Get In, I Wanted Barcelona!

Well the Champions League draw has been announced, and the fixtures for the Quarter Finals are as follows:

Olympique Lyonnais v Bordeaux
Bayern Munich v Manchester United
Arsenal v Barcelona

Inter Milan v CSKA Moscow

And the Semi Final Draw is:

Inter Milan/CSKA Moscow v Arsenal/Barcelona
Bayern Munich/Manchester United v Olympique Lyonnais/Bordeaux

And Arsenal have confirmed that the first leg at The Emirates will be played on Wednesday 31st March, and the second leg will be on Tuesday 6th April, at the Camp Nou.

Ever since Arsenal made the last eight people have asked me who I wanted in the next round, and do you know who I said every time?

Barcelona.

They thought I was joking, but I wasn’t.

Call me stupid, call me insane, but I think we can beat Barcelona

To win the competition, you have to beat the best anyway. Of course, people talked about facing Lyon, Bordeaux and then CSKA Moscow as a possible way to win it but the odds on that ever happening were always going to be remote.

The fact is, Arsenal at their best can beat anyone. It’s been a topsy turvy season but don’t let that fool you into thinking that Barcelona will completely batter us. When you think back to the season where we made the final in 2006, Arsenal’s run to Paris was magical – things dreams were made of.

We beat the Galacticos of Real Madrid, got past a Juventus side with Patrick Vieira, had a dramatic semi-final against Villarreal and narrowly lost against Barcelona in a cruel final.

Along with the FA Cup semi-final replay defeat to Manchester United in 1999, that Barcelona final was one of the most devastating moments in my Arsenal supportership (if that’s even a word). I was inconsolable for weeks, and I’ve supported Arsenal for almost 20 years.

Do I want revenge? Oh hell yeah.

At The Emirates we can beat anyone. No team has retained the Champions League in its current format so why can’t we be the team to knock out Barcelona?

Yes, Barcelona won absolutely everything there was to win last season (La Liga, the Copa del Rey, the Spanish Supercup, The Champions League, The European Supercup and the World Club Championship) but I watched their first leg match against Stuttgart they were fortunate not to lose by 2 or 3 goals.

And of course, Barcelona haven’t beaten us 11 against 11.

Barcelona should be afraid of us, and underestimate us at our peril.

And of course we will welcome Thierry Henry with open arms, and it will be an honour to see him back at The Emirates. And we all know what happened when a former captain came back to Arsenal…

 

11 thoughts on “Get In, I Wanted Barcelona!

  1. Totally agree, we have nothing to fear, we have the players to tear Barcelona apart, we have the players to score, and Cesc will be right up for it, Arshavin will shine with Walcott,Nasri and Rosicky. they will let us play and that will be their undoing…come on Arsenal time to step up and prove we are not a poor man’s Barcelona. And Defoe is out fro at least three weeks.

     
  2. Love it!!!! I dont know y all the gooners have suddenly turned scared. Yeah we’re faceing the “mighty barca” but we are The Arsenal! Its going to be a tough match & fingers crossed we have gallas back but it can definately be done. After all these years of speculation wouldnt it be nice for OUR talisman cesc to run the catalonian midfield raged

     
  3. Great draw – teams like cska and bordeux are for the group stages – i believe we will play better against the top footballing sides – these games are not to scared of they are to be savoured – If i was a player these are the games i would want to play in – here’s hoping the likes of rosicky and nasri are fit. Lets go play football

     
  4. I’d be lying if i said I’m not nervous, esp. with the little Argentinean playing out of his skin at the moment. However if we can keep him quiet & play to our attacking strengths, we have a good chance to dent their morale in the 1st leg & take the tie, given Barcelona’s defence isn’t much better than ours.
    Much will be made on the attacking prowess of the 2 sides but its the other end that’ll decide the outcome.
    Therefore Song’s performance in the middle & Sol’s legs at the back will be paramount to our progress. As long as we don’t resort to having Silvestre & Denilson on the pitch we will have a great shot at winning this tie.
    Go Gooners.

     
  5. You are an insane idiot!

    let me just tell you one thing to convince you that im telling the truth..

    Gael Fcking Clichy v Lionel Messi…

    good lord.. get ready for a second arsehole fellow gooners..

    truth!

     
  6. Go to hell Joni spudface, you negative defeatist twats really piss me off, Cmon you Gunners! We can do it!

     
  7. i think that the teams are generally equal with the defensive side of things, the only difference up front is ofcourse messi. i think literally the whole tie could be decided by the battle between clichy and messi. barcelona relying on messi a lot right now. in midfield fabregas is as good if not better than iniesta and xavi, while diaby will give us something extra. song in my opinion is better than yaya toure. also since dani alves always likes to go forward it would be good to have arshavin on top of his game. then all we need is bendtner to score a hatrick. barcelona are good but they aren’t invincible and things seem to go better for us when we aren’t favourites

     
  8. yipeeee, i cant wait, to test ourself against the so called best, its about time we got a proper euopean super club, i actually think the 2nd leg being away could help, normally in europe we never attack enough away from home, this time we will know what weve got to do, the away goals are going to be vital to qualify,
    we can def score out there, did anyone see how hleb ripped them open on his own the other nt, with cesc diaby nasri and ashavin, oh and pheo being a super sub, we can def hurt them, yes they can hurt us to but it makes fasinating viewing,
    im just praying gallas is back, messi running at sol scares me
    bring it on lets see how good we really are

     

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