The Birra Moretti Trophy (3 Viewers)

[BigIzz]

We could have won the CL last year if things broke differently (Leverkusen made the final and we were a better team then they were last year). The CL is funny like that. The best team dosen't always win and there is a lot of "luck" invloved. The draw, matches falling on days players are injured, injuries for other teams, etc. Serie A is not like that. Serie A is a marathon, where if you lose 2 in a row, you aren't eliminated. Serie A is more likley to see the better team win the is the CL.

 

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[denco]

This is the kind of talk i don't like and i do not expect it from you Big izz, are you saying that other leagues are inferior, are you saying that Real madrid were lucky? every team gets injuries but they cope, if you cannot cope with injuries when you spend that kinda money on players that your fault.

Speaking of Serie A, would we have won the league, if Ronaldo and Vieri played throughout? or is it only Juventus that had injuries? Our key men were Nedved, davids, Dp, Buffon, Montero and Trez last season.

Dp missed only leverkusen thru our Cl, Trez and Buffon played in all, Montero i think just missed Leverkusen, Nedved missed just the beginning of Cl

And even if we had won at Leverkusen, we might not have qualified

Every team has injury problems, but its the quality of your squad that determines how far you go, whats the point of saying your squad is big if when the time comes , some players cannot step up

From your thread you are saying that Serie A is the best league in the world, well until they start dominating in Europe, and start beating their spanish and english counterparts, i will beg to differ

 

[BigIzz]

I'm not saying Serie A is or isn't the best league in the world. I'm saying that any domestic league is different from the Champions League. Use this as an example.

If you win all 6 of your league games by a wide margin, you will have 18 points and a great goal differential. You will be in an excellent position to win the league.

If you win all 6 of your first CL games by a wide margin, starting at game 7 you will have 0 points and be in exactly the same position as a team that won 2, drew 3 and barely qualified from the previous round. Now this happens again. You can win your first 12 games, and drawn into the quarters against Real Madrid. You play an exellent first match on the road, but thanks to a dubious penatly call in the 88th minute, you lose 0-1. In the second leg, your star striker is injured and your top defender is suspended on red cards. Despite all this, you fight vallantly and win 1-0, only to lose in a random penalty shootout.

That means that in 14 games, your team is 13-1 and what do you have to show for it? Nothing, you are eliminated. If that same scenario happens in the league, you are 13-1 and in first place by a wide margin.

Champions League isn't a league per say. If the CL were done in a table format, you wouldn't have teams like Leverkusen finishing 2nd, you wouldnt have sides like Rosenborg in the second round. More often then not, the best teams would finish at the top. CL is much more random and much less predictiable then a league, which is why almost any of the teams in the first stage have a chance at going to the final and being within a single game of being European Champs. How many teams have a chance at the Serie A championship? 4 maybe?

 

[MCPIERO]

Late comment!!!
1st match formation was poor and showed as we didnt create nada!! I had a smile on my face though as I saw Ale burst into the box and cross. His pace has finally gone up since his injury! He was the best in the world B4 'cause the man was QUICK and SHARP and deadly stiker of the ball in and around the box! So if he's supposedly back to his best why did he cross the ball( old Ale would shoot) and why the heck was he defending more than attacking.No need Ale man let the defensive players carry out there own role in the team, We wanna see fireworks so none of this crap! ZAL & SAL worlclass technique shown by both with the goals. peace

 

[denco]

Big izz, I am not sure what to say about your points, but you seem to be neglecting the fact that there are freer points to be won in domestic leagues than there are in Champs league

To win your domestic league, you don't have to win against your main rivals like Juve did last season, Manu united have been doing for years, but in Cl, you have to get past great teams from different leagues which in my opinion is the way to show you are really the best.

Yes you can win your domestic league and thats gr8 but i have seen so many matches in so many leagues and i can tell you little things like referee's decisions have helped a lot of teams Real Madrid, Juventus, Milan, Juventus, Manchester United to win the league as they always get the decisions against smaller sides

I have noticed you mention Leverkusen a lot, no they are not the most fashionable of teams but they earned their bacon last season and we have to give them credit, they lost in their cup final, they lost the league on the last day, and were beaten finalists against Real Madrid

You will say when they beat us we were depleted, but Leverkusen fans will tell you when we beat them they might have been dispirited with all the postponements that had gone on

Look at their players like Placente, Ze Roberto, Ballack, Basturk, Ramelow and Novotny, they aint bad man

Any team that can score 4 against Liverpool, outplay Man united at old Trafford, beat Depor in Spain 3-1 , defeated Barcelona and take the great Real Madrid all the way deserves their success

Now compare that to Juventus, didn't win a single game away in Europe, blaming injuries on Cl exit, when we are 10 times richer than Bayer.

