15 years ago today...

Mike Smalling

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... we saw one of the most controversial and infamous refereeing performances in modern football, as Tom Henning Øvrebø three times waved away Chelsea's penalty appeals to allow Barcelona a place in the 2009 Champions League final. It also spawned an immortal meme with Drogba shouting "It's a fecking disgrace!" into the camera.



Is it the worst refereeing performance of the 21st century?
How many penalties should Chelsea have had that night?
Would Man Utd have had another Champions League title, if Chelsea had gone through?
 

OmarUnited4ever

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2 clear handball pens, the Drogba v Abidal one is bit contentious, but the handballs were clear pens
 

Northstand

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Mike Smalling said:
... we saw one of the most controversial and infamous refereeing performances in modern football, as Tom Henning Øvrebø three times waved away Chelsea's penalty appeals to allow Barcelona a place in the 2009 Champions League final. It also spawned an immortal meme with Drogba shouting "It's a fecking disgrace!" into the camera.



Is it the worst refereeing performance of the 21st century?
How many penalties should Chelsea have had that night?
Would Man Utd have had another Champions League title, if Chelsea had gone through?
Click to expand...
I’d say those were no worse than the three denied Forest against Everton recently, and that’s without the backup of VAR.
 

Mike Smalling

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OmarUnited4ever said:
2 clear handball pens, the Drogba v Abidal one is bit contentious, but the handballs were clear pens
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'd agree with that. Drogba goes down too easily to get a penalty, and the Alves vs. Malouda tussle can also be waved away.
 

JogaBonitoRooney

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Abidal got sent off for no contact on Anelka late in the game. Chelsea should feel embarrassed they couldn't defend a lead against ten men at home.
 

Pughnichi

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JogaBonitoRooney said:
Abidal got sent off for no contact on Anelka late in the game. Chelsea should feel embarrassed they couldn't defend a lead against ten men at home.
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Don’t think there’s any embarrassment not being able to defend a lead against that Barca team

2x handball claims were shocking.
 

Wilt

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2 definite handball pens refused and the referee doing a runner ….nothing to see here.
 

Oranges038

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Excellent referee and a great performance on the night, got every decision spot on. That Barca team was 100% legit, there was no cheating, no referees were paid and no PEDs were taken.

Greatest team ever managed by the greatest football coach ever.
 

Swedish_Plumber

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There’s no way a Pep team could be linked to corruption. Chelsea just unlucky on the night that the ref didn’t see the incidents.
 

Gio

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The Pique handball was clearcut. The Eto’o one would be given every time under the new rule. But in the 2000s players regularly got away with closing down shots with their arms in the air (Terry himself was the grandmaster of it). That’s why the rule was changed, but at the time it was a 50/50 decision.

Unconvinced by the other two. For all his big game credentials Drogba squandered two 1v1s, and a third in the Nou Camp leg, which was nobody’s fault but his own. In the first game Eto’o was wrongly called offside when 1v1 with Cech, while Henry had a decent penalty appeal of his own. The balance of the big decisions over the two legs was nowhere near as out of kilter as is often portrayed.
 

2 man midfield

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It’s not the absolute pinnacle of shit refereeing it’s made out to be, but you can see why Chelsea felt hard done by - you’d think on balance one of those would go for you. The stakes made it even worse.
 

Mb194dc

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Now we know they were bribing the refs from well before this so it all makes sense...
 

Mike Smalling

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JogaBonitoRooney said:
Abidal got sent off for no contact on Anelka late in the game. Chelsea should feel embarrassed they couldn't defend a lead against ten men at home.
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Wasn't even that late in the game. Chelsea played with a man advantage for 30 minutes, and Chelsea also had a few glorious chances to close it, so while the handballs should have been given, they also need to be looking at themselves.
 

Mike Smalling

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horsechoker said:
Justice for Overbo!
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The reason I made this thread was actually that Danish TV2 did an interview with him about the game. There's some interesting quotes in there. He takes full responsibility and understands the reactions to it.

