It is Barcelona vs Chelsea, yet again. The fixture has seen some ferocious battles over the years. But one tie stands out for its fame. 2008-09 UCL semi-finals. I don’t think that there has ever been a tie which affected Barcelona’s reputation as much as this one. Allegations such as,“UEFA fixed the match since they didn’t want to see an all-English final twice in a row”,“Barcelona bought the referees”, etc., were all over the media after the match and the accusations still live on. I have seen Cules who believe that the tie was all about one-sided decisions from the referees. On this occasion, we would like to make a detailed analysis on the tie and check the extent of truth in all these allegations. First of all, we are a Barça fan page and we expect people to say that we are biased. So, we have included the links for the highlights of both of the matches. Please go through it, read the article and decide for yourselves. --------------------------------------------- --------- First leg: Barça 0-0 Chelsea Match Stats: Attempts on target: 6-1 Attempts off target: 12-2 Possession: 70.5 - 29.5 Corners: 10-2 Fouls committed: 7-20 Yellow cards: 2-2 --------------------------------------------- --------- This was a game where Barcelona were at their dominant best. But Chelsea defended well and Cech had a great game. A combined effect of this and some awful finishing made the final scoreline 0-0. This match was forgotten by most people especially after the famous second leg. I would like to highlight 3 incidents from this match. 1. Minute 43: Eto’o receives a through ball from Iniesta and runs into the box with lots of space. Referee pulls the game back for offside. Replays clearly show that Eto’o was well onside and it was a potential goal- scoring opportunity. 2. Minute 74: Henry gets a pass from Eto’o inside the box and he turns towards goal. However, his shirt was pulled back by Bosingwa and Henry goes to the ground. No penalty given. It was indeed, denial of a clear goal-scoring opportunity and should have been a penalty. 3. Minute 84: Iniesta plays a pass to Messi and continues his run for a one-two. Before Iniesta gets near the ball, he gets palmed on his face by Michael Ballack. Ballack was already on a yellow card but once again, the referee waved it off. Ballack should have been sent off and suspended for the return leg. Three decisions, which could have changed the entire tie in a game we dominated. We will never know, but the tie might have already been over, if one of these decisions went in the right way. Everybody knows how difficult it was to play against Pep’s Barça with a goal/man down. The tie was already ruined by the referee but nobody heard it. Instead, people read about a game where Chelsea’s determined defensive display kept Barcelona from scoring. English media at their finest. First leg highlights: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iGTtlk1-Zo --------------------------------------------- --------- Second leg: Chelsea 1-1 Barcelona (Agg 1-1, Barça progress to the final on away goals) Match Stats: Attempts on target: 4-1 Attempts off target: 5-8 Possession: 29.1-70.9 Corners: 6-6 Fouls committed: 16-17 Yellow cards: 4-3 Red cards: 0-1 --------------------------------------------- --------- The infamous, ‘fixed’ match. Chelsea had four strong claims for a penalty but they were all waved off by the Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo. Abidal was sent off for a ‘foul’ on Anelka. Let’s have a look into the controversial decisions. 1. Messi-Ballack: Messi flicks the ball, the ball hits Ballack’s hand (inside the box). Referee waves play on. It was a correct call in my opinion and the explanation for this one will be added in the last point. 2. Alves-Malouda: Alves chases Malouda, who drives with pace into the area. Alves goes for less-legal ways to stop Malouda and fouls him. Referee awards a free-kick just outside the area. While it’s true that it should have been a penalty, this was a difficult call to make. The foul started from outside the area, and it continued until Malouda was just inside the area. Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher mentioned in his analysis that the ref can’t be blamed for not getting that call right. 3. Abidal-Drogba: Lampard plays a lofted pass into the box and Drogba finds the end of it. His shirt gets pulled back by Abidal and Drogba goes to ground. Valdes claims the ball. Referee waves play on. Though the contact was minimal, pulling the shirt was enough to deny Drogba and it should have been a penalty. Drogba’s reputation as a diver might have been a possible reason for referee not getting the call right but it was a penalty nonetheless. 4. Abidal’s red card: Cech plays it long, Drogba tries to head the ball, the ball falls towards Anelka, who trips his own ankle and goes to the ground. Referee awards a red card to Abidal. Replays show that Drogba kicked Pique with studs up during the incident and Anelka tripped his own ankle and it shouldn’t have been a foul, let alone a red card. Drogba should have been dealt accordingly for the studs up kick on Pique. 5. Pique hand-ball: Anelka flicks the ball, Pique handles it. Referee unmoved. No discussion, it should have been a penalty. 6. Eto’o hand-ball: The score was already 1-1 and Barça were going to progress on away goals. Ballack shoots towards goal and the ball hits the upper arm of Eto’o, who was dashing towards the ball with his face away from the ball. Referee brushes off all allegations and waves play on. I have seen many people arguing that this should have been a penalty since the hand was away from its natural position. However, the laws of the game state that “THE POSITION OF THE HAND DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN THAT THERE IS AN INFRINGEMENT” (FIFA laws of the game, page 113, point 3) https://www.fifa.com/mm/document/ affederation/generic/81/42/36/ lawsofthegame_2011_12e.pdf Considering that the ball was travelling fast and the fact that Eto’o had no idea where the ball was (since he wasn’t facing the ball), this was actually a correct decision from the referee just like the decision to rule out Ballack’s hand-ball from Messi’s flick (see point 1). Second leg highlights: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IrbMMzG MWA&t=3s --------------------------------------------- --------- Barça were denied four genuine game changing decisions (3+1) while Chelsea were denied three (0+3) over the two legs. But the English media/fans completely ignored the first leg and Abidal’s card and made it look like an absolute robbery. I agree that the referees ruined the game and the tie would have been different if the standard of refereeing was better. But naming the match to be a fixed one is absolutely baseless. Why should the referee send Abidal off for nothing when Chelsea were leading, if the match was fixed like they say? If UEFA/Barcelona wanted to fix the game, the home match was the best option to do so. Ironically, Barça were denied three potentially game-changing decisions at home. People accusing Barcelona as match fixers won’t bat an eye about Carvalho’s foul on Valdes in 2005, which allowed Terry to score the winning (4th) goal. In build up to their third goal, Terry fouled Eto’o to receive possession. Makelele’s stomping on Iniesta’s calf with his studs up in the 9th minute (scoreline 1-0) wasn’t even noticed by the referee. It was a clear red card any day of the week. Barça would have probably gone through if either of those decisions went in the right way. You won’t see these so-called ‘protectors of fair-play’ portraying it as a robbery or scandal because of the fact that Chelsea won the match instead of Barça. Video in the comments section. ( https:// twitter.com/TheCataIanGiant/status/ 741400593105719296 ) I agree that Ovrebo had a bad day and the game from 2009 was one of those rare games with so many bad calls. But, people conveniently forget that we were also denied by the referees and scrutinise every decision that went in our favour under a magnifying glass. Yes, we often get favoured by referees. Like all other teams. We get wrong decisions against us as well. Our point is that, before getting into cheap accusations, kindly do some research and then speak. Implementing technologies like VAR and goal line technology will surely reduce the number of critical errors from the referees. The challenge is to implement it in a way such that the flow of the game is disturbed as little as possible. We don’t usually post these kinds of articles since we prefer to share news, knowledge and avoid controversies as much as possible. But, this was a forced one since we have been seeing people bring up these games from 2009 to defame the club we love. We wanted people to know what actually happened. Kindly go through the article and please have the patience to go through the videos before commenting (if you wish to). Civilized comments are welcomed.
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