You have to have quality and i don't care how you guys colour it, its something we lack at this point in time, if Dp is having a bad day, thats almost 80% of our creativity gone

When the draw was made i did expect us to win the group, but i didn't count on our lack of genuine quality and sadly its not a squad that has been improved on considerably

This squad never gives up and thats why they won the league, but having the quality to defeat big teams, is something we lack and sadly in Cl.

Just think about this with what you said, Lazio had a horrendous season but were just 3 points away fron Cl position, thats how a league format works

 

[BigIzz]

My only point was that we could have won the Champions League last year and that we can win it this year. The reason I compared us to Leverkusen was that clearly Leverkusen could have won the CL last year and if they could have, I do not see why we could'nt have.

I know we don't have the greatest sucess in Europe, but lets not forget we are still one of the worlds biggest clubs with many world class players on our squad. Its not as if we are Sparta Prague or even PSG.

 

[denco]

You see this is where i differ with you and many others in here, the players you might regard as world class, i regard as very good, i think it will take a huge slice of luck to win the Cl with our present squad. Too many of our really good players are on the wane, and age does is not really on our world class players' side.

I am a firm believer in playing players in their rightful position, but too many times, tactics take over and you find players playing out of position, yes you will get away with it against the likes of Brescia and Piacenza, but no way in the world will you defeat Deportivo playing like that .

Talking of wc class players, only Buffon and Trez will i tell you with all my heart that i am very sure are on top of their game and will get better, Nedved is on the decline and his best days are behind him, same with Davids, Montero and Thuram

Now to Dp, I am one of his biggest fans, but he does have his dip in form and there are times when the old Dp will not hesitate to go for goal and score the spectacular goal, but Dp of today will opt to pass the ball, don't know if its his knee injury but certainly not the same player whom i am pretty sure was on his way to being the greatest player to ever play for juventus.

And he is a big key to our success or failure. I am very baffled with our transfer policy i have to tell you

Brighi is said to be the next big thing, and even if I was impressed with him at Bologna, like Maresca before him there is a huge difference between playing for a big club and a small club, the pressure is different, the level is different and I hope he can do it, but even he is not a creative player.

But stranger things have happened and we could do it but i prefer to be very confident instead of beinghopeful

 

[Slagathor]

Hear, hear!

I'm very concerned with the number of midfielders but especially strikers we have...

 

[Vinman]

++ [ originally posted by BigIzz ] ++
We could have won the CL last year if things broke differently (Leverkusen made the final and we were a better team then they were last year). The CL is funny like that. The best team dosen't always win and there is a lot of "luck" invloved. The draw, matches falling on days players are injured, injuries for other teams, etc. Serie A is not like that. Serie A is a marathon, where if you lose 2 in a row, you aren't eliminated. Serie A is more likley to see the better team win the is the CL.

Sorry Matt, I gotta disagree with you here. Real WAS the best team last year, and DID win the CL.

I think if Inter won that last game in May, the tone of this whole entire forum would be much different.

Our team of last season was good, but not great. I feel that our team has not added anyone who will make us better than last season. When you compare what Inter and Milan have done to improve, WE HAVE DONE NOTHING !!!!!!

Now what ????????????

 

[BigIzz]

Yes Real did win and they were the best team, but the final is a crapshoot. It is one match (when the rest of the competion is groups or 2 games) to decide the champion of Europe. If you get to the final, anything can happen.

Inter and Milan have improved, but sometimes less is more. Last year we had a number of big additions and a new coach with a new system. I think it took a while for our squad to gel last season and I don't think we played up to our potential at all. This year we have the same squad back, the same coaches and same system. If we can avoid the injury bug, I don't see why we can't be as good as we thought we would be at the start of last season.

Maybe I'm wrong, but adding Nesta, Riquelme and Dacourt may have made us a better team on paper, but the game isn't played on paper. These would have been more stars to adjust to. I sort of like our stratgeic additions. I look at our team and I see a team without many weakness if everyone is at thier best. We have one of Europes best goalkeepers, an awesome and extremly deep defense, a few good midfilders (perhaps we could use some help here) and a few good attackers. We could use a creative midfilder, but I don't see who we could have signed anyway.

 

[Vinman]

As always, I hope your right !!!

 

[Zebraheart]

Great point.

++ [ originally posted by BigIzz ] ++
Yes Real did win and they were the best team, but the final is a crapshoot. It is one match (when the rest of the competion is groups or 2 games) to decide the champion of Europe. If you get to the final, anything can happen.

Inter and Milan have improved, but sometimes less is more. Last year we had a number of big additions and a new coach with a new system. I think it took a while for our squad to gel last season and I don't think we played up to our potential at all. This year we have the same squad back, the same coaches and same system. If we can avoid the injury bug, I don't see why we can't be as good as we thought we would be at the start of last season.

