Have always had a soft spot for Real. I was at their Champions League final victory over Valencia in 2000 in Paris and the celebrations in Paris that night were immense.

The only time I've seen Bayern live was the 1999 Champions League final versus Manchester United in Barcelona .... of course, Bayern were able to exorcise that ghost a few years later.

Whatever happens in the semis, it will be a final between two top teams (notwithstanding Chelsea's lack of historical pedigree and their indifferent season) ....... however, it would be great to see an El Clasico final with Real putting Barca to the sword !!!

2012 League Champions .... yesterday, we had Linfield clinch the Northern Irish league title and Glasgow Celtic crowned as Scottish champions.

Any other European leagues have their title winners confirmed yet?

Not sure if there are any other title winners yet. Whoever wins the next match between Bayern and Dortmund will likely take the Bundesliga. I think all the other major leagues are still duking it out. Will be interesting to see if Madrid manages to stay on top of Barça, though.

Very excited for the 17th. I see Bayern taking the first match at home (I'd predict a 2-1 or 3-2 score for Bayern), they don't often lose there. Just a matter of dominating in Madrid.

Manchester United are very close to wrapping up the English title after today's results. They won, whilst their nearest challengers, Manchester City, lost. This means United are now eight points clear and have an easier run-in.

Bayern and Dortmund currently playing. 0-0 still at the half, but it's been an exciting game. Kroos has had some good opportunities and Neuer is in fine form...but the Dortmund strike off the crossbar nearly gave me a heart attack.

Yep, 2-1 for die Bayern! Suspenseful and entertaining game for sure! Now onward to play Madrid at home! All we need is a tie, damnit! Dortmund will more than likely take the Bundesliga at this point, but if we get the Champions League, it'll have been well worth it.

Given the profile, and financial awards, the Champions League has eclipsed all domestic leagues in terms of importance. Chelsea versus Barcelona in the other semi with Chelsea now in good form after a poor season. They defeated fellow London side Tottenham 5-1 in the English domestic cup semi-final on Sunday.

Newcastle vs Man City is on now, and it's a great game. Newcastle needs to win today, and Chelsea to lose to Bayern then hopefully they can play Champions League.

Man City did really well in the end .... an excellent second half performance with Toure outstanding. If City win against QPR next week, they'll win the league for the first time in 44 years.

Incredible comeback after being 8 points behind local rivals Man Utd just 5 weeks ago and all seemed lost.


Chelsea won the FA Cup Final (the domestic English cup competition) on Saturday with a 2-1 win over Liverpool. It, too, was a great game of football to watch. Chelsea were 2-0 up and in cruise control until a late Liverpool fightback made a real game of it.


Some of the recent football I've seen has made me look forward all the more to the forthcoming Euro 2012 Championships.

The final CL match is going to be suspenseful as hell. Though given Chelsea's final performance against Barcelona, I don't think they have much of a chance. How Chelsea managed to pull that game off I don't know, given the extent to which Barcelona dominated. But that's football.

But now it's time for Bayern to take the reward that's been long coming. Thwarted by Inter two years ago, but we won't be again! And given how this season has panned out for Bayern, I'm also very excited to see how Germany does this summer. Gomez, Schweini, Müller, Kroos, Neuer, Lahm, Boateng and Badstuber will be flying high after this season, we'll see how that translates into the national team. Can't wait to see Germany vs. Spain this year.

Very comfortable win for Spain - I've never seen a team so dominant in the final of one of the main international tournaments.

Also deserving of this side to make history, being the first national side to win three consecutive tournaments. Some good news for the Spanish nation against a backdrop of economic hardship and austerity.

Crazy first half in the Champions League. Neither Chelsea, MU nor Barcelona are leading)?

Futbol siting today:
Midfielders
Jules Klinsmann
St. Pauli Pirates
World Cup Soccer
and hanging from street lamps like a monkey... :)

Anyone watching U21? More than impressed by Norway, atm.

I stand with the cultural boycott of Israel.
This huge international sporting event should have never been held in a place that treats Palestinians as non-humans.
I wish the international soccer/football community had pressured UEFA to get real about opposing racism.
http://redcardapartheid.weebly.com/

Since the triple we've managed to start off the season pretty well with 3 wins in 3 games. But it becomes more and more clear that Pep doesn't belong with Bayern, and neither do Götze or Thiago. Proven very well today. Anyways, excited for October to come and also Bayern v Chelsea match. Bundesliga has been off to an exciting start!

