UEFA Champions League 2017/18 - Semi Final Draw

[SirBalon]

17 minutes ago, Panflute said:

This is what I wonder as well. I have no trouble believing draws like this are or have at one point been rigged to give bigger teams an easier path to the later stages of the competition as that would increase viewership... but surely that would've meant Madrid and Bayern avoiding each other in the semi-final. Or do they want to ensure at least one of those teams is in the final?

What also makes me doubt this particular case is that the guy in charge of putting the ticket sales online is not even near the upper echelons of the organization. For a person like that to be aware of the draw before it actually takes place would imply a conspiracy that potentially involves thousands of people. It is practically impossible to keep a secret of that magnitude under the rug for even a day, let alone years.

If UEFA rigs these, only a few people in the very top of the organization would be privy to it. Even sharing this information with the administration of different clubs seems a huge and unnecessary risk.

The person that enter the information that he or she is ordered to enter. But as you then go onto say, this would mean that more people know these things.

So in effect you’re saying that was an error by the club. 

[RandoEFC+]

 as if people are trying to explain this away. Like @Dr. Gonzo said in the other thread there's a 1 in 12 chance of them guessing the draw correctly. They put this on the website before the draw was made, where they could have just advertised for the Champions League semi final first/home leg or whatever. The fact they specifically put Liverpool and the correct venue is at best a freaky coincidence or at worst extremely suspicious.

And people saying it doesn't matter if the draw was rigged because Real Madrid and Bayern drew each other instead of being kept apart, I don't even know where to start with that. If this had happened and it was Roma v Real Madrid or Bayern people would be crying foul over how it was a conspiracy to give the bigger clubs the easiest route to the final.

If this isn't a coincidence and there is any sort of foul play at work then this is a major issue.

[Scousermum]

21 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Where are you going? I've found that most places will have an Irish pub with the match somewhere.

Majorca.

[Honey Honey]

5 hours ago, SirBalon said:

But the fixture change and ticket option (for three hours before being taken down) on the official AS Roma website was the one you see in that image.

ArtfulDodger has alluded to it and I go along with that thinking... The clubs are actually in on it which actually makes sense to be honest on why nobody has ever spoken out officially.

Why would a clubs hierarchy tell their backroom low wage office staff to set up ready for a certain draw? If you are in on corruption you keep it close and locked away. 

Also how credible is the evidence it was up there for 3 hours? How do we know someone in on this didn't have screenshots of all scenarios ready to leak? 

[RandoEFC+]

9 minutes ago, Kitchen Sales said:

Why would a clubs hierarchy tell their backroom low wage office staff to set up ready for a certain draw? If you are in on corruption you keep it close and locked away. 

Also how credible is the evidence it was up there for 3 hours? How do we know someone in on this didn't have screenshots of all scenarios ready to leak? 

If that persons job was to advertise the fixture they'd find out.

[SirBalon]

24 minutes ago, Kitchen Sales said:

Why would a clubs hierarchy tell their backroom low wage office staff to set up ready for a certain draw? If you are in on corruption you keep it close and locked away. 

Also how credible is the evidence it was up there for 3 hours? How do we know someone in on this didn't have screenshots of all scenarios ready to leak? 

I don't know mate... I do have lots of Italian friends with some being Roma fans and they've told me that it did go up on the official website although the stuff about it having been up for three hours they've told me it wasn't that long (not that the length of time is important).

I don't know what happened what it's all about, I just posted it the minute I saw it early yesterday morning.

[Honey Honey]

29 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

If that persons job was to advertise the fixture they'd find out.

Why would some office admin find out before everyone else? Makes no sense. If the Roma chief exec was in on the draw, knowingly corrupt, they wouldn't go around telling little minions ahead of the time unless they are thick as pig shit. Those sort of minions would also gain a lot from being whistleblowers.

[SirBalon]

1 minute ago, Kitchen Sales said:

Why would some office admin find out before everyone else? Makes no sense. If the Roma chief exec was in on the draw, knowingly corrupt, they wouldn't go around telling little minions ahead of the time unless they are thick as pig shit. Those sort of minions would also gain a lot from being whistleblowers.

So how do you explain the release of that one only fixture with the home and away leg also correct before the draw?

