Vesper

2020-21 UEFA Champions League, Quarterfinals Liverpool Real Madrid http://www.sportnews.to/mysports/2021/champions-league-liverpool-vs-real-madrid-s1/ https://www.totalsportek.com/page-5/

Replacing Poch with tactics to make George Graham look like Ossie Ardiles Mauricio Pochettino: one trophy in the bag, Big Cup in his sights. Photograph: Dave Winter/REX/Shutterstock Scott Murray POCH ON When Daniel Levy took over at Tottenham Hotspur in 2001, it felt like the club were in a state of suspended animation. One of the grandest institutions in the country, all they’d won in the previous nine years was a solitary League Cup. Things had to change. And just look at them now! Two glory-strewn decades down the line, not only have they won another League Cup, they’ve also come third in a two-horse race in the Premier League, behind a 5,000-1 shot and Arsenal, and forgotten to turn up for a Big Cup final, though they did qualify for it. Well done, Daniel, it’s been one hell of a blast. But in the interests of balance, it’s only fair to point out that nobody is perfect. Some critics have been questioning Levy’s 2019 decision to defenestrate Mauricio Pochettino and replace him with a man whose tactics make George Graham look like Ossie Ardiles and whose results make Ossie Ardiles look like Bill Nick. And while Spurs faff about, Pochettino has sauntered off, hand in pocket, whistling, to PSG where he’s already won one trophy and is looking good to land Big Cup having last night dispatched holders Bayern Munich in another of those matches the hipster cognoscenti won’t have enjoyed because tactics went out the window and it was fun. Down the line, Manchester City may have something to say about this. So may Chelsea. So, in theory, may ersatz 2019 Liverpool tribute act Liverpool, who will at least give another of those famous comebacks a go tonight, bless them. But with PSG three matches away from the Boys Own fairytale of becoming the first sovereign state to win Europe’s top club championship, things are looking very promising indeed for the former Spurs boss right now. Especially as favourites City will almost certainly find yet another wild and wonderful way to blow it in Europe, if not tonight in Dortmund then in the semi in Paris, we can feel it in our bones. Hey, who knows, maybe they’ll freeze in the League Cup final too, in which case chalk one more success up for Big Dan. LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE! Join Scott Murray for Liverpool 2-0 Real Madrid (3-3 agg), and Barry Glendenning for Borussia Dortmund 1-3 Manchester City (2-5 agg). QUOTE OF THE DAY “You’ll see a change now – see the banners around the club [stadium] are not red any more. We’ve looked into this. Some of the players mentioned that in the split-second decision you have to look over your shoulder to see if your teammate is there or not then the red shirt is on a red background with red seats” – Ole Gunnar Solskjær brings back memories of those grey shirts at the Dell, almost exactly 25 years on. The Manchester United squad in action at Old Trafford. Photograph: Matthew Ashton - AMA/Getty Images RECOMMENDED LISTENING It’s Football Weekly! FIVER LETTERS “Fiver is guilty of just eating the shooting stats in Brighton vs Everton match. Expected goals reveals just very boring game 1.16 vs 0.31 so it should have been 1-0 ish which it was … ish” – Tim Lynch. “Did Paul Lindauer feel like a bully? [Monday’s Fiver letters] I did in a similar situation. There was a kid’s game about to start in the park and no ref; hi, I’m qualified, I’ll do it. Well thank you. While some of the kids were checking out the dandelions, one bigger kid was bustling his way through everyone, and not in accordance with the laws. After awarding a few free-kicks against him, I decided he needed some guidance; I wagged my finger at him as I told him that he couldn’t just push others out of his way. His response was to burst into tears and run over to his mother (not so tough, now, eh?) Oh dear, what a brute, dark looks from other parents. Sigh. So much for being a nice guy. (Didn’t bother about leaving the field without permission ...) – Allan Clark. Send your letters to [email protected]. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Allan Clark. NEWS, BITS AND BOBS Slavia Prague’s Ondrej Kudela has been handed a 10-match Uefa ban for ‘racist behaviour’ at Rangers. Mikel Arteta says he refuses to imagine a first Arsenal season without Europe since 1995-96 next year. “I don’t want to put it in my mind or transmit it to any of the players or anybody at the club,” he cheered. Neymar’s contract extension talks seem set to go smoothly. “I don’t think this is even a topic any more; I obviously feel very comfortable, at home at PSG,” he purred. STILL WANT MORE? Has a player played more games in a league season than their team? The Knowledge has the answer Big interview: Sid Lowe talks to Fede Valverde: ‘You take a corner and there’s an animal next to you’ Federico Valverde in action against Liverpool. Photograph: Helios de la Rubia/Real Madrid/Getty Images Marcus Christenson on the Swedish fans trying to create an atmosphere … despite only eight being allowed in a ground. ‘Hostile takeover’ and smashed glass: John Duerden reports on the turmoil in Pakistan’s football Brighton’s Aileen Whelan gets her chat on with Louise Taylor: ‘I’ll concentrate on child psychology after retiring’ Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO! ‘THANKS EVERYONE!’

