capriccioso

^ What Spike said. Get 'em early or watch them bugger off to Spain/Man City.

Our national team is pretty good, amongst the best in Asia and the equal of any in CAF or CONCACAF, and CONMEBOL excluding Brazil and Argentina. UEFA we could probably beat most teams, except for the likes of England, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and Spain- and we always lift when we play England, so I wouldn't be too sure about that With regards to Chelsea Hadjuk, they were an ethnic club founded by Croatian's, and it's now been merged with Dandenong City Soccer Club. Soccer Club?!

FB, it is. Our former national team manager, Pim Verbeek, once famously said "There is more quality in a Bundesliga training session than there is in an A-League match". Its a bit harsh, but not far from the mark. Our league won't really get to a much higher standard unless we keep our best players, and that won't happen until the salary cap is lifted and billionaires can run amok.

Barca aren't all that! I have full confidence that this squad, from 34 year old Drogba down to the teenage defenders, are amongst the best in the world when motivated. Bring it on! Milan or Barca, we can still win! And Milan, they certainly have some weaknesses in their squad. Alright, their forward line is miles ahead of ours. They've got a marginally better midfield. I'd rate our defences as even, and Petr is a better keeper than theirs. It'll be tough for them. Of course there's the issue of Benfica first. We've got to do a professional job on them first, lets not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Spot on, BM. We probably need to score a goal, their attack isn't as devastating as Napoli's but you can safely bet if they attack for 90 minutes we'll have trouble keeping a clean sheet.

Hi! Welcome, and I hope you'll be another great addition to the already very large Australian community of posters on this board And set your fears at rest, if anyone can not be accused of being plastics, its us. Who else gets up at insane hours and skips uni/school/work to watch Chelsea?

Good point.

That wasn't a simple tap in tbf, he had to slide in to get to the ball and there's no telling where the ball will go if you approach it like that. And a goal is a goal, whether you score it when you're 31-0 up (thanks, Archie Thompson ) or drawing 0-0 in the 120th minute of the World Cup Final.

Even Drogba I'm iffy on. He's my all-time favourite player, and I'll probably shed a few tears when he leaves but he's just not cutting the mustard anymore and we can't afford to give him a 2 year deal. Perhaps a 1 year contract to begin with with an automatic 1 year extension clause if he scores 15 goals in the season or some such. And by the way, this is an excellent idea for a topic

I wonder how we'll go about the game. Will we look to defend and nick a goal and keep it tight, or will we try and blast Benfica out of the water and go for an early 3 or 4 goal aggregate lead? I think the former would be a far better option, Benfica are a quality side and no doubt they'll come out and attack from the whistle. We can exploit that and play on the counter, but I don't think we should try to out-attack them. Of course, an attacking approach will be the last thing they expect so maybe we should go all out for the opening 5 minutes to catch them off guard and hopefully score a goal before withdrawing and defending for the rest of the match. Huge tactical headache for me, thank god it's di Matteo's problem and not mine

Apart from Obi, Kalou and possibly Drogba, everyone else needs to be shown the door. You've also missed out on Lampard, Bosingwa and Cole in your list.

I don't want to see Hiddink. He'll stick around for 2-3 years and retire, it'll be a short term fix. We should be looking for managers who can give us at least 5 years.

He's proven himself to be at the least, competent. He's not lacking in the tactics area and is clearly a better motivator than either Villas-Boas or Ancelotti were.

Michel Platini intervened to ensure we'd have an unfair ref!

I haven't watched the game yet, but I did see that Mata started. Why?!!

The link won't load for me Hahaha Kalou looks like a college nerd in your signature.

TX is a good poster, he's a bit stupid about Kalou but he's really smart apart from that and I like him I don't know about Henrique or Justin though.

How much effect will the Petrov affair have on them? Will we face a team determined to win or a team thats got its attention fixed on their sick captain?

Claude

This was the pick of the bunch, IMO, huge Real Madrid fan Rafael Nadal with his uncle. You can tell by the look on his face that he isn't too happy at his uncle's choice of wardrobe for him

Nice conspiracy theory

Fair enough.

Yes, he'd give us an extra attacking option. I'd love to see a player of his quality at our club. I disagree. He's not very influential at all IMO, and to be frank, he can't be much worse than our current dressing room heads of state.

The ends always justify the means in football. He wanted to end player power so he aggressively tried to get his message across, but it didn't work. The means are never criticised when someone gets it right; if he had managed to end player power and get his revolution underway we'd all be sitting here right now admiring his panache to risk his job to get rid of the players.

Now you've ruined my dream