Now that Liverpool are in we might as well speculate as to who will get whom. Its an open draw Friday so that makes it intresting. I have a feeling its going to be United Chelsea. Obviously I dont want that draw when the likes of Fenerbache and Schalke are in it. I think it will be:
United/Chelsea
Roma/Arsenal
Barca/Fenerbache
Liverpool/Schalke
Then the winners of the top two and bottom two matches meet in semis.
[quote=āCaptainshanā]Now that Liverpool are in we might as well speculate as to who will get whom. Its an open draw Friday so that makes it intresting. I have a feeling its going to be United Chelsea. Obviously I dont want that draw when the likes of Fenerbache and Schalke are in it. I think it will be:
United/Chelsea
Roma/Arsenal
Barca/Fenerbache
Liverpool/Schalke
Then the winners of the top two and bottom two matches meet in semis.[/quote]
Any reasoning behind your draw prediction Shan? Do you think two of the balls in the drum (Manchester United and Chelsea) will be heavier than the others and itāll be a fix that theyāre pulled out together? Or are your pairs based more on statistical trends from the past?
Im basing it on the Fa Cup rule where United get a Premiership team. Now that its an open draw I expect this to happen.
I think it depends on how the draw works:
If full names are used on the slips of paper in the draw then youād expect the longest names (Manchester United and Fenerbahce) to require most ink and thus be heaviest and possibly remain in the drum for longest, thus drawing eachother. However if they use abbreviations or assign numbers to the teams then itās a real lottery.
I think itās the former though so I expect to see:
AS Roma v Chelsea FC
Arsenal FC v Schalke 04
FC Barcelona v Liverpool FC
Fenerbahce v Manchester United FC
The Chelsea/Arsenal/Schalke draw could really go anyway but I just think thereās more ink required in the broad vowels of Chelsea.
Iād love if the English teams were kept apart and they all failed to get to the semi finals. Iād follow Liverpool a lot, and theyād be one of the teams Iād support, but listening to gobshites like Dunphy go on about how Liverpool are shite, they beat Inter, so Italian soccer is shite, makes me pissed off with it all. The fawning the media and people here do over premiership teams astounds me. Utd have been in the champions league knock out for what, nearly 16 consecutive years or something like that, but only won one. Thats a terrible statistic. Chelsea for all their dominance have done nothing in the CL. Liverpool for all their faults since 1990, have a better record than all the english teams.
Why no one pulled Dunphy up on his facts about Inter leading the Serie A and going out, thereby being worse than Premiership and La Liga, yet Roma beat La Liga leaders Real Madrid?
In fairness, Iād still love to see Liverpool win it, as that would sicken Dunphy and the rest of the Premiership brigade, and I still follow 'pool, but Iād be sickened if one of the other 3 won it. And the boys last night predicting all English teams will be the semi finalists if they avoid eah other. I hope to jaysus Schalke or Fenerbache put one of them out. Cant see it tho, as they are 2 of hte weaker ones, but itād be great to see Roma overturn Utd this year after their dismal performance last year.
The number 8 would have more ink than 1.
[quote=ātherock67ā]I think it depends on how the draw works:
If full names are used on the slips of paper in the draw then youād expect the longest names (Manchester United and Fenerbahce) to require most ink and thus be heaviest and possibly remain in the drum for longest, thus drawing eachother. However if they use abbreviations or assign numbers to the teams then itās a real lottery.
I think itās the former though so I expect to see:
AS Roma v Chelsea FC
Arsenal FC v Schalke 04
FC Barcelona v Liverpool FC
Fenerbahce v Manchester United FC
The Chelsea/Arsenal/Schalke draw could really go anyway but I just think thereās more ink required in the broad vowels of Chelsea.[/quote]
Interesting school of thought there Rocko and one that has quite a degree of merit. I suppose the danger lies in the potential for abbreviated team names being used in the draw such as āBarcaā or āFenerā and that could make the draw a real lottery. In fact you could even end up with any combination of the 8 teams in that scenario and that would really set tongues wagging and give the conspiracy theorists their day.
Thatās the real fear Bandage - that we get this random draw that canāt be vouched back to logic. Then weād know it was fixed. Iād be astonished, absolutely astonished, if the draw Iāve predicted above doesnāt transpire.
I seem to remember full names being used before in the CL draw so I donāt think weāll have a problem with abbreviations.
Whereās the final being played?
Wherever it is they wonāt relish the prospect of a Chelsea/Man U final.
I think there will be a couple of all English games but i have a sneaky feeling Barcelona will get Man U.
I think the recent competition trends suggest that the EPL is becoming the strongest league in Europe given all 4 of their representatives have reached the quarter finals this season and Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United advanced to the semi-finals last year. All that said the competition winnersā listing would only show 2 English winners in the recent past - Manchester United in 1999 and Liverpool in 2005 - and that doesnāt stand up to Spain or Italy and is more comparable to the likes of Germany. So before Dunphy, Giles and Brady completely write off La Liga and Serie A, and make sweeping statements about the relative quality of these leagues and how they lack in quality compared to the EPL, they might be advised to wait and see how things pan out over the next few years and see if a period of English domination actually occurs over a concerted timeframe.
The finalās on in Moscow by the way.
[quote=āBandageā]they might be advised to wait and see how things pan out over the next few years and see if a period of English domination actually occurs over a concerted timeframe.
[/quote]
no more English domination than anything. Arsenal? Liverpool? Utd and Chelsea granted have a couple, the others virtually nothing apart from Gerrard and wonderboy.
last year they were going on about how dominant they were, and how great they were wiht 3 teams in the semi. Yet none of them won.
My predictions:
Man Utd v Arsenal
Fenerbache v Roma
Liverpool v Barcelona
Schalke v Chelsea
The final will be an all english affair, Man Utd v Liverpool possibly if they can avoid each other until then.
btw, what time is the draw at?
I canāt believe weāre predicting a draw and I tried to make fun of it yesterday but seeing as a good few of you have done so already - I think it will be:
Semi finals:
1.Barcelona vs Roma
2. Arsenal vs liverpool
3. Fenerbahce vs Schalke
4. Manchester United vs Chelsea
Semi finals:
Final :
Roma Vs Chelsea
winners : roma or chelsea obviously
Getting a bit nervous now waiting to see if my prediction will be right.
rehearsal draw from earlier drew out this: Schalke v Chelsea, Liverpool v Fenerbahce, Barcelona v Man Utd, Arsenal v Roma.
think they are just blealting on now before the draw takes place
Arsenal v Liverpool
Roma v Man Utd
Schalke v Barcelona
Fenerbache v Chelsea
arsenal v liverpool
roma v Man Utd
I just knew Roma and Utd would get a rematch. By feck Iād love to see Roma do them this year after what happened last year. Chelsea got a nice 1/4 final, but potential of Barca in semi.
Hope Liverpool get stuffed as I hate them with a passion. Then a semi final of Bara v Man U where Barcelona cream them