Champions League 2023/2024 thread

When did the G in gnabry stop being silent?

What a ****. That’s 100% intentional.

That’s ****ing red.

Ya probably should be red for Kane on that elbow. Pretty nasty and he always does that ****

Foden is good.

foads ballon dor

City just too good

Great assist from Jesus. Bayern is ****.

That's more like it.

Our best finisher scores again.

lol if they give a pen for that I just give up

lol @ the dive and lol @ staying down injured for 3 minutes #prayforsaka

Meh. Sloppy game but not out of it.

Trossard is great.

That was an A+ dive..no idea why not just swing at it when the keeper misses you

lol Saka

I don't think I've seen that since maybe U9?

Better view of it, 100% a pen

2-2
arse 1.18 xg 2.09 buyern
run hotter arse, seriously

3-3
madrid 0.66 xg 0.89 city
goalkeeping optional i guess

Didn't see the goal kick gate in real time but by letter of the law it's a peno. Knowing that, it's 100% why he didn't give the Saka penalty. Pure make up call cl, which I think I'm fine with. Kane still should of been sent off for violent conduct though.

Lots of refs give that Saka penalty but that's just bad for the game. Only reason for the contact is that Saka actively tries to get there. Not to the ball or around Neuer but straight into his leg for no reason other than trying to get a penalty.

Happy for every ref who doesn't award a penalty for that kind of BS.

I'm with the ref on the goal kick hand ball. It's clearly a misunderstanding and wasn't an angle to gain an advantage if he was getting closed down quickly or something.

Saka one looks a penalty all day to me.

Clear as day that nothing there merits a penalty kick. Even without a misunderstanding they could go about it exactly like that (if they simply change their mind about who takes it), and it happens occasionally outside the box where, rightfully, noone cares.

Absolutely pathetic of Bayern to argue otherwise

Why would you think so? Do you think there are very specific guidelines for a player to get the ball to another without restarting play? Do you think they cannot use their feet for this?

It is up to them who takes it. Perhaps the GK intended to take it, and did thus take it, but how is it at all clear?

And it's never an issue if the opposition is the required distance away. It only gets interesting when they angle shoot, like that infamous Roma (?) corner kick.

Play has been restarted by the ref blowing the whistle as he has to after substitutions.

The ball is in play and "intent" isn't even really a criteria anymore in the rules on hand balls.

The ref even admitted it's a penalty by the rules. He just didn't want award one for a kids mistake. That's fair and we can agree or disagree on that. Arguing that it's not a penalty by the rules is pretty stupid though.

I don't doubt you can read the rules, but what do you think this even means? Do you think his whistle stops the goalkeeper or any taker from picking the ball up and putting it down again before they take it? That's a hand ball? Would his whistle stop them from handing it to their teammate to take it instead? Have you never seen them do exactly that, but with their feet instead?

Usually their body languange is clear and no fuss is made - in this case it instead looks like the goalkeeper means to take the goal kick, but my very simple point is, that he could do the exact same thing in order to let his teammate take it - as they often do with this new goal kick format that allows teammates in the box but not opponents.

Rather than removed, because the referee cannot judge their intent it's been reworded into something that is somewhat tangible (i.e. the first iteration to do away with intent actually had players awkwardly demonstrate the opposite intent with unnatural arm positions). But I don't think that's relevant.

I would be curious to learn who thinks it should actually have been given.

I am just saying that there is a harmless interpretation for what happened, which was in fact the interpretation of the Arsenal player who picked up the ball. Even within the rules it is eay to go along with that interpretation, precisely because the referee cannot read their minds, and the players decide who takes a goal kick and from where exactly.

It's 100% a pen not even a debate

Usually the ref doesn't have to blow a whistle before a goal kick. In this case he had to because of the substitution.

That whistle happened right before Raya kicked the ball. That was the goal kick. Players can't randomly decide to take a second goal kick after the whistle.

If the ref explains there's no penalty because he confused the players with the whistle that's 100% fine. But telling them he's not awarding a penalty for a kid's mistake isn't.

When I played on a somewhat serious level there was another kid's mistake that was almost never resulted in a blown whistle: Incorrect throw-ins. Nobody cared if the ball was over the head instead of behind the head or if one of the feet was fully on the pitch past the touchline. That changed over the last 20 years. These days incorrect throw-ins get penalized up to the highest level of play.