And I thought this quote was pretty funny:
There wasn't much I was happy with in that game, but at least I was faster than Ballack. I managed to get away from him. So that's something I can add to the CV.
Click to expand...
 

FootballHQ

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I remember thinking at the time most of the penalty appeals were overblown but looking back at the highlights Chelsea obviously should've had at least one penalty and they were 1-0 up at the time so 2-0 would've been a very strong position to be in to defend if Lampard had converted as he often did.

Was some heat in those games in that era. Mourinho was long gone at that point but you had him basically hounding Andreas Frisk into retirement after the 2005 tie when a Chelsea player got sent off at Camp Nou for bashing into Valdes (the second leg was all time classic). 2005/6 was more low key but even then Del Horno got sent off for hacking down Messi I think?

Then in 11/12 the stars aligned big time for Chelsea. Got an excellent 1-0 to defend and then somehow got through the second leg despite conceding early, losing Terry to a red and then giving away another penalty that Messi missed. "Name on the trophy" and all that.

So 08/09 was ironically the only match up in those years where Barca actually had someone sent off in the game instead of a Chelsea player.
 

Matt Varnish

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Drogba used to play in swimming trunks, best diver in the league at the time.
You think players go down easy now, he used to fall over if you thought about tackling him
 

Nickelodeon

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Mike Smalling said:
... we saw one of the most controversial and infamous refereeing performances in modern football, as Tom Henning Øvrebø three times waved away Chelsea's penalty appeals to allow Barcelona a place in the 2009 Champions League final. It also spawned an immortal meme with Drogba shouting "It's a fecking disgrace!" into the camera.



Is it the worst refereeing performance of the 21st century?
How many penalties should Chelsea have had that night?
Would Man Utd have had another Champions League title, if Chelsea had gone through?
Click to expand...
The Pique one was blatant. Don't see any other tbh. Somehow remember this game for more blatant errors but doesn't seem to be the case. Was this video missing any other penalty shouts?
 

RoyH1

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Negreira FC doing their thing. Now we know that something was dodgy back then indeed. So many decisions in one game going against one team cannot be a coincidence.
 

Sylar

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The two handballs were insane. So obvious.
It was actually annoying that barca didn't play xavi/Iniesta/busquets as their midfield three against Chelsea but did against us in the final
 

Mb194dc

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That Van Persie second yellow for kicking the ball away was as bad as this, seems high probability these games were fixed, looking back. Always Barcelona getting the decisions...
 

Josep Dowling

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Gone back to the highlights.
Both handballs are blatant but everything else was fine. Abidal’s yellow shouldn’t have happened either, Anelka tripped himself up.
 

Mike Smalling

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Nickelodeon said:
The Pique one was blatant. Don't see any other tbh. Somehow remember this game for more blatant errors but doesn't seem to be the case. Was this video missing any other penalty shouts?
Click to expand...
I think it includes all the decisions. The Eto'o handball is pretty bad as well, in my opinion, but the two smaller ones have kind of added to the narrative even if they should never be given. And Barcelona got a red card for what seems like very minor contact.
 

Flying high

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Oranges038 said:
Excellent referee and a great performance on the night, got every decision spot on. That Barca team was 100% legit, there was no cheating, no referees were paid and no PEDs were taken.

Greatest team ever managed by the greatest football coach ever.
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My sarcasm detector just exploded. :lol:
 

BorisManUtd

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Remember going to school next day and few friends that were Chelsea fans saying they'll support United in the final being so pissed off with Ovrebo's refereeing. We'd definitely have had better chance to beat Chelsea than Barca.

Looking at Chelsea's CL campaigns back in those years, they were unlucky few times. Lost closely to Liverpool in 2005 and 2007, penalty away from winning it in 2008 and than that exit vs Barca in 2009. Stars aligned in 2012 though.
 
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