In other news I heard Poldi rescued Arsenal today.

Greetings to Ender, Ciaran, Dykumentary and all others:

Just thought I would leave a note here today and say that after all the years I've spent trying to keep up with dancing on a soccer field, I still don't know much of anything except the beauty of dancing on a soccer field, tip-kic and following the pursuits of a favorite team in Hamburg -- The Hamburg Pirates.

I am still a soccer addict, after all these years.

Not to tip the ball one way or another, but in other news:

I am an ardent fan of the Seattle Sea-Hawks.

*GoOoOoOoOoooo Hawks!!! *

I hope this finds all of you in good standing and if not, please, pull your socks up.

:)

Kätzchen

Thank you for re-starting this thread.

Football wise, it's a good year for me. In particular, in three weeks time, I travel to Madrid to watch the Real Madrid versus Elche match at the Bernabéu stadium. Looking forward to that.


More generally, and more importantly, it's appropriate now for me to disclose my sporting love. Many on this site would assume that my main sporting interest is the NY Yankees but that's not the case - albeit I love the Yankees' history of the 1920s an 1930s.


Rather, my team is a football (soccer) team. Belfast Celtic. They haven't played since 1949 but there's not a day goes by that I don't think of this team.


The video below is a documentary produced in 1989, 40 years after Celtic retired from football. To a non-Northern Irish person, it probably has a slow start but is well worth watching. It's my team.


If you know your history .....

I'm super excited that the Champions League starts up again soon.

But what I'm most happy about is that I'm finally cleared to begin playing soccer again.
I've really missed playing, and getting back into game-shape will be such a pleasure these next weeks.

Im Liverpool FC fan for years, and yes love Bayern FC as well :)

Glad to see the thread still lives! :D Btw, Ciaran, thanks for dropping that video here I'll definitely be giving it a watch!

I was actually reading through the thread from the beginning today and it's funny (and if we weren't in the position we are now, it would be far less funny lol) to get that reminder in written posts year after year of "this year is the year for us." Finally that year came and in force with us winning the treble last year, and hopefully we'll have the honour of being the first to successfully defend it this year.

It's been a really exciting CL season so far, and no just from a Bayern perspective. Olympiakos beating Man. U was probably one of my favourite moments so far. Just brilliant to watch United fans start off so sure of themselves despite the abysmal season they've had both domestically and in Europe, then to have United not even manage a single goal in Athens and barely manage an attack. I think United will win the second leg but probably another 1-0 performance for them. Barça beating City was also pretty great to watch.

I wasn't really happy with Guardiola's decisions for our lineup in the second leg against Arsenal, though. Obviously I'm happy we went through, but we could have easily managed more than a draw had he not decided to bring Müller in with less than 10 minutes to injury time. Also Martinez as centre back...you'd think Pep would have noticed at least by half-time that he should have brought him off in favour of Boateng or van Buyten...And Ribéry had no business in such a big match while not being at 100% yet, Götze neither...especially not over Müller. Anyways, what's done is done and now we wait to see who we draw for the next round.

As for the Bundesliga, obviously another great year and a real tribute to our players...it's sometimes been more exciting watching the battle for the top 6 though...I'm just hoping to hell someone...anyone put Leverkusen out of contention for a CL spot. Btw was loving Schweinsteiger's goal off the freekick against Leverkusen this weekend :D

Around 1:27 you can see the freekick

owdo
 

my team is Manchester United but at the minute are not doing too well.lets hope things improve.:praying:

What's your view on Moyes, do you think he should go or wait it out? It'll be interesting to see if United's position in the Premier League and CL performance means his time with the club will be cut short this summer.

You read it here first- my early longshot pick for the World Cup- Belgium

My sport of choice is and all ways will be rodeo,I have contested in all women's rodeo where we do all the rough stock events as the boy's do,even though I don't compete any more It was a blast when I did.Wrangler Jeans sponsored a team rodeo events some years back that had a ton of cash in it for the wining team's.
I also have played a lot of softball as short stop and or catcher,I watch some of the college ball games when they are on.Now,football is something I watch now and again when I get the urge too.
At the moment I am into playing pool with the A.P.A I play both 8 and 9 ball,last year my 8 ball team wen't to Vegas for the team championships where my 8 ball team won 9th in the nation.Once in a while the women's pro pool teams are on E.S.P.N. and I do watch as well as tape the shows.