[RandoEFC+]

47 minutes ago, Kitchen Sales said:

Why would some office admin find out before everyone else? Makes no sense. If the Roma chief exec was in on the draw, knowingly corrupt, they wouldn't go around telling little minions ahead of the time unless they are thick as pig shit. Those sort of minions would also gain a lot from being whistleblowers.

Italians dont have the best record of keeping corruption under wraps in recent history .

[Honey Honey]

46 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

So how do you explain the release of that one only fixture with the home and away leg also correct before the draw?

The same way UEFA did.

[Panflute]

6 hours ago, SirBalon said:

The person that enter the information that he or she is ordered to enter. But as you then go onto say, this would mean that more people know these things.

So in effect you’re saying that was an error by the club. 

I don't know what it is, but there would be no benefit to someone telling some lowly webmaster that the biggest club football competition in the world is rigged.

[SirBalon]

47 minutes ago, Kitchen Sales said:

The same way UEFA did.

By making a draw?

44 minutes ago, Panflute said:

I don't know what it is, but there would be no benefit to someone telling some lowly webmaster that the biggest club football competition in the world is rigged.

I find that strange too.  So what we have left is someone at Roma decided to make a draw and he managed to pull a 1/12 chance and hung it on the web...

I find it all strange too but what's for sure is that the rumours coupled with what's been heard since the FIFA scandal all point to skullduggery in regards to football draws.

[Smiley Culture]

Can't believe full grown adults believe in some FIFA conspiracy.

[Honey Honey]

11 hours ago, SirBalon said:

By making a draw?

No they said the ticketing partners of Roma simulated all outcomes and due to a technical issue that particularly one ended up live briefly. 

[Samuel Eto'o]

I'm VERY interested to see how this season's version of Bayern under Heynckes will match up against Real Madrid in the upcoming semis. Jupp is a significant upgrade from Ancelotti when it comes to Bayern and you just KNOW he'll want to beat Madrid (and retire into the sunset) after the refereeing debacle last season with all the offsides. 

No one can handle Madrid in an one-off 1-game Final and  Bayern is a legitimate threat to stop Madrid in its tracks. Hope Bayern do beat up on Madrid enough so that Roma/Liverpool (Boston owners, the both of them! Boston Derby in the semis) can finish them off  

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-mad-night-for-european-soccerand-a-pair-of-boston-owners-1523403212

MANCHESTER, England—Two upsets 1,300 miles apart lit up European soccer’s most prestigious tournament on Tuesday night, one in Manchester and one in Rome. But the impact of those results, which stunned the soccer world, was felt by fans far beyond either city.

Specifically by a couple of Boston-based billionaires with a habit of buying sports teams: John W. Henry and James Pallotta.

Neither name is exactly chanted from the stands here in Europe, but without their investments, Tuesday night’s stunning results in the Champions League might never have happened. First, Henry’s Liverpool—the team he acquired in 2010 after helping to turn around the Boston Red Sox—knocked off the Premier League’s dominant force, Manchester City. Then, in Italy, Pallotta’s Roma stunned Spanish giant Barcelona, marking the club’s most significant result since he added it to a portfolio that also includes the Boston Celtics in 2011.

Between them, Henry and Pallotta have sunk over $1 billion into their respective clubs. But in European soccer, that is simply the price of doing business. Despite years of investment, this is the first time in either one of their tenures that their clubs have qualified for Europe’s final four. There, they can expect to meet perennial contenders Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, who are both in commanding positions in their own quarterfinals. (The draw to determine the semifinal lineup will be made on Friday.)

“It’s quite a cool moment,” Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp said.

Going into Tuesday’s games, Liverpool’s qualification seemed more likely, since the club had already done the hardest part of the job last week by sinking City 3-0 in the first leg. Roma, meanwhile, looked all but sunk. The Italian side had lost its first game against Barcelona 4-1—95% of the time, that result leads to elimination.

But the fightback began early. Edin Dzeko put Roma in front in the 6th minute and Barça never found an extra gear. By the end of the night in a delirious Stadio Olimpico, the score was 3-0. Roma had become only the third club in Champions League history to advance after losing a first leg by at least three goals. The others were Deportivo La Coruna, which stunned AC Milan in 2004, and Barcelona, which stormed back against Paris Saint-Germain last spring.

“I really thought it’s a joke,” Klopp said here after discovering the result. “Not that I don’t respect Roma.”

