There are some pivotal battles to be fought in the upcoming Matchday and while some groups look to have clear patterns emerging, others could go down to the wire. Let’s take a whirlwind tour of the current state of the groups along with my speculations on the ties on Matchday 5.
Group A
A win for Chelsea […]
Tags: aalborg·arsenal·barcelona·bayern munich·celtic·chelsea·fc basel·inter milan·liverpool·marseille·PSV·real madrid·werder bremen
To use a golf analogy, the teams in the group stage of the Champions League make the turn today and tomorrow with the completion of the first three games of the group stage. And while it’s early, for some teams, it’s make-or-break time.
Group by group, here’s an analysis of who needs to win:
Group A:
ROMA Needs […]
Tags: Anorthosis·celtic·Eindhoven·fiorentina·Porto·Roma·Shaktar·Sporting·Zenit
Champions League debutants CFR 1907 Cluj came from behind to beat Roma and record a stunning 2-1 victory at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. Beyond the absence of Totti, Roma had a strong squad out on the field and will be disappointed with their performance. There has been a bit of turmoil off the field […]
Tags: Frank Lampard·joe cole·juan culio·liverpool·manchester united·sergio aguero·steven gerrard
The group stage kicks off in about two weeks so until then I will be doing previews of the group stage in alphabetical order. I wanted to wait until after the transfer window had closed so that I would be able to judge the rosters fairly. There were some last minute moves that could have […]
Tags: bordeaux·cfr cluj·chelsea·Roma
I’ll have more analysis and comments later but for now just a quick update on the results of today’s drawing. Some of the groupings, as in past seasons, was almost a bit too predictable but there are some interesting matchups ahead (Real Madrid - Juventus springs to mind as does Manchester United - Celtic and […]
Tags: arsenal·as roma·atletico madrid·barcelona·fenerbahce·inter milan·internazionale·liverpool·manchester united·real madrid
As we wait for the Champions League final, it’s a good time to look at the leagues around Europe and see who will be part of next season’s competition. In this first report, we look at what I would call the “bigger” leagues in Europe — England, Italy, Spain and Germany. In part two, we’ll […]
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A “dream” semi-final was setup yesterday when both Manchester United and Barcelona advanced to the semi-finals on the back of 1-0 home wins. Much has been made of the fact that United fielded a “B” team last night as Sir Alex Ferguson gave Cristiano Ronaldo the evening off and restricted Wayne […]
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With their other first choice centre-back Nemanja Vidic already ruled out for three weeks with a knee injury, Manchester United now face the prospect of Rio Ferdinand missing out the return leg of the quarter-final against Roma after he limped off with 20 minutes remaining in a 2-2 Premier League draw at Middlesbrough on Sunday.
Ferdinand, […]
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The hype going into this match was of course centered on the 7-1 thrashing that Roma took from Manchester United last season at this same stage. However, anyone with common sense could see that this match would have very little in common with that famous night.
For starters, this match was at the Stadio Olimpico in […]
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As I speculated on in an earlier post, it seems that Roberto Mancini’s “I’m leaving…wait…no I’m staying” routine has contributed to Inter’s shocking decline of form. The announcement was made moments after Inter had been dumped out of the Champions League by Liverpool by a 3-0 aggregate scoreline.
Going back as far as February 16, […]
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