Wednesday April 14 2021 Matt Law's Chelsea briefing Do spooky similarities with 2012 mean anything for Chelsea's current Champions League campaign? By Matt Law, Football News Correspondent It will not be lost on Chelsea supporters that the last time they beat Portuguese opposition in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, they went on to rule Europe. In fact, there is a growing theme among fans on social media that the stars are aligning and pointing to another Champions League success, nine years since the thrilling penalty shoot-out victory over Bayern Munich. Head coach Thomas Tuchel will not be counting on superstition as he attempts to plot a path to the final, but some of the similarities between this and Chelsea’s 2012 campaign are stark. Those who follow Twitter accounts such as @CFCDUBois, @TheScore01 and @SonOfChelsea will have seen the numerous messages and retweets of good omens for Chelsea’s Champions League hopes. Some, such as the fact Chelsea’s rivals Tottenham Hotspur conceded five goals in an FA Cup game in 2012 and did so again this season, border on the ridiculous. But there is undeniably a likeness between where Chelsea find themselves now and where they were at the same stage of the competition all those years ago. Here, purely for a bit of fun (yes, that still is allowed in football), this column goes through some of the better similarities and rates the strength of each omen out of five. A MANAGERIAL CHANGE This season, it was Frank Lampard who got sacked and in 2012 it was another young coach Andre Villas-Boas who was replaced before the end of the season. Chelsea had already qualified from the group stages of the Champions League and drawn Atletico Madrid when Lampard was replaced by Thomas Tuchel, but interim manager Roberto Di Matteo faced an altogether tougher task when he succeeded Villas-Boas. Chelsea were 3-1 down to Napoli in the Champions League and were staring elimination in the face, before Di Matteo’s team beat the Italians 4-1 after extra-time in the second leg at Stamford Bridge. The rest, as they say, is history. Omen rating: 2 out of 5. Chelsea change their managers so frequently that it would be more eye-catching if they had not sacked Villas-Boas or Lampard as they progressed through the Champions League in 2012 and this season. AN FA CUP RUN Chelsea completed a double by winning the Champions League nine years ago, having already lifted the FA Cup a couple of weeks earlier. And next in the fixture list this weekend is an FA Cup semi-final date against Manchester City at Wembley. Progress to the final to face either Leicester City or Southampton, a game in which Chelsea would be favourites, will only further convince superstitious supporters that another European and domestic double is on the cards. No doubt the Twitter accounts linking every possible likeness to this season and the Champions League-winning campaign will have already noted that Chelsea beat Leicester City on their FA Cup run in 2012 — so if Tuchel’s team can somehow get past Manchester City, then some might be praying for the midlands team in the final. Omen rating: 3 out of 5. The FA Cup and Champions League 2012 successes more than made up for what had been a disappointing Premier League season and, once again, some of Chelsea’s best performances this season have some in the domestic and European cup competitions. THE GERMAN CONNECTION Last season Thomas Tuchel was one step from winning the Champions League with Paris-Saint Germain, as the French club were beaten by Bayern Munich in the final. The last time a German manager, Jurgen Klopp, lost a Champions League final, he went on to win it in the following season with Liverpool, who were beaten by Real Madrid in 2017/18 before overcoming Tottenham Hotspur in 2018/19. Unlike Klopp, Tuchel has changed clubs since losing in the final, but Chelsea will be hoping that he shares the same drive Klopp displayed to respond in the best possible way to such a big disappointment. Omen rating: 4 out of 5. The fact it was a German who last won the Champions League after losing a final is not particularly significant. But one of the attractions of appointing Tuchel for Chelsea was his pedigree in the competition last season and that experience appears to be serving him well. THE NUMBERS GAME Just as Tottenham supporters used to look out for a year that ended in one, Chelsea fans will not have needed a degree in mathematics to realise that the numbers of 2012 can also be rearranged to make 2021. But if that is not enough to convince you that this must be the club's year to become two-time European Champions, then consider this: Didier Drogba top-scored for the in the competition nine years ago with six goals - the same amount of goals Olivier Giroud has so far netted up to the semi-finals. Drogba was 34 by the time Chelsea won in Munich and how old is Giroud? You guessed it, 34. The number 29 could also be of interest to superstitious supporters, as it is the day of the month that both Roberto Di Matteo (May 29) and Thomas Tuchel (August 29) were born. Omen rating: 2 out of 5. The numbers do appear to add up for Chelsea this season, although Giroud will only need to score one more Champions League goal to beat Drogba’s 2012 tally. The amateur mathematicians should not be getting too excited just yet. Got a question on Chelsea? Get in touch on Twitter @Matt_Law_DT or by emailing [email protected]