We played a good match against United, but just couldn't seem to convert. I think it's again coming down to Pep's going back to fielding Müller as a false 9 instead of playing Mandzukic as a true striker from the start. Müller should have still been in the lineup, but back in midfield where he's always much more effective.

Anyways, we were saved again by Schweinsteiger and it's a big blow to us that he'll be missing the second leg, but I'm sure we'll manage.

Ideal starting lineup in the second leg, imo:

Wow those were two amazing games.
The bar I'm at was going bananas.
Who'd a thunk Athletico over Barce?!
Glad MU is out.

They were! Definitely the most intense match day of the season! It was really too bad we played the same day as the Atletico v Barça match. I should have bet money on the two Atletico/Barça fixtures though :p Predicted the 1-1 draw spot on and an Atletico win for the return leg (predicted 2-1 instead of 1-0 though). Atletico have just been brilliant this season! I want to play them in the final!

The second half of our match against United was just epic, though. Evra's goal gutted me, but seems it only happened to put fans on an emotional rollercoaster cause less than 70 seconds later I was celebrating...and then again and again :p

And now La Bestia Negra returns to Madrid :devil:



I can hardly wait for the semis!

Anyone else been watching the World Cup? Probably the most exciting international football tournament since France '98 so far! Some great upsets too!

Goal of the tournament so far is definitely Robin van Persie's flying header against Spain!



Overall great match though, one where you definitely got the impression of watching history in the making.

I've been watching/listening religiously...I would totally agree with what you said, and add....

Adios, Espana!!!

Second that! I thought maybe Spain would come back with a vengeance against Chile after being massacred by the Netherlands, but Chile were phenomenal today! Even Australia have played better than Spain so far, and I was not expecting that at all!

Seems like there will be an early death for some of the favourites this year. Brazil haven't been looking so sharp aside from Neymar either. Chile and Mexico both look like they'll upset their groups, brilliant performances from both! Chile vs the Netherlands is going to be an amazing match given how both have been playing.

And of course, I'm thrilled that Germany barely had to get out of first gear to beat Ronaldo and Portugal :D

I'm so looking forward to watching Germany slaughter us Yanks...(sigh, we're just not ready for world class soccer, but ok, we made it to Brazil!). I don't think Portugal won't be a big issue for us, but it'll likely be a good game.

Agree though, Brazil and even Mexico have been playing without spark. I think they'll definitely bring the show next round, as they damn well better had.

Croatia seems to be up, 30 mins in...

Yeah, Croatia is looking dangerous and really got screwed by some bad officiating against Brazil. A draw against Brazil would have been more fair for them considering they had a goal wrongly disallowed as well as a penalty kick awarded against them that never should have been. But like we saw today they have Mandzukic back...so I think they'll be very dangerous now. Its likely though that they'll meet the Netherlands in the knockouts, though, if they beat Mexico so that will be interesting!

Its hard to see how well Portugal will do against you guys. They were garbage against Germany so it depends if they take that defeat to heart and get their act together. If Ronaldo is fit then I still think Portugal will win that one given how much trouble the US midfield had in keeping possession against Ghana's midfield. We'll see though, this WC has definitely shown upsets are more than possible!

But yeah I agree next round Brazil will have to get things done against Cameroon. They really can't afford another draw.

England vs Uruguay and Greece vs Japan will be interesting tomorrow though!

Got my prediction spot on so happy about that result :p

England not technically out yet, but not sure how they'll do against Costa Rica who played surprisingly well against Uruguay. The English just haven't really put on a spirited performance at all so far.

I can actually hear all of England chanting... Viva Italia! At this very moment.

This bit of old blighty is hoping for a draw,England team is rubbish!
They have been for years,they are a bunch of jumped up snivelling self absorbed prima donna thugs.
The likes of Wayne Rooney and co have been over induldged,over paid and over glorified for pandering to their egos,ie England team does'nt understand the concept of team work and how to use the ball in an imaginative creative way.