2023-24 UEFA Champions League

It's when you see the refs in the Champions League you realize how poor the EPL refs are.

CL refs are not perfect, they're human, and mistakes are made, but their on field judgment is so much better in general than in the EPL. Then add in the VAR officials in the EPL, and their interpretation of the laws through PGMOL.

It's a discussion outside of here, but it's time for FIFA to take full control of the laws, and bring them out of the hands of the so called 'Home Nations'. AFAIK, the body that decides the laws and how they are implemented are still 50.%controlled by the English, Scottish, Welsh and NI FAs. Britain, and in particular England are no longer a centre of any type of excellence in refereeing,(let alone other industries)

Kane looked bad, agreed. But there is leeway etc.

The kick-off thing was a black & white decision a no brainer. No leeway really. It even was acknowledged that an infringement occurred, it was simply waived.

I'd be the first to admit it was the right decision in the spirit of the game, but a dodgy thing to do at that level all the same. Especially with the number of crazy in-play handball decisions we had over the last few years.

The 'whistle' is meaningless for a goal-kick - a goal-kick isn't a re-start which needs a whistle like a kick-off, a penalty, or a free-kick delayed for a wall to be built. It's more just a signal to 'get on with it'. So people shouldn't get caught up in the false logic that because the ref whistled and Gabriel handled the ball a second later that it must be a penalty. Nearly all goal-kicks get taken without a whistle.

Having said that Arsenal couldn't really have argued if a penalty had been given. Just a bizarre situation. From body language it seems clear that Raya believed he'd taken the goal-kick and Gabriel didn't realise this. Probably a fair decision by the ref.

I thought the Bernabeu pitch looked ropey last night, or was blaming the feed on rte news.

Then Pep moaned about it afterwards too. Imagine doing such a marvellous stadium upgrade, state of the art stuff, and the pitch being crap.

I hate Pep with a passion, but the pitch looked poor.

Of course had he won, probably wouldn't have mentioned the pitch.

I don't think anyone who be watching the CL game were watching the women's to begin with. Was very surprised they put it on RTE 2 but I suppose against England

probably all the people like me tuning into watch the CL and turning out immediately when it wasn’t on. No way the average TV audience was 262k for a womens football game. Creative accounting going on there I’d say.

Pub I was in last night had the Ireland game on 6 tvs and the other one had the Arsenal game on!

It's amazing how people get triggered by the dumbest things. Like, if you don't want women playing football, I don't know what can be said to you.....

It's not like someone is tying you to the chair and forcing you to actually watch it. Live and let live, if you don't like it STFU and let prople who do watch it and enjoy.

Personally, I watched the Champions League game and dipped in and out of the Ireland game, nobody came into the house and told me to turn it off and forced me to watch the women!

PSG very lucky to be only 1-0 down at half-time.

The way the pitch slides away in sections and under the ground when not it use is a bit mad.

You could see lines where the different sections were.

Some week for goals.

Some turnaround in Paris. That Dembele strike was unstoppable.

That was a poor clearance from Barca and poor attempt to block Dembele's shot. Probably expected him to miss the target.

And now Barca are 2-1 down.