wow......those african fans are so hard-cored!! previously was "hang himself" suicidal case, now "ram 'em" incident.

Can you count how many homegrown players were on the pitch for Barca? 7! Guardiola is a genius.

Man vs Baby (Evra vs Messi) and Baby won!

not suprising as Barca has the best youth academy there. otherwise you won't see cesc & merida being brought in.

Congrats to Barcelona & Thiery Henry. Now we all know why Henry left Arsenal.

Hats off to Pep Guardiola. Ferguson managed the treble after many years at United but Guardiola did it in his first year. Simply amazing!!!!!

This post has been edited by low7: May 29 2009, 01:50 AM

Actually, their manager is also homegrown. So that means they also have the best "manager academy".

Guardiola still has a long way to go and plenty to prove before you can call him a genius or even compare him with the likes of Ferguson or perhaps even our very own Arsene for that matter. Its not that I am belittling his achievements or anything but the fact is he inherited possibly one of the best group of players in world football and the foundation of the team was basically already there when he arrived. Of course I won't deny that he still had work to do to turn one of the best group of players in world football into a winning team so credit must be given to him for that but it stops right there.

crazy...if we dig some local news today, there was a story that a barca fan slashed by man u fan by 'parang', somewhere in KL, after the match ended. Luckily the victim was not died.

I love arsenal, but I won't make arsenal bigger than my life, safety, family and religion even a little scratch to my skin. Any time I will trade Arsenal for my safety. Sorry arsenal Am I plastix fan?

This post has been edited by little_mozart: May 29 2009, 09:20 AM

My belief in supporting a football club is "The more you love the club, the better you behave as its fans"

So, please behave yourself as an Arsenal fans ya!

This post has been edited by kimhoong: May 29 2009, 09:45 AM

Barca is the epitome of homegrown players. Arsenal is trying to become barca and on the look of it, it seems that we are on the right path. Really hopeful that our young squad will come thru this year.

Tell me, 3 or 4 years ago, who was iniesta? Xavi was an outcast back then. Abidal was error prone in Lyon (that's why AW go for Sagna instead) and so was Puyol. What happened? They learned from their mistakes and move on. That's what we need to do with our team.

It takes a mixture of youth and experience to achieve greatness. AW need to address that and add some more experience to our team, especially at CB position.

ok.. enough about barca. congrats to them. btw, Henry can F*** off with his comments. I do hope we will be in the same group with barca next season ECL and pound them hard and out of the ECL at group stage!!!

Iniesta have time to grow with experience players. He played with Deco, Ronaldiho, Eto, Henry, Marquez, Xavi etc etc. If Henry, Viera, Pires is still with us, we probably been better. Now there is no one to lead the team. Everybody is learning from each other. There is no role model for the kids. T.T

Arshavin arrival really shows the impact of purchasing an established player. Hope AW will work his wonders again. He did some magic on getting promising young players, now its time to get an experience guy.

hahaha.. my understanding is that if the more you love the club, the more u r devoted to it, the more crazy things u would do for them.

i wouldnt rule out a possiblity of suicide bomber men, picturing a c4 suicide bomber
a men equipped himself with c4 in his body, goes into a crowd of opposition fans and kabooom....

True, you are more devoted but to do "crazy" things? Don't misuse the right of being devoted lah.

Example: some fans strip off when their team won. I wonder if they strip for themselves or the team; cos the team won't get anything from it

yo,where you see fans strip?..hopefully its a girl
i wanna see to

count me in please

You are right in that some of their youngsters had the opportunity to learn from experienced pros such as Deco, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo etc etc.

But some of the things you pointed out are not quite right though.

Iniesta has always been a super player. Its just that the media didn't hype him up like Pretty Boy Ronaldo or Little Lionel. Xavi was never an outcast and has been in the first team for close to 10 years. In fact, 3-4 years ago he was already the Vice Captain. Abidal is a LB, so I don't see a link with Sagna and he's overrated IMHO. Puyol for me has always been a solid but nothing spectacular kind of defender, which is what you need in a CB sometimes. He's also been captain for quite a while now.

Yeap agree with Zan81 there. Iniesta was even deemed to be a bigger talent than Cesc during their youth team days. Cesc even revealed that one of the reasons he left Barca was because of players like Iniesta ahead of him in the pecking order hence the difficulty to get games. Xavi has never been an outcast. He has been an important player for Barca all this while and his appearance stats in the first team doesn't lie. Consistently more than 35 appearances for the last 10 years as well as 50++ odd appearances for the first team for the last 3 years in a row speaks volumes with the exception of 2005 where he only made 22 odd appearances because of injury problems. Same goes for Puyol. As for Abidal, Wenger he did go on record and revealed that he did not sign Abidal because he did not want to jeopardize Clichy's development.

