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Champions League Final: Your Running Commentary

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Two of Spain’s elite will collide on Saturday to determine Europe’s top club.

After meeting in the tournament final just two years ago, Atletico Madrid looks to exact revenge against crosstown rivals Real Madrid in Saturday’s Champions League final. Saturday’s match presents Atletico with the team’s first chance at winning Europe’s ultimate prize, while Real Madrid will be in search of their 11th Champions League crown. Regardless on winner, a Spanish club will lift the trophy for the third straight season.

Real Madrid, who enters the final after beating Manchester City, will feature a lineup that boasts the usual suspects in Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Toni Kroos. In front of them lies an Atletico Madrid team led by one of the world’s top defenders in Diego Godin, while Antoine Griezmann and Fernando Torres lead the line for La Liga’s third-place side.

If you will be watching today’s final, please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.

Enjoy the action.

Comments

  1. anyone else find it a little ironic that the ussf has mandated that we play a possession-oriented game while many of the top teams have moved to a fast-break style? it’s almost as if it’s a perfectly valid way to play, especially if you don’t have the players for a possession-based system.

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    • Real Madrid isn’t stupid they saw what happened to Bayern and Barca when you played possession and let Athleti get their defense organized. Athleti plays counter because its the only way they are going to beat a team with much better players than they have.

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    • Possession vs counter. Fast break vs triangle. Run n gun vs ground n pound. Every sport has its two main contrasting philosophies.

      Less talented teams usually try to bunker and counter. As talent raises you morph to a build-up team. Then once you become a possession team you loo to add counters to your team like Barcelona has morphed by adding Suarez. The U.S. Is still coming up from being bunker/counter to a building team. It’s never easy and never quick. Once our talent and pace catches up we can truly be possession. But until then it’ll be a work in progress

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      • “Less talented teams usually try to bunker and counter. As talent raises you morph to a build-up team.”

        my point is that is becoming far less common now, while it was absolutely the case 4-5 years ago.

        the broader (and more salient) point would be that — as a national team — you can’t just go out and get the players for the system you want.

        so the common sense view would be that the federation would make a concerted effort to train up (or identify) players with the desired skillset, and — *if* they are successful in their efforts — they can eventually try to change the system at the senior level. seems like we’ve put the cart in front of the horse — or side-by-side at the best, maybe?

    • Real Madrid have always played this way – FAST – going back to the days of Raymond Kopa, Di Stefano, and Puksas. The original galacticos. Perhaps even more so since C. Ronaldo, and again Bale. Zidane recruited Bale, knowing exactly how Real Madrid is supposed to play, and when he was a player he would also play as direct as possible when it was a high percentage option, which it often was when the Brazilian Ronaldo and Raul were in front of him.. Guti and Figo played very much the same way. It doesn’t mean they are short on talent to possess the ball. These are the best players in the world. They play and think the game incredibly fast. But there is a clear ideology behind the way the play and the players the club chooses to bring in. Barcelona, in the same way, have always been a possession team since Cruyff and total soccer found its footing in Spain.

      People seem to think these are fashions, rather they are part and parcel of the history of big clubs.

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  2. Real are not that great, and that’s an understatement, between Bayern, Barcelona, and PSG they are all better sides…but such is football. Can’t see Atletico scoring, Torres has been past his prime for years now, and Griesman can’t score to save his life. A shame, really, such a poor Real Madrid side will win the CL.

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  3. I think the appearance of offsides is because the ball was played in on a lob, so the advance of the RM players, onto the ball, at the time of Ramos’s touch, appears offside, though it as actually on. The goal happened right before I tuned in, so I did not see it, but saw only one slow-mo replay. Correct me if I am mistaken.
    Vamos Colchoneros!! Arrriba el Atletico!!!

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  4. goal was offside? looked pretty clear to me, but commentators didn’t mention it at all, so maybe i’m going crazy.

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