UCL Report Cover 06
TECHNICAL REPORT 2005/06 This Report has been prepared by UEFA’s Technical Department to serve not only as a record of the 2005/06 UEFA Champions League but also with the aim of offering some data, reflections and opinions which, we hope, will give technicians food for thought and help to detect trends, analyse the present and lay the foundations for further enhancement of the club competition which is hailed by the critics as the best in the world. But, in football, there is no time to rest on laurels - least of all in the UEFA Champions League. The past, however, can be used as the basis for future improvement. ENGLISH SECTION PARTIE FRANÇAISE DEUTSCHER TEIL STATISTICS TECHNICAL REPORT COMPETITION REVIEW When the players left the pitch after the first knock-out round match at Highbury, a television commentator remarked that it had been the best goal-less draw he had ever witnessed. It was the match between Arsenal FC and Real Madrid, which was significant for various reasons. It marked the ‘premature’ departure of the nine-time champions. Victory signified a psychological turning point in terms of self-belief during a campaign which ultimately led the young ‘Gunners’ all the way to Paris. It was a win for the team rated as ‘underdog’, bearing in mind that Arsène Wenger’s side had long since been eliminated from PHOTO: FOTO-NET the English title race. And, although the first knock-out Juliano Belletti, scorer of the winning goal in the final, comes within a whisker of putting FC Barcelona ahead in the return round tie had produced only one goal in three hours, it leg of the semi-final against AC Milan.
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