer gets such a bad rap in the United States.

But man that 2nd Messi goal was amazing... Hard to believe he's only 23, think he'll quit at 28 out of sheer boredom?

There were at least three matadors on Messi's goal. As long as people do that with him, he'll play till he's 40.

Maradona would still be here if he played in that league..

Never heard Mascherano called soft on defense before- or Piquet.

Well, Mascherano isn't normally a center back... and I wasn't calling the rest of the soft, I was more referring to the fact that they have a tendency to be much more offensively minded than typical defenders. Haha Puyol is about the only guy on that roster that is 100% dedicated to defending, well Victor Valdes is too I suppose.

And after all the cards tossed out in that game, it seems like everyone was scared to even touch Messi for fear of another suspect booking. So much for my dream of Mourinho and Fergie trading press conference barbs for a month...

Just saw the stats.

Barça had 72% possession.


They didn't have to play much defense. When they did, they got the ball back instantly.

I kept thinking "Real is playing like the Dutch".

Yeah I was thinking the same thing while watching it...

I'm shocked I made it through the whole game, I couldn't stand watching the WC final because of all the negative play. Such a shame that 2 of the games I've been most excited to watch in the last year have turned out to be ruined by histrionics, hacking and just bad soccer.

I watched it twice.

Must be the stock car race fan in me...

Purplegeezer wrote:Yeah, we should be watching a mans sport where they never fake injury...

Oops. Not long after I posted I did see a guy get called for diving. But it was nothing like the dramatics by Barca.

after a week of lovefest between the two sides, we get to see RMA at Camp Nou, were Mourinho has already said his side has no chance.

He'll have to watch like the rest of us - with PEPE and Sergio Ramos beside him in the stands.
I think everyone is back for Barça.

RMA has to win by two goals in regular time just to take the match to a 30 minute overtime, so they indeed have an uphill fight.

UEFA is staying out of it for now, and told the two sides to "grow up". I hope since RMA has "no chance" they will at least try to play soccer.

its on FSC at 11:30 AM Tuesday (619 on DirectTV)