Since there is no Talk Room for now, I decided to make a match thread on here.

Line-ups

Atletico Madrid: Thibaut Courtois | Filipe Luís, Diego Godín, Joao Miranda, Juanfran | Gabi, Mario Suárez | Koke, Diego, Raúl García | Diego Costa

*Substitutes from:* Dani Aranzubia, Toby Alderweireld, Tiago, Arda Turan, Cristian Rodriguez, Jose Sosa, David Villa

Chelsea: Petr Cech | Ashley Cole, John Terry, Gary Cahill, Cesar Azpilicueta | David Luiz, Mikel, Frank Lampard | Ramires, Torres, Willian

Substitutes from: **Mark Schwarzer, Nathan Aké, Tomas Kalas, Oscar, Marco van Ginkel, Andre Schurrle, Demba Ba

^ oh please... Arsenal parked the bus against Bayern too... Twice, so look at your own team before commenting on others.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Please

Mourinho tailors his tactics against whomever he is playing.

Mourinho decided that against Atletico, the best thing to do was keep them quiet in their own stadium, and then bring back home the advantage.

That's all there is to it. It's a wise move, and that's how football works. Back when Italian teams were doing it every year, no-one had a problem with it. Back then it was 'clever' and 'cunning' and 'tactics'. Now that Chelsea do it? Somehow it becomes 'boring' and 'anti-football'.

The complaints are bullshit. Teams do not have to play the way you want them to play, just because you prefer it. Football is a game of tactics and talent. People love the talent, but forget about the tactics, when it comes to matters like this. If your opponent manages to stop you from playing the way you want to play, then guess what? They just OUT-played you, no matter how much you think you 'should' have won, or would have won if they'd only played the way you wanted them to.

Mou, quite rightly, doesn't give a toss what anyone thinks, except his team and their fans, and plays whatever tactics he decides he needs to out-play his opponents..

That's why he wins so much.

@lodatz +100 , speak my mind !!

Lod playing to the Chelsea crowd, bravo.. Just what marcus & the gang wanted to hear..

@Wolfie

lol come on bro', don't say something against just for the taste of it, i'm sure you too agree with Lodatz words ;)

@Lodatz

1st off welcome back.

2nd, well said, completely agree on everything, Mou is actually very "Italian" in the way he manages matches, but regarding this clash vs Atletico, he's playing against a side which can beat him at his very own tactics (bus/catenaccio & counter), i actually think that Atleti this season is much better at this kind of game and El Cholo is a tough guest himself.

edit: i mean, let's not forget that Simeone managed a Low table club, Catania, in half season brought them out of the relegation zone. in Italy. this to give an idea of what kind of tactical expertise this man has, related to hard situations. the mistake you DON'T wanna do with this man, is to give to much confidence to the fact that you're playing at Stamford Bridge. that doesn't exist when you play vs El Cholo.

What a way to announce you're return, @Lodatz. Awesome comment and I'm glad someone here can see it's not rocket science to understand why Mourinho played like that and that it's not wrong as well.

Welcome back :)

^ He actually annouced his return 5 days ago in the Suarez being Suarez thread that has been removed.

@shpal- I don't say anything for nothing. Everything I say I mean.

If you went to watch a boxing match and one fighter is blocking the whole time, it would be considered a bad fight no?
Ok, if Chelsea were down to 10 men you could understand this tactic. But with the team they have, the money spent. They were afraid to play and get humiliated like 1st leg against PSG. Simple as that.

but Wolfie Mou used this very same tactics also when he was at Inter, i don't think you were b*tching about it back then, no?

He used it against Barcelona in 2nd leg when Biscuits dived to get Motta sent off. 10 men in Camp Nou, you have to park the bus.
Anyway.. I know you're a Lodatz fanboy, so this little conversation is over.

no i'm not Lodatz fanboy, we even had an argument in the past, but he knows about football and he's quite wise concerning many things. we belong to the same football generation so i have a similar view/opinion about lot of football related stuff.