Maybe I'm wrong, but adding Nesta, Riquelme and Dacourt may have made us a better team on paper, but the game isn't played on paper. These would have been more stars to adjust to. I sort of like our stratgeic additions. I look at our team and I see a team without many weakness if everyone is at thier best. We have one of Europes best goalkeepers, an awesome and extremly deep defense, a few good midfilders (perhaps we could use some help here) and a few good attackers. We could use a creative midfilder, but I don't see who we could have signed anyway.

 

[Slagathor]

++ [ originally posted by BigIzz ] ++
Yes Real did win and they were the best team, but the final is a crapshoot. It is one match (when the rest of the competion is groups or 2 games) to decide the champion of Europe. If you get to the final, anything can happen.

Inter and Milan have improved, but sometimes less is more. Last year we had a number of big additions and a new coach with a new system. I think it took a while for our squad to gel last season and I don't think we played up to our potential at all. This year we have the same squad back, the same coaches and same system. If we can avoid the injury bug, I don't see why we can't be as good as we thought we would be at the start of last season.

Maybe I'm wrong, but adding Nesta, Riquelme and Dacourt may have made us a better team on paper, but the game isn't played on paper. These would have been more stars to adjust to. I sort of like our stratgeic additions. I look at our team and I see a team without many weakness if everyone is at thier best. We have one of Europes best goalkeepers, an awesome and extremly deep defense, a few good midfilders (perhaps we could use some help here) and a few good attackers. We could use a creative midfilder, but I don't see who we could have signed anyway.

Basically you're saying that you don't need many stars if you've got a good (close) team, right? I agree!

 

[BigIzz]

Exactly.

 

[denco]

Why do they have to be stars? Why can't we improve the squad? Why not add creativity to our squad? I keep on reading that its because of injuries, thats why we didn't perform well in Europe, i beg to differ, we lost in Europe or didn't perform well in Europe, because fo the same reason we didn't beat any of our rivals, we were not good enough.

Like Vinman said we have not actually addressed that situation, no creative force has been added, and maybe Roma, Milan and Inter will continue to blow chances to win the league and allow us win again

Lack of foresight is the bane of Italian Football, Milan won the league by default and didn't improve their squad, look at them now, and we are doing the same thing

Big Izz, since the Cl, is not a true reflection of how good you are, i guess the wc which is the same format does not count, and the achievements of U.S can be discounted, afterall they only won 2 matches but got to the quarters

 

[BigIzz]

++ [ originally posted by denco ] ++
Big Izz, since the Cl, is not a true reflection of how good you are, i guess the wc which is the same format does not count, and the achievements of U.S can be discounted, afterall they only won 2 matches but got to the quarters

Yes that is exactly my point. The US finished in the top 8 of the world, ahead of Italy, France, Argentina, and Holland. Are they better then those countries? Of course not.

 

[Slagathor]

++ [ originally posted by BigIzz ] ++
Yes that is exactly my point. The US finished in the top 8 of the world, ahead of Italy, France, Argentina, and Holland. Are they better then those countries? Of course not.

Well...I remember Holland being able to only just beat them in a recent exhibition match before the WC... 1-0 I believe in Los Angeles...

 

[BigIzz]

++ [ originally posted by ErikP ] ++


Well...I remember Holland being able to only just beat them in a recent exhibition match before the WC... 1-0 I believe in Los Angeles...

It was 2-0 and in Boston...Holland did only win through the amazing play of Watterus.

My point is that the best team dosen't always win. Obviously a teams accomplishments shouldn't be discounted, but that dosen't make them a better team just because they preformed better (ok, in some sense it does). My only point is, and has been throughout, Juve was good enough to win the CL last year. That is all I'm saying. If last year could be replayed over and over again, I'm sure that we could have won the CL eventually.

 

[Slagathor]

++ [ originally posted by BigIzz ] ++
It was 2-0 and in Boston...Holland did only win through the amazing play of Watterus.

Right! That was it!

My point is that the best team dosen't always win. Obviously a teams accomplishments shouldn't be discounted, but that dosen't make them a better team just because they preformed better (ok, in some sense it does). My only point is, and has been throughout, Juve was good enough to win the CL last year. That is all I'm saying. If last year could be replayed over and over again, I'm sure that we could have won the CL eventually.

Agreed! :thumb:

 

[denco]

So you are saying with our present squad if we were put on a league basis with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Depor, Valencia, Roma, Inter, Milan, Arsenal, Man united, Ajax, Liverpool, Bayern, Dortmund and Leverkusen, we will win it

I beg to differ as I don't think we have the players to outwit these teams

Past squads, I would have given us a very good chance, this present squad, i would have to say no