kelvinmak's Blog
OS Soccer Blog - All German Champions League Final; Premier League, FIFA and PES News 
Posted on May 2, 2013 at 02:02 PM.
Barcelona 0 - 3 Bayern Munich (0-7 on Aggregate)
Now that was a proper thrashing.
I don't know what's more amazing, putting three past Barca in Nou Camp, winning 7-0 on aggregate, or doing all of it in a fashion that made Barcelona-- Barcelona-- look like such a hapless group of pedestrians. The Bayern team just looks irresistible right now-- is there a more balanced team than the Bavarians? Pace down the flanks, rock solid in the middle, and they take their chances so, so efficiently. Watching yesterday's game, several times it took them about three seconds to get from the edge of their own box to the edge of Barcelona's. Who needs a 70% possession rate when you've got German efficiency?
And if Lewandowski arrives as rumored? My, this can get really scary.
The End of Tiki-Taka?
Predictably, questions are being asked as to whether we've reached the end of the tiki-taka era, and, to a certain extent, Barcelona's dominance. While the answer may be yes to both of them, it is important to note that Bayern's not the first team who tried to hit Barcelona on the break, it's just that they had to players to do it in such a lethal fashion. So it's much about the personnel a team has on disposal as it is the tactics it employs.
And Barca? They're still a good team-- remember, they played the first leg with a half-fit Messi and the entire second leg without him. So the death knell may be a little premature. The more accurate depiction, perhaps, is that the team is much more reliant on the little Argentinian than a lot of us had thought.
The big question is whether Barcelona can find the right players in the transfer market. The team has made some regrettable buys in hindsight, even as a lot of it got masked by the brilliance of the youth academy's conveyor belt of prospects. Fabregas and Sanchez still hasn't fit into the system (it's hard to tell if they ever will), and instead of going out and buying actual defenders who could maybe win a header or two, they bought Alex Song and stuck him at centerback to very predictably (because the Mascherano experiment worked so well) terrible results.
Germans in Wembley
This is a purely personal sentiment, but I always felt that having two teams from the same country in a Champions League Final makes the affair slightly less special. That said, Dortmund and Bayern were ultimately the best teams, and they both play such an attractive style of football, so maybe this will be an exception.
Who wins it? I'm leaning towards Bayern. Sure, we all want to root for an underdog, and Dortmund's climb from near-Bankruptcy is a nice story even if, as many neglect to mention, much of it was self inflicted through bad management. But the Bayern team just looked irresistible yesterday, and it's obvious the players are hungry for the trophy, after the near misses in recent years.
Premier League Tidbits
- As Jose Mourinho public courts the Stamford Bridge faithful, The Mirror reports that should he return, he will have to work under Michael Emenalo, who will remain as head of player recruitment. Somehow I don't see that happening.
- Christian Benteke's been a revelation for Villa this season, but even as the big clubs are circling, apparently he's not leaving just yet.
- New Liverpool kit for next season. That's a good looking shirt-- you can't go wrong with a classic design.
- Gary Neville pays the players' wages for his cash-strapped hometown team.
Playstation Magazine interviewed PES Creative Producer Kei Masuda. Some really, really interesting quotes:
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FIFA 14 News
Rumor has it that the Turkish Super Lig will make a return to the game (releasing on Sept. 24th), while female players will not be included.
Miscellanies
- Man loses life saving on a carnival game -- you can't make this stuff up.
- My two cents on the Jason Collins story:
For context, I'm an agnostic. Not certain enough to definitively choose a side, and more importantly, whether or not there is a God does not change the way I conduct myself or treat others. So that's my worldview. I don't think homosexuality is wrong-- you're well within your rights to think differently-- but if we're starting from such opposing points of view, at some point we'll probably have to just agree to disagree.
From a cultural perspective, does it change much? I don't think so. It's not like kids in the playground imagine themselves to be Collins matching up against LeBron and Kobe. While the story is hot now, give it another week and by then it will be back to the next round of the NBA playoffs, or for the non-sports fans, whatever trouble Bieber's gotten himself into, or the newest episode of Game of Thrones. Inside the locker rooms, my guess is the testosterone-fueled chirping will continue. Business as usual.
And that is why any talk of Collins being a trailblazer, I think, is somewhat premature. There seems to be this sentiment that now that an active (barely, anyway, as he's near the end of his career and doesn't have a contract for next season yet) player has come out, it will encourage others in professional sports to all follow suit. I don't know. I don't see the Collins story "changing the world", and suddenly gay players are all comfortable enough to come out. For that to happen, the world probably needs to change first.
Ultimately, good for him. That's really all I think. It's his story, and he chose to tell it to the world. As a fan of, you know, people being nice to each other, I'm glad he's happy and secure with his identity and his life. Besides, he's not just Jason Collins, gay man. He's Jason Collins, gay man, good friend (I'll just assume that, from everything I've read), and serviceable big man off the bench, looking for a contract next year.
Ah, the drama of promotion.
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