Mourinho was never "fantaspectacular", what makes him italian is the fact that he shares the same mentality: the result it's all that matters. you know that. vs tiki-taka you have to park the bus anyway, even in 11. i mean "actively" park the bus = proper catenaccio = bus + counter. whatever propositive tactic is suicidal, at least back then when barca was very sharp. now not that much, you can push vs them.

edit: i mean, regarding Lodatz, he talks by his knowledge, every opinion comes from him and not from whatever copy/pasted mainstream internetz crap. which is a bit an habit of the newgen. all the stuff i write here comes from what i know and what i've learned, it is "my own" opinon. Lodatz and you as well are this kind of individuals too, and it's appreciable to discuss with someone who brings his own opinion instead of some plastic cheerleader slogan crap.

The match he tied against West Ham and said that they play 19th century football bla bla is quite obviously something he says just to have something to blame for his team not getting a expected three points. Anything that comes out of Mourinho's mouth after his team doesn't perform is just blabber.

@shpalman: Looking back now after reading your post, Roberto Di Matteo was also 'Italian' when it came to his tactics in 2012.

@Shpalman

Mourinho parked the bus, like Wolfie said, only after Motta had been sent off. Previously to that, there's no way you can win 3-1 against the mighty Barcelona by just parking the bus.

quote myself: "i mean "actively" park the bus = proper catenaccio"

it's there, it just needs to be read, and understood.

@Vendetta: Yes, it's precisely how RdM did it in 2012, and it's also why they won.

Also, cheers to you and shpalman. :)

@Dynast: It doesn't really matter whether it was before or after Motta's sending off; it was still done, and it was still the same tactic. It's a tactic determined by situation.

I mean, if Mourinho decided to shut up shop because he just got his defender wrongly sent off, it's to deal with a certain situation, right? If Chelsea did the same thing in 2012 after getting Terry (less wrongly) sent off, it's to deal with a situation, right?

And if Mourinho takes a look at Atletico's track record this season, and their level of confidence after beating Barcelona (using tactics that he showed the Spanish league himself over 3 years at Madrid), and decides to limit their approach in their own stadium (also knowing full well that Atletico's excellent form this season against their domestic rivals has mainly been thanks to playing bus-parking and counter attack football, not outright attack)...

...then it's to deal with a certain situation, right?

So why is that wrong? What Mou did was take the sting out of Atletico's tail in their away leg by nullifying their threat, and now he can sit back and choose his approach at Stamford Bridge.

I suspect it'll be much more like when Arsenal came to the Bridge, and got walloped 6-0, though with a lower score-line. I could be wrong, of course, but that's the beauty of football: we'll find out soon enough.

Even Wolfie agrees, although he'll do everything he can to deny it. :)

Also: let's play the Pretend Game.

Let's pretend that the first leg had NOT gone like this. Let's pretend that Atletico had won 3-1 after an exciting, thrilling game of cut and thrust, move and counter-move, end-to-end stuff.

What tactic do you imagine Atletico would have taken to the Bridge, with a 3-1 lead? They'd have parked the effing bus, and waited to catch a desperate Chelsea on the counter, as they've done to the top teams all season.

Mourinho just beat them to it.

@Lodatz

Look mate, I got nothing against Mourinho shipping his team up on defense against the counter-attacking monster that Simeone built, but the one thing I do have against Mourinho is his lack of motivation to at least throw in a decent attack. Chelsea simply refused to force Atletico back.

The reason I'm arguing this is because Chelsea have the ability to push Atleti back. Why just play defensive and not bother attacking, when you have the players and set-up to attack on the break? They weren't down to 10 men, so they had the situational equality. They weren't up against Lionel Messi and co. without Terry. They weren't up against Pep's mighty Barcelona without Thiago Motta. They did not have a disability during that match.

They simply threw every man in front of the net instead of playing a rigid defensive formation like Madrid did against Bayern. Their objective throughout the match was to simply stop every shot that heads towards Cech/Schwarzer (which is a good strategy), but the manner they did it in made them look like they were throwing down their humility and admitting that they were an inferior team (which, as a matter of fact, they are not).

Chelsea had the capability to make a hell of a lot more out of that match than they did.

"Chelsea had the capability to make a hell of a lot more out of that match than they did."

And maybe they will, Dynast. In their own stadium, on their own terms, against a team who failed to score at home.

Can you see the answer to your questions, yet?

GUYS......