Although I do agree with Sakaito though that in his early years Puyol is known to make some horrendous and costly mistakes. However fact is Barca stuck with Puyol. Same goes with Iniesta and Xavi. If its one thing we should learn from Barca it is to have faith in our youngsters. Experience can be harnessed whereas talent and natural ability is not something you can teach. Our kids right now certainly does have plenty of talent and natural ability, we just need to be patient.

Edit: Latest transfer rumour. Although I won't take it seriously at all and hopefully you won't as well as there are no quotes no nothing from the player himself. Moreover its from the Daily Star lolz But IMO just for amusement.

I want to be a Gunner

I have mixed feelings regarding this IF we do sign him but if Arsene decides this is the man to bring our team to the next level then I'm all for it though. Same goes to any other player if we do sign any.

This post has been edited by sigheart: May 29 2009, 03:26 PM

OT:

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1045884

- Gareth Barry is holding out for a summer move to Arsenal.

Aston Villa captain Barry is desperate to play Champions League football during the best years of his career – and the Gunners are his No.1 option.

Though Villa want him to see out the remaining year of his contract, Star sport understands he wants out now.

Barry believes he has been loyal to the club by staying for an extra season when he could have made an £18m switch to Liverpool last year. But after Martin O’Neill’s side failed to secure a top-four finish last year, the England star knows he is running out of time to test himself at the highest level.

Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez is still an admirer, but is not keen on splashing out most of his transfer budget taking him to Anfield. That has left Manchester City and Tottenham hopeful of securing a deal – but it is Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger who is considering a £12m bid for the 28-year-old.

Wenger is searching for a dominant midfield player to add to a squad which has plenty of talent but lacks genuine bite, and he has watched Barry several times in the past few months.

- Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has warned any of his want-away players - don't compare yourself to Thierry Henry.

Wenger told arsenal.com: "It is not the same [if another player said he did not want to wait for trophies].

"Thierry played a long time for us, nobody else did that and he was close to the end of his career. All these players [in the current squad] are at the start of their careers so it’s completely different.

"I think the exact opposite now – I don’t see why we should educate the players, get some stick and when they’re ready we sell them. That would be masochistic."

- Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger believes they could have won the Premiership last year with Barcelona star Thierry Henry.

"Maybe he could have made a difference, maybe last year," said Wenger. "We had 83 points and with him we could have gained two or three more that could have won us the championship.

"But at that time I felt that a guy who has played eight or nine years for you, and has shown that kind of desire, it's difficult to stand in his way.

"If he had done two or three years I would have said 'My friend, you stay here' but when he has given so much [it is different]. He had this opportunity at Barcelona, he had a first very difficult year but I am very happy he made it this year.

"He has convinced everybody because he is a top-class player and you want them to be successful."

Wenger stressed it was only Henry who would receive special treatment to be allowed to leave, while others may not be granted a move.

"It is not the same [if another player said he did not want to wait for trophies]," said Wenger.

"Thierry played a long time for us, nobody else did that and he was close to the end of his career. All these players [in the current squad] are at the start of their careers so it's completely different.

"I think the exact opposite now - I don't see why we should educate the players, get some stick and when they're ready we sell them. That would be masochistic."

- Kroenke shows prices

Stan Kroenke has been forced by the Stock Exchange to announce the price he paid for each of the 9,901 Arsenal shares that took his shareholding from 12.2 per cent to 28.3 per cent since March. Kroenke paid Clive Carr £10,500 per share for a 3.4 per cent stake, but he paid Richard Carr, his brother, £8,500 per share for a 4.3 per cent stake. The sizeable disparity in other share prices is not known.

- Arsene Wenger and Stuart Pearce are to hold talks over how to manage Theo Walcott’s workload at the European Under-21 Championships.

Arsenal starlet Walcott is on senior duty for the World Cup qualifiers against Kazakhstan and Andorra before the U21s tournament in Sweden next month.

Gunners boss Wenger is furious his 20-year-old winger is facing such a busy programme.

Now he wants to speak with U21s chief Pearce in a bid to monitor Walcott’s fitness.

- The agent of Feyenoord starlet Luc Castaignos has confirmed the interest of big spending Premiership clubs.

Arsenal and Liverpool are keen on the striker after spotting him at last month's U17 European Championships.

Castaignos's agent, Arie Treffers, revealed: "Their interest is known to us and the clubs are prepared to go far, but we will send all communication neatly to Feyenoord."

An offer of around £750,000 will force Feyenoord to seriously consider cashing in on the teenager.


Source: The Arsenal 49ers myspace bulletin

OMG, this is the greatest news so far!! How reliable this news is?