Chelsea got cheated!
So it is midnight and I just finished watching Chelsea - Barcelona. A few thoughts. It is way too late to organize my impressions of the game so I might be all over the place.First of all, good game. Despite the expected fast pace, first half was a little dull. No shots on goal, keepers weren't very busy and not many chances from either team. Everything was going fine for Chelsea until Terje Hauge (from Norway) decided to give Del Horno a red card for nothing! What the hell was that? How do you send someone off in a game of this magnitude for that challange?! That should have been a warning. Shit, a yellow card at best, but a red?! And Lionel Messi rolling around in that pool of mud like someone damn near shot him didn't show his class, neither. From there, Chelsea's whole game plan went to hell. Everything Mourinho prepared them for, gone. Joe Cole gets subbed-off for Geremi and the Blues are stuck playing defence for the remainder of this circus act.
2nd half kicks off and Chelsea manage to get a goal. Frank Lampard sends a free kick into the penalty box, chaos ensues, Motta and Valdes collide, ball rolls into the net. 1-0. Barca starting to create more and more chances. Any tackle at midfield went Barca's way, any push or shove, Barca's ball. Very unfair. I'm starting to get angry and I'm not even a fan of neither team, I just want to see a clean and fair game. I thought to myself, clearly Chelsea are going to slow down the pace of the match and not allow Barcelona play their game. No. With 10 men, it seemed they still wanted to get a 2nd goal off a counter attack. Arjen Robben was magnificent, and his substitution was puzzling to me. It was evident he was one of the best players on the field tonight.
However, as good as Chelsea have been, Barca's duo of Messi and Ronaldinho was too much to handle and with 18 minutes left, the Spaniards score 2 huge away goals giving them all the advantage they need.
In conclusion, I have never been a Chelsea fan (especially after that oligarch came there) and I have never been a Barcelona fan. In fact, I've seen Barca get thrashed by my favorite teams on many occasions (4-0 loss to Milan early 90's and 7-0 agg. loss to Dynamo in the late 90's). I was indifferent prior to this game, but now I will be cheering against Barcelona in the return leg. Whether or not it matters is irrelevant.
Can Chelsea come back and win? Yes. Do I want Chelsea to come back and win? Yes. Will they do it? No.
Oh and memo to Hauge: stop sucking at refereeing.
posted by taras @ 12:01 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
The way I see it the ref blew at least 4 calls in that game.
1) Del Horno should have gotten a yellow card for his earlier tackle on Messi
2) Del Horno should have gotten a yellow card instead of a red
3) Barcelona should have had a penalty for Geremi's hand ball at the end of the first half
4) Barcelona should have had another penalty for Terry's tackle/hand ball late in the second half
Regardless, Barcelona looked the better team all game and in my opinion deserved a win. Oh, and Chelsea's pitch is a disgrace. A team with that type of cash should be able to afford grass :) I've played on better fields than that in Calgary rec leagues.
Yes, the earlier tackle on Messi where he ripped his shorts did warrant a yellow. It was more deserving of a yellow than the incident where he got the red.
But the 2 handballs happened after they were downsized to 10 men. Who is to say Barca would have those chances if Chelsea had 11 players on the field? Perhaps, that's the reason he didn't call them as he realized he f'ed up earlier.
Neither side looked better prior to the sending off.
I have to say Taras - your review was bang on in my opinion. I still don't understand the Cole replacement - perhaps Gudjohnsen should have been taken off. Opening up the left hand side like that gave Ronaldino a lot of room.
Its insurmountable odds for Chelsea to win in the second leg, but you can bet they'll try their damnest to do it. Win or lose, I'm gunning for the blues.
great points all around, but i disagree with a couple.
first, although chelsea looked more dangerous than barca for the first nine minutes or so, barca soon took over and were making far more dangerous thrusts -- well before the red card. and messi was the main danger. he made del horno look like an idiot a couple of times, and del horno foolishly reacted to that.
second, i agree that messi rolled around a bit after the body check, but did no one but me notice the true actor in the situation? it was not messi. del horno rolled around more dramatically than messi, and once messi was up and moving assier was still down. so let's at least put the "acting" in perspective. either both acted, or neither did. in this case both did.
third, del horno deserved A red card. he did not deserve a red card for his body check, although he did deserve one for the studs up, fuck the ball attack , on messi's knee. he was lucky not to get a straight red there, and he was even luckier not to get a yellow. and if we all agree that both attacks merited yellow we can all agree on what del horno deserved on the second bad challenge. yellow + yellow = red. and if we agree on this what is the problem? del horno may not have got what he deserved in the right moments, but he ultimately did get what he deserved.
fourth, even if the handballs might not have happened if there had been 11 men, and even if the ref was making amends from his earlier pseudo-fuck up, the fact remains that chelsea delivered two handballs in the box. that means penalty shots at least and possible cards if the ref deems them intentional. so chelsea got lucky. seriously lucky because it could have and should have been a lot worse than 2-1. and if the hand balls weren't lucky enough, john "nfl footballer" terry made yet another flattening tackle of a player in the box, as he's done all four different times that i've watched him this year. and he ALWAYS gets away with it. all four times he's done it in the box. and not once has he been carded. by the end of the game chelsea should have been down to 9 men, not 10. and if terry had been gone they would have lost their real goal keeper (how many goals did he save in the last ten minutes? 3 at least).
so while i agree that hauge made the wrong call in that one moment, i think it is a bit of a stretch to say that "chelsea got cheated!"
i wish the game had been different. i wish hauge had given the red card to del horno in the right sequence. i wish there had been more cards in general. i wish there was peace in the middle east. i wish i had a pepsi right now. but none of this is going to change the most important fact: I HATE CHELSEA!
ooooh...where was i? i lost my train of thought. okay. bye for now. (p.s. i love you, though, gio)
go barca!
Damn fine comments Brad.
i wish the game had been different. Ditto
i wish hauge had given the red card to del horno in the right sequence. Ditto
i wish there had been more cards in general. Ditto
i wish there was peace in the middle east. Ditto
i wish i had a pepsi right now. Good idea.
but none of this is going to change the most important fact: I HATE CHELSEA! Amen.
I hate Chelsea too, but I also hate when incompetent referees ruin games. It was a hard match to officiate, and having Hauge do it was a mistake. More yellow cards would be fitting, yes, but unless someone chops off a players leg with an axe, you don't pull out the red. It's not like Del Horno intended to injure Messi. As for the challange on Messi where he ripped his shorts, I could see that be a yellow card, but he won the ball and caught him on the follow through and that's what the referee saw.
All in all, under all those circustances, neither team was dirtier than these other. The fact that Hauge overlooked those handballs just shows that his red card decision was a terrible one and killed Chelsea.
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