Has any team ever gotten such an easy road to the CL final?

Chelsea were the weakest CL- winning team I had seen in a long time, and no one seemed to care as much when they won it by playing anti-football with Torres bailing them out in every match But sure, someone should tell them they weren't elite when they won it. Justice must prevail!

titosantill wrote:whoever got an easy road or whoever fans want to classify as "elite" is what it is.....but i still don't see how a one goal win, in which you lose the tie equates to "torn apart"; played better? maybe, and that "maybe" is due to knowing you had a bad result in the first leg, and thus throwing everything including the kitchen sink, whilst the other team (based on their positive result in the first leg), wisely sits back. 3, 4, 5 plus goal wins can be equated to a team being torn apart. lewa vs madrid some years ago, our loss to barcelona in november, utd's 8-2 win over arsenal...those r examples of tearing teams apart

and again the context of, one side knew all they needed to do was hold on to the first leg lead, and the other side became desperate, they threw everything at them as is expected... it became tactical at that point. it wasn't two giants going mano e mano, and one was just too strong for the other that they just went and pulverized the other....you don't pulverize only to finish with an unfavorable 2-1 win, and torres missed a pk too

Torn apart in the context of Atleti, a team that is normally extremely compact and gives away very few chances. I don't think any team has stretched them and created as many chances as Bayern did. Had Muller scored the pk it could've easily been the first true rout Atleti under Simeone faced.

And this business of Atleti "staying back" is a very strange and meaningless thing to say. They played how they always played, defending in a compact, deep, and normally unbreachable block. Bayern breached it many more times than teams usually do.

well sportin gijon gave it to them, wouldn't say they "tore them apart", as a matter of fact, nobody says they tore them apart or talks about that game. but they created ample chances, they (sportin) even missed a sitter with just the player and the post, only to come back and score the winner late on in exactly the same fashion. sportin had the better chances (can't remember atleti having anything except the freekick they scored), won the game, got all 3 points, still won't say they tore them apart, dominated, or pulverized them

and no, it's not a silly thing to say...atleti defended tight in both legs, yes, that's what they do. but they were open to breaching forward on occasion in the first than they were in the second, no need to take any cute chances.

....i'm not sure what this point has to do with the overarching topic; but i get perturbed when we throw out phrases like dominated, torn apart, destroyed etc . the other day someone was telling me a player dominated another team, cos he had a couple of shots that hit the bar, or player dominated cos he created chances for the striker who missed said chances

Marcus Aurelius wrote:

Valkyrja wrote:

Marcus Aurelius wrote:I find it pathetic to gloat about the la decima tbh.

Didn't they win most of these trophies during the horrible dictatorship period where soldiers threatened the players' lives?

well, we both won 4 trophies in the new CL format competing against your greatest ever generation

No matter how good you are, it is not easy to get to the final (unless you get Wolfsburgs and Romas all the way through)

And when you get to the final, it often comes down to on who's side is luck on that occasion (like scoring a 94 min set piece...)

Madrid is also a great team, they always buy the hottest stars, it is hard not to expect them to win silverware.

And... during Barcelona's greatest period they've won around thrice more titles than Madrid...