oh dear oh dear. so much for promising an open encounter meneer. well in case you did not finish your sentence, i assumed that you meant letting barca play their standard attacking possession football. but we trust in guus and so do i, like many indonesians back in pemilu eraly this decade. oh wait, that was gus.
i thought hiddink was planning to counter the blaugrana, by stiffling messi and co, limiting their spaces to move the ball around. even the diminutive argentine magician rarely saw the ball, and to be honest it was a success for the blues. but the other half of the plan, which is to counter them, did not work out i figure. malouda, chelski’s only player capable of taking on dudes one-on-one was left to do too much defending for his own good. drogba maybe good, when he had to take down the whole defence on his own, it would not be a walk in the park for him. even ibra or messi sweats for it. umm, ibra would go missing from these matches anw. haha. no offense ibra, i am a huge fan of yours too.
any manager should now better how valuable an away goal would be in a tight affair. well, perhaps hiddink was just worried (scared maybe) having seen barca himself from the dugout (woah, that messi is really fast! not last night though), that he only brought in anelka to run down the clock? or maybe he remembered euro 2008, in which his dazzling russia was crushed to dust by mighty spain, with xavi initiating the rout?
whatever his reason is, was it wise? i mean, playing 0-0 in nou camp means chelsea has got to outscore barca in the next encounter. not an easy job to do since only 5 teams were capable of doing it in 90 minutes this season: wisla (in which barca had 4 goals advantage already), numancia (in which pep coached his first primera match), shakhtar (in which the game did not matter anymore as barca had qualified), espanyol (whic was a derby), and atleti (in which, umm, atleti won 4-3? haha. thriller). shout to me if i miss anybody.
well well, chelsea may just be the sixth. oh maybe seventh. barca is greeting an archenemy this weekend and chances are, madridistas would scream off their lunges to make send shiver down barca’s spine. maybe it will end up getting xavi’s leg shake so much he’d look like momo sissoko when passing the ball.
man u arsenal? no thought. i overslept. sigh. but i watched the highlight, and read the stats (believe me i know my maths, a bit of it at least). arsenal has got a lot to do in the 2nd leg, judging from last night performance.
but what to do? i am not in charge of any of these teams, and even if i were, i believe meneer hiddink and monsieur wenger would be more capable of outwitting foxy fergie and good dude guardiola. for now. who knows what will happen in 15 years to come?
next week should be a blast. cant wait cant wait. can you?
on the side note, elkann told ranieri that “he and his players still have five matches remaining, so we will await the results”. read between the lines. is it “5 matches, win all or you are history” kind of warning. what say you?