Well, if all 5.4 million Norwegians each buy 200 quid worth of Real clobber................... and if the profit margin is 25% they have paid his salary + 20m quid to that nice man Mino just for smiling and laughing all the way to his Swiss bank in his brand new Bugatti Divo! lololol

How fluid are football matches? A Pan European study The 64th CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report crunched InStat data to unveil the effective playing time and other indicators regarding the fluidity of matches in 37 European competitions. It notably shows that the fluidity of the game depends on geographical and cultural logics. The proportion of stoppage time due to fouls in comparison to the total length of matches, for example, varies between just over 10% in the Netherlands up to almost 20% in Greece. The number of fouls and time lost due to them tends to be higher in Southern and Eastern European leagues than in the championships from the North and West of the continent. The Turkish Süper Lig stands out as the competition in which the time taken to restart play after a foul is the longest: about 35” of stoppage time as opposed to 30” for all leagues. It is also in Turkey that referees add the most extra time: almost 9 minutes on average compared to 6’14” for all competitions surveyed. The average effective playing time is 61%. It goes from 67% in Israel down to 56% in the Spanish Segunda División. The study also reveals the absence of correlation between the effective playing time and the total length of matches. This shows that the level of fluidity in the game is not taken into account by referees when it comes to adding extra time. This could encourage players of teams in difficulty, or having gained an advantage, to disrupt the rhythm of the game, knowing that the stoppage time has not much influence on the number of minutes added.

X-man is my big hope down the road

crazy drama with Bayern, Hasan Salihamidžić was screaming at Hansi Flick one of them is out soo Flick probably takes over German national team I wager

I am not going to root for either team, it's bad luck

I was close, I said 14

or seemed that way, I am probably way off

they must have had 30+ total fouls

14?

congrats to Poch too, ground out a result and tossed out Bayern

Sérgio Conceição is right proper cunt

ffs smdh

we have been a rock defensively though

dirty fuckers Mendy kicked it out for an injury and they did not give it back

yes, not really unhappy with him

at least a chance for Puli

diving overreacting cunts

http://blacktiesports.net/live/soccer2.php

Leon Goretzka is impossible so Eduardo Camavinga (donside is every huge team wants him) Marcos Llorente (insanely expensive if AM refuses to come off his release clause) Federico Valverde (near impossible) Youri Tielemans (proven EPL star) Houssem Aouar (doable) Marco Verratti (near impossible) Saúl Ñíguez (insanely expensive if AM refuses to come off his release clause) Ryan Gravenberch (very young still, huge potential, but a dice roll if he is meant to be the one)

I guess I am the only one bothered by the quality of the game need to put on my pragmatic hat

if this was against Bayern (with Lewa) or Citeh we would be down nil 4

what a shitshow for both sides dreadful watch