UCL QF: AC Milan vs Bayern Munich

Originally Posted by Mystik

I've been around R&B long enough to know that reading those match threads is the punishment that should be given to criminals on death row.

No reading Passion for 9's crap is. That's worse than death. I have never, ever seen an arrogant attention-seeking person that types so much crap per second like her on a forum on the internet, and boy I've been on many.

To stay on topic, I think that german peep is right, our CL season will be over in 18 days, and if by a miracle we manage to survive we will be ripped apart by Roma (I pray Man Utd can put them out for our sake) as yesterday's match was only their practice pace...

Originally Posted by Tony29.

What about Bayern ?
They are flying high after the 2:0 win over Schalke yesterday. Now they are only 6 pts behind the first placed team and their chances for winning the league are growing.

2 very important players, Kahn and Van Bommel, won't play at San Siro but there is still enough material to cause problems to Milan.

Rensing will probably replace Kahn
Sagnol at RB and Lahm at LB are almost certain. Maybe they aren't better but they are at least on par with Milan's full backs.
Central defenders may be their weakest link and they may be their best part . That's the way Lucio and Van Buyten play. We've seen many times how dangerous Lucio can be from set pieces and i've seen Van Buyten playing Nesta like many times this season - like a rock, but sometimes he makes bad and costly errors.

Sub. defenders : Ismael, Görlitz, Lell, Hummels - You can see they don't have adequate replacements for their defenders !


Midfielders :
Demichelis will replace Van Bommel and this is where i see Milan's chance. He'll be Kaka's direct guard, he'll have defensive duties and i doubt we'll see him up front a lot, like we would have seen the Dutchman if he wasn't suspended. Even defensive wise i rate him as weaker player than Van Bommel.
Hasan Salihamidzic-Brazzo - The moment Hitzfeld took over Bayern, Brazzo became the good old one. Imo, he's Bayern's best player lately. He rules the right side of the field, assists a lot and even scores. Jankulovski will have many problems with the future Juventino
Owen Hargreaves - shares the same position with Salihamidzic so i don't know what will Hitzfeld decide to do. Hargreaves can play in center midfield also and maybe that's where he'll find himself on Tuesday.
Bastian Schweinsteiger. Hot-Cold performances from him this year. He can be lethal with his long range shots but he can be invisible for 90 minutes and get the worst player award.

Sub. midfielders : Mehmet Scholl - The oldy can still be dangerous. He can't play 90 mins and he always comes as a sub.
Andreas Ottl . Yesterday i saw this guy for the first time in my life and he was a pleasant suprise.
Ali Karimi - nothing special
Stephan Fürstner - i never heard about this guy and i never watched him play

Attack :
Roy Makaay - Another hot-cold guy. But you all know how dangerous and lethal he can be.
Claudio Pizzaro - Superb sub - scores a lot
Lucas Podolski - I never liked him but he has a habbit of scoring against big teams
Roque Santa Cruz - good sub.


You can see Bayern ain't no piece of cake. On a bad day ( which they're having a lot this year, just like Milan) everyone can beat them. But on a good day they are world class.
Lets not forget they've beaten Inter in Milano earlier this year and they would have beaten them again in Munich if Vieira didn't score a 91st minute goal.

I give the advantage to Milan here and i can see Milan in the semis. But it's a small 51-49 advantage.

Bayern is tricky, very very tricky.

nice review Tony

I think Bayern will play with these:

Rensing
Sagnol, Lucio, Van Buyten, Lahm
Salihamidzic, Hargreaves, Demichelis, Schweini
Makaay, Podolski

they have some excellent players - as you said, Hassan has been their best player lately - still, the one and only reason why I see them as a dangerous opponent is sitting on the their bench - Ottmar Hitzfeld ... if it wasn't for him, I would be giving a sure win for Milan in this QF tie.

Originally Posted by Pireloke

No reading Passion for 9's crap is. That's worse than death. I have never, ever seen an arrogant attention-seeking person that types so much crap per second like her on a forum on the internet, and boy I've been on many.

To stay on topic, I think that german peep is right, our CL season will be over in 18 days, and if by a miracle we manage to survive we will be ripped apart by Roma (I pray Man Utd can put them out for our sake) as yesterday's match was only their practice pace...

Thanks for the much needed support Pireloke. What would we do without your words of encouragement ?

Originally Posted by zlatanov

Ottmar Hitzfeld ... if it wasn't for him, I would be giving a sure win for Milan in this QF tie.

It's not just Hitzfeld. Another opponent for Milan are Milan's players themselves and the way they're playing this season.

The main 2 factors that made me put Milan as a small favourite ( i became an odds settler for one bookie 20 days ago ) are :

1. CL experience. This is very important thing for this competition and everyone who follows CL closely can confirm what i say. It's not decissive in winning the CL itself but in knock-out stages it usually means advantage for the more experienced side.

2. H2H duels. Milan was too much for Bayern on last 4 h2h matches.
Some things i find hard to explain. Bayern can easily beat , lets say Roma, 4 times out of 5. Roma can dominate and beat Milan 4 times out of 5, but Milan always beats Bayern.
The way some team plays is very hard to cope with for some world class teams and rather easy for some weaker teams.
Well, Milan's way of play ( or should i say Ancelotti's tactics) was a nightmare for Bayern.

