UCL Last 16: Celtic v Juventus Chat

I feel so low after last night. We can't blame the referee for the defeat, we didn't take our chances and defended terribly. However, the ref certainly didn't help matters. What a shocking performance from him, Lichtsteiner should have conceded a penalty kick. Credit to Juventus for, despite their antics, defending brilliantly and being clinical with their chances.

 

You are talking utter nonsense! And by the way, Lichsteiner pushed Brown the same way Hooper pushed him, and never received a yellow! How do you justify that?

 

Saw this on FB

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q9_JtGrQLt0

I call this diving, Lichtsteiner has just adapted to match the nervous Celtic planned.
Was really with this tricks in the corner kicks the only way to score?

 

There is never anything in the laws of the game that says it's a foul to stand your ground. Hooper was standing his ground, it's up to the goalkeeper to move around him or Lichsteirner to go goal side, thus having two players in Buffon's path which was our plan. What is outside the laws of the game is Liechsteiner wrestling Hooper out of Buffon's path, if you can tell me that Gary Hooper raised his hands or grabbed Liechsteiner then I will happily concede.

 

:smiley-laughing002::smiley-laughing002:

Sammy will rip them to shreds and score 6 on his own in the second leg

 

Of course Hooper was pushing Lichsteiner. Lichsteiner had his arms wrapped around him and was leaning up against him with his body weight. If Hooper didn't try to push him off then he wouldn't have been able to move. Hooper even ended up being wrestled into the back of the net at one point!

Lichsteiner was the one causing the problem. Hooper should never have been booked.

 

Well, we can go to Turin and just enjoy ourselves now. We don't have to play with any fear.

We can take a fair bit of pride that we basically dominated their midfield. Pirlo, Marchisio and Vidal were relatively quiet.

Sadly, we weren't sharp enough in defence or attack to turn our possession/chances into a positive result.

 

Oh, and who told me Juventus wouldn't play negatively?

We learned some harsh lessons about what we need to do to get to this stage again next year.

 

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/70959-greatest-comebacks-deportivo-la-coruna-4-0-ac-milan



Clutching at straws CSC

 

Just to answer the Juve fans on here (despite them being answered several times already), Hooper DID NOT obstruct Buffon. He stood in front of him, yes, but that's not obstruction. There was no contact, it's effectively marking him. At every set piece in every game of football on the planet, defenders stand in front of attackers in order to reach the ball before them. No different to what Hooper was doing. Hauling him out of the way the way the Juve defenders were is not acceptable though.

 

Juventus fans are either blind or being intentionally * stupid. How they do not see what was happening in the box as a foul is beyond me and anybody i have spoke to about it.

Living in England i get a fairly balanced response from people and half of them at my college think the ref was bent. I personally don't buy that but i think it's fair to have those thoughts the way he refereed the game.

Juventus defenders when pushing, pulling, shoving, pretending to be stamped on and hugging our players were making zero attempt to get the ball, they weren't even looking at the ball, eyes squarely on our players. That is blatant obstruction plain and simple. If you can't see that you should give up following football.

 

Aye, paying off the * officials would do it.

Fortunately, we are a club with morals and sense, and would never reach such levels of desperation.

 

To be fair to the Juve fans, the stuff their defenders were getting up to last night is an integral part of Italian football. It's in their culture and they are taught to defend that way from a young age. So they obviously just think it's an acceptable part of the game. This country does not share that culture so we have a different view of what was going on.

In these kinds of situations it is up to the referee to be strong and to put a stop to what's going on. Clearly the referee last night wasn't strong enough to deal with it. Or he just didn't want to deal with it.

 

But why we have to take a goal like this as well as Barcelona did?
Isn't there no other way you can use?

In Italy defenders always embrace forwards worse than yesterday, I don't think it's a good thing, but some contacts are part of the game when you want to defend from tricks like this.

And I think that the game was set on nervousness by Celtic, so what did you expect?

 

Intentionally blocking the path of another player, with no intention of playing the ball is obstruction. That's what Hooper was doing. It's also what Lichtsteiner was doing.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, I've spoken to some friends of mine in Italy (who, incidentally, hate Juve) and they were genuinely perplexed when I asked them about their opinion on the penalty incidents.

 

That was me, I do apologise

It's testament to us that that's genuinely the first time I've saw them play like that under Conte. We really did have them looking totally ordinary for most of the game bar the three chances they took.

 

It's a fair point you make Marky.

We are told from an early age over here to mark the keeper at corners. Always had to do it cause I was the striker who wasn't good in the air :smiley-laughing002:.

"Keep your hands at your side and stand still, then the Keeper has to foul you if he wants you out the way" ... Pretty much sums up what I was told as a young gun. Seems Hooper is told the same, except he's been told off for it in the SPL before as well for some reason when he is literally not breaking any rules at all. Perplexes me, it really does.

They decided to combat that by instructing Lichsteiner to get between Hooper and Buffon, which he took to extremes and in that instance the blame lies with the ref for not having the bottle to pull him up earlier for it.

 

I think exactly like that!
As well as I know in Italy is fault to obstruct the goalkeeper.
It's only up to the referee and this is a problem of international football, because no one is like another.

The referees weren't strong, and you can see that also in the first goal, they didn't assigned it before Marchisio put the ball inside again, but the referee was there.

 

Yeah, I also was adamant that Juve never play defensively :smiley-laughing002:

The fact that they did is testament to their respect of Celtic and great credit to Celtic for that.