Champions League Draw: Round of 16
The Champions League draw came out today from the folks in Nyon; nice of UEFA to think about my wandering attention span to bring me back to the keyboard. In La Liga we have three very interesting, but not arresting matches.
- CSKA Moscow v Sevilla
- VfB Stuttgart v Barcelona
- Lyon v Real Madrid
At first glance, other than the Lyon match which might present a bit of a problem for Madrid, the other two have an easy walk in the park written all over them. CSKA Moscow booked a place in this round with a late winner against Besiktas. Club supremo Jose Maria Del Nido is confident, maybe over-confident, “They are not one of the strongest sides in the competition but in a draw that has 16 of the best teams in Europe, they are one of them.” While they may yet give Sevilla a good round, CSKA Moscow are clearly not as strong as they have been recently with Vagner Love returning to Brazil and Yuri Zhirkov being sold to Chelsea over the summer. Sevilla should still plow through.
Barcelona may have an even easier task. Stuttgart are reeling in the Bundesliga, having recently plunged into the drop zone, sacking their coach Markus Babbel, and having to deal with the walking enigma that is Jens Lehmann-the human lowlight reel. New coach Christian Gross has turned things around somewhat in helping them go through past Unirea Urziceni and Rangers. They have edged past Bochum into safety at the bottom of the table, and still have some talent left (Sami Khedira and Cacau) from a squad that won the Bundesliga in 2007. They no longer have Super-Mario Gomez up top, but they do have Alex Hleb? The ex-Arsenal, want-away winger, Barcelona reject is not happy to be playing his ex-teammates saying, “You cannot outplay Barca.”
With Madrid, well that’s a different story. Much is being made of the club already having beaten L’OM in the last round, but Marseille and Lyon are two different French animals entirely. I know history is overrated in football, there is very little left on both sides from the last two year’s worth of meetings between the two sides in the Champions League, but Les Gones have never lost to Real Madrid in European competition. It’s still a fair certainty that los blancos will go through but madridistas everywhere are expecting to go through and it’ll be more difficult than they think. It’ll be nice to see Benzema return to his old stomping grounds. He might even score a bit.
Outside of Spain: Funny how Chelsea and Inter are meeting. The English are predicting an outright avalanche against Jose, begging for the Portuguese boss-man’s humiliation, prompting a much-anticipated return across the chunnel to save Liverpool or Manchester City but more likely just the extent of all British media it seems, but Inter are just as solid as Chelsea and aren’t as susceptible to the set-piece as the blues. Give it up to Inter I’d say. As for AC Milan and Manchester United, Battle of the Aging Red Devils, well in other days and in other cirmcumstances this might have been a marquis match-up of the highest order, but both were jilted at the expense of Real Madrid and are both missing that transcendental player, that difference maker that wins championships, but it will be an exciting game nonetheless. Logic points to Sir Alex over Leonardo, the British bottle or the languid and aging game of AC Milan, but the Italians are second to only Real Madrid in the competition, they are Champions by birthright it seems and should pass through. In the rest, Arsenal should have too much for Porto, never bet against Bayern Munich over Fiorentina, and stay far away from any friendly betting in the very even Olympiacos v Bordeaux match.