Not a big factor for my reasoning , but still important, are the h2h duels with Italian teams Bayern had in CL since 1993 : 2 wins- 2 draws- 6 defeats.
With Milan, Bayern has 0wins-1 draw- 3 defeats ( 4:9 goal difference)


Now why i'm not convinced Milan will surely pass Bayern.
Imo, Milan had the easiest group in CL and got the easiest opponent in last 16.
And still, the record is rather poor for Milan standards. Couldn't beat Lille, couldn't beat Celtic in 180 mins. and managed to beat only AEK and Anderlecht so far.
In serie A and Coppa Italia there are many weak teams and few solid or top class clubs : Inter, Roma, Lazio, Fiorentina, Palermo.
Apart from the 1st round win against Lazio back in September, Milan has an awful record with these teams :
Inter 3:4 - 1:2
Roma 1:2- 2:2-1:3-1:1
Lazio 2:1-0:0
Fiorentina 2:2
Palermo 0:2-0:0
Only 1 win-5 draws-5 defeats

I think only Lille and Celtic can be concidered as solid as some of the teams from above, and if we add Milan's record with Celtic and Lille to the record from above , we'll get this :

1 win ( or 2 if we count the extra time win vs Celtic) - 8 draws ( or 7) - 6 defeats (13:21 goal difference)

Against the better teams Milan suffers a lot this year. Bayern can be concidered a good team and as good as the teams from above. If Milan couldn't beat a good team since last September's win against Lazio, and had 14 more matches to do so, then it's a bit of a gamble to put money on ther qualification.

To cut it, i gave 1.85 odds to Milan ( with 10 euro you'll get 18.5 E if Milan qualifies) and 2.00 to Bayern (10 euro -> 20 euro)

To cut it, i gave 1.85 odds to Milan ( with 10 euro you'll get 18.5 E if Milan qualifies) and 2.00 to Bayern (10 euro -> 20 euro)

Im just an amateur but that looks about right to me, as you said experience is crucial in the CL and Milan have bucketloads of it. The league situation has been very unorthodox for Milan this year with the points situation meaning they have been chasing since the start, thats meant the gameplan in a lot of games has been unnatural for Milan (for wont of a better word).

The CL campaign has been quite standard by comparison, always doing just enough to qualify, just enough to go through, im quite sure they can do it again vs Bayern, but not sure enough to put money on it

That said, i went for overs in Spurs - Reading today so what do i know!

Originally Posted by Pireloke

No reading Passion for 9's crap is. That's worse than death. I have never, ever seen an arrogant attention-seeking person that types so much crap per second like her on a forum on the internet, and boy I've been on many.

To stay on topic, I think that german peep is right, our CL season will be over in 18 days, and if by a miracle we manage to survive we will be ripped apart by Roma (I pray Man Utd can put them out for our sake) as yesterday's match was only their practice pace...

Well if our CL season will be over in 18 days, does that not imply that we will somehow be eliminated between the Bayern games and the semi-final?

Does UEFA have a special game scheduled for Milan?

Yea.....I don't think he knows that the return leg with Bayern is on the 11th as we don't get 2 weeks in the quarter-finals. It's ok, maybe UEFA will kick us out after 18 days even though we would have beaten Bayern by then.

I had a dream we could only draw 1-1 in the Bayern Arena and i wasn't very happy about the outcome ... so i guess we lost the tie

I hate dreams like that.

18 days or whatever, this is likely the last turn for this year and Ancelotti can pack his bags, if Berlusca has one braincell left. If we somehow manage to pass this turn it's going to be bad very bad, so let's do a 1-1 and 0-0 and go out in silence instead of being ridiculised once more for a change.

anyone know if Ambrosini is fit to play?

I believe he will be ... on the official site, before the Roma game, Carlo said that Ambro had muscular fatigue - too many games at once after his injury problems, I guess - but will play vs Bayern ... or something of the kind.

Janku, Maldini and Serginho (probably on the bench) should also be fit for Bayern

Originally Posted by zlatanov

I believe he will be ... on the official site, before the Roma game, Carlo said that Ambro had muscular fatigue - too many games at once after his injury problems, I guess - but will play vs Bayern ... or something of the kind.

Janku, Maldini and Serginho (probably on the bench) should also be fit for Bayern

zlat

Ottl will most likely replace van Bommel, its a strong line up

------------ Rensing -------------------

Sagnol -- Lucio -- van Buyten -- Lahm---

-------- Ottl -- Hargreaves --------------

Salihamidzic -------------------- Schweinsteiger

------- Makaay ---- Podolski -------------

Originally Posted by Milan_Mad

zlat

Ottl will most likely replace van Bommel, its a strong line up

------------ Rensing -------------------

Sagnol -- Lucio -- van Buyten -- Lahm---

-------- Ottl -- Hargreaves --------------

Salihamidzic -------------------- Schweinsteiger

------- Makaay ---- Podolski -------------

i cant see bayern .... staying back and defending .. rather attacking and working there socks off in attack ... just looking at that line up .. milan have to be aware and ready to pounce on any errors at there backline ...

Originally Posted by Dr Milano

i cant see bayern .... staying back and defending .. rather attacking and working there socks off in attack ... just looking at that line up .. milan have to be aware and ready to pounce on any errors at there backline ...

Yep van Buyten is one of the slowest CBS in europe we must work on that

The squad for the match:

Dida, Kalac, Storari.

Bonera, Cafu, Favalli, Kaladze, Jankulovski, Maldini, Nesta, Oddo, Simic.

Ambrosini, Brocchi, Gattuso, Gourcuff, Kakà, Pirlo, Seedorf.

Gilardino, Inzaghi.

According to La Gazzetta dello Sport are we going to play with a 4-4-1-1 formation with Gilardino as the lone striker.