Wonderwall wrote:PrezIke wrote:I know some of us hate this competition, but while I know it feels frustrating I still enjoy it. This still is the real World Cup with the best players and clubs in the world against one another. I know if can feel corrupt, but I also think we have also seen lower quality teams who play well as TEAMS do well in International competitions before, and how their attitudes allow them to upset some more glamourous teams.
I also like the "us against the world" feeling. I support the Knicks in the NBA here and have experienced that attitude before, and still to an extent as we are a running joke in our own dark era for the last decade or so. In fact, at the end of our glory days, our players used to speak about this attitude even knowing we were so hated. One of our top players Larry Johnson actually once called ourselves, "rebellious slaves."
You could see the reaction of our players with the huddle together after Kun gave us the lead. I think some of ours feel it as well, and that could be a good thing.
To stick it to our haters when we feel we are being cheated against or questioned about our capacity to win this competition adds excitement for me.
I also admired the BMG fans singing and chanting throughout the game. Reminded me of Dortmund's fans. They also seemed quite pleased with their team even with the loss, not seeming bitter or booing. Respect to them.
I agree with the sentiment here. I actually used to look forward to watching Champions league games, when we were not in it. Now we are in it, its a constant reminder that if we dont batter everyone, then we are going to get £££ headlines every time. I am one of those in the camp of I am not bothered about the Champions league. I want us to win every game we play, but I have a detest of the competition because of how fixed it is.
Also on the FANS, it looks and sounds good. However, its not a natural thing, its an orchestrated thing with many fans (or employees of the club) spending the whole game with their back to the action. they cannot be fans surely? You dont pay for a ticket and spend the whole game not watching it.
You make some very good points to consider. If you are singing and chanting the entire game it;s hard to see how you can be watching much of it.
On the sentiments from others about the competition. I found myself screaming more than I ever have the past few games at the way some decisions have gone, but even more so yesterday due to them being outrageously blatant. I was infuriated over the first pen, and then the goal that MDM should have been awarded was absolutely maddening, even according to the commentators. I literally blurted out then the point I raised in an earlier post that the reason UEFA doesn't adopt goal line technology is so they can ensure that they can still cheat against us and other clubs they want to punish or reward.
This does make it wildly frustrating and understandably hard to buy into, but our players are on the pitch and they want to win it. It would be a huge accomplishment to win against all of these odds, and how happy would we all be then? If we actually end up winning the thing at some point in the near future I suspect we would be overjoyed to the extreme due to our sentiments. We shall see, but with the quality we have this is such an extraordinary concept even with the poor decisions, if we can get some other things right. Hart was a hero last night, and maybe that's what it will take and a bit of luck. This does happen in the World Cup as well because cup tournaments are different than season long leagues anyway. The cheaters will have to go pretty far to hold us back now, but maybe you all are right.
However, it's not just this as to why we have struggled at times. We lacked intensity at times last night, and we may also be punished for playing in a league that allows more physical play, and perhaps other variables such as the fact that we seem to so open to counter attacks. Yet, some of these issues I also think are due to the constant problem of injuries we keep facing.
Will be interesting once again to see how things play out.
