Champions league

[enzabella2009]

Germans win on penalties shocker, not!

I think Chelsea will prefer Bayern? Or am I mad?

I don't think you are Mad but Bayern Munich will play @ home were they are almost unbeatable.....
It's not a shoker either, they did deserve to qualify. My wish did not come throw though to see Mourinho to win the 3rd champions league but he and his men did not do enough when bayern was weaker...

[hgodden]

Funny how both teams that got through to the final pretty much rested their entire starting line ups last weekend before the game while Madrid were battling with Barca (who have already been looking knackered the last few weeks.)

Not much is being made of it but it seems that if Chelsea do win the tournament they will take one of the English automatic qualifying spots even if they finish outside the top 4, meaning that the 4th placed team will be in the UEFA cup (along with 5th) and even the 3rd placed team will have to play a qualifier.

For the future of Chelsea as a club they really do need to qualify next year IMO. With the new financial fair play rules coming in and the fact that last season (and every Abramovic season before that of course) they lost bucket loads of cash, if they don't get CL football they'll lose even MORE money and wont have a hope in hells chance of conforming to the new rules. Depends if UEFA acutally have the guts to implement them properly of course (Platini is talking tough but how much that is worth....), but if they do then this could be the last time we see Chelsea at the top table.

[enzabella2009]

I relatively feel sorry for Chelsea.
It 's a team that defenately deserved to win a Champions league much more of Liverpool and slightly more of Man Utd in the overall Champions League campaigns . Luck was not on their side. They are going to play in the Final with a disrupted defense by disqualification. Unfortunaly it's the same people who have contributed to their extraordinary come back since Di Matteo has replaced Villas boas. Their bad luck does not end here though. Chelsea will be playing aginst Bayern Munich in Germany where even Barcelona would have had serious problem to express their obsessive tiki taka. It's from the beginning of the season I am saying that Bayern Munich is only behind Barcelona and Real Madrid but looking the game expressed in the semifinals proved that Bayern Munich is the Barcelona real chellanger to the luster of the game expressed. They dictated the game 90 minutes in Germany and 75 minutes in Spain. If you do not trust my words as I can imagine, go yourselves to cover the matches of Bayern at home, It can be devastating for a team that has defense issues. Betfair pays 1.5 for Bayern Munich? In my opinion It is a fair value considering the size of the event but if it was another event Bayern would be paid as low as 1.3 against this Chelsea.

[CaerMyrddin]

@hgodden, don't know how UEFA is going to get the new rules in touch with the 'real' world, but imho it will always be possible to pump more money into football and UEFA won't be able to fully stop it.

[LeTiss 4pm]

Really impressed by Bayern last night. I thought they composed themselves brilliantly after such a terrible start, and could easily have snatched the decisive equaliser during 90mins

[Euler]

Looking forward to this evening.

Interesting peice: -

http://dectech.org/blog/football/2012/0 ... ucl-final/

[Euler]

Chelsea's game plan appears to be holding at the moment.

[sprinter]

hmmmm..living in bayern but not so much a bayern fan.
But defintely better than chelski.

Go Munich!

Some bad misses by Ribery and gomez though....

[Euler]

Another mental finish to a Chelsea match!

[sprinter]

Chelseas stats for the knockout stages:

played: 4,
shots on goal: 23
opponents shots on goal: 8762