Klopp lamented that he hadn’t been able to catch any of that game, because he was trying to prevent Manchester City from pulling off a comeback of its own. And he knew from the outset that City manager Pep Guardiola, widely regarded as the best in the world, would pull out all the stops.

Guardiola lined up his team in an extremely aggressive 3-1-3-3 designed to blitz Liverpool straight from kickoff. The game was 90 minutes long, but City knew its hopes hinged on treating it like a 10-minute affair. Score quickly and anything was possible.

When Gabriel Jesus put City ahead in just the second minute of play, it looked like the comeback was on. The team with the most potent attack in the country would need just two more to force extra time. “We saw the lineup of Man City,” Klopp said. “They took all the risks and it could have worked.”

But Liverpool dug in. The players held their breath when City’s Bernardo Silva hit the post. They survived a debatable disallowed goal. And they defended well enough to go into halftime with the damage limited to 1-0. For 45 minutes, they had more or less weathered the storm. Liverpool returned for the second half only to find that Guardiola had been banished to the stands for mouthing off to the referee and that his players were running out of gas.

 

City’s plan went so awry that Liverpool was even able to sneak in for a couple of goals. The 2-1 victory, which made it 5-1 over the two legs, meant that on top of every other accolade, Klopp’s team also became the first to defeat a side managed by Guardiola three times in the same season.

“These numbers are usually not possible,” Klopp said. “I really think they are the best team in the world at the moment. That’s how it is. But I knew we could beat them. That doesn’t make us better than them. That’s football. That’s what makes it so cool.”

 

[SirBalon]

12 minutes ago, Kitchen Sales said:

No they said the ticketing partners of Roma simulated all outcomes and due to a technical issue that particularly one ended up live briefly. 

Of course there's the believable possibility that this could be the case but you can't deny it looks iffy due to the fact it was correct on everything and then it goes live on their website "by accident". In the same manner we can use logic to give these reasons, there's a similar way to believe that something strange goes on and maybe the errors are more fishy than they seem.

To be honest, the argument on the fact so many people would need to know these things and that all the permutations on keeping so many people quiet sways the barometer slightly to believe that it was all an error.

[Happy Blue]

If it's wasn't rigged City would of gone through instead of Liverpool   ...it's bent as fuck!!   ...group of death for us again next season 

[Stan]

9 minutes ago, Happy Blue said:

If it's wasn't rigged City would of gone through instead of Liverpool   ...it's bent as fuck!!   ...group of death for us again next season 

again? yours was easy this season!

[LFCMike]

12 hours ago, SirBalon said:

By making a draw?

I find that strange too.  So what we have left is someone at Roma decided to make a draw and he managed to pull a 1/12 chance and hung it on the web...

I find it all strange too but what's for sure is that the rumours coupled with what's been heard since the FIFA scandal all point to skullduggery in regards to football draws.

Hardly lottery winning odds like is it?

[Honey Honey]

8 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

Of course there's the believable possibility that this could be the case but you can't deny it looks iffy due to the fact it was correct on everything and then it goes live on their website "by accident". In the same manner we can use logic to give these reasons, there's a similar way to believe that something strange goes on and maybe the errors are more fishy than they seem.

To be honest, the argument on the fact so many people would need to know these things and that all the permutations on keeping so many people quiet sways the barometer slightly to believe that it was all an error.

There are many unusual things every day, things we cannot know the real answer to for certain but we don't let them all fester in the mind. Why let this one?

[Happy Blue]

43 minutes ago, Stan said:

again? yours was easy this season!

United had it easy as per.. we had Napoli & Shakhtar 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Happy Blue said:

If it's wasn't rigged City would of gone through instead of Liverpool   ...it's bent as fuck!!   ...group of death for us again next season 

Of course. Don't you know there's a world wide conspiracy to stop city winning things. 

[Panflute]

4 hours ago, Happy Blue said:

United had it easy as per.. we had Napoli & Shakhtar 

Yeah, United had it super easy with teams like Basel, which you drew in the Round of 16 because UEFA hates you or something.

[Happy Blue]

1 hour ago, Gunnersauraus said:

Of course. Don't you know there's a world wide conspiracy to stop city winning things. 

It's been clear for a long time 

[ASF]

Real vs Liverpool final.