Matchday 5 — Wednesday Preview

Despite the 8–0 blowout they suf­fered against Liv­er­pool on the last Match­day, Be?ikta? still have plenty to play for against Mar­seille. They are cur­rently bot­tom on three points but a win for Be?ikta? com­bined with a Liv­er­pool win would mean that all four teams go into the final round of games sep­a­rated by just two points. A vic­tory for Mar­seille com­bined with a Porto loss will take them back to the top of the group. Mar­seille are likely going to play a packed mid­field and look to counter-attack through pacy play­ers such as Samir Nasri, Math­ieu Val­buena and Djib­ril Cissé. How­ever, too con­ser­v­a­tive an approach could be fatal as the home crowd will defin­tely be an advan­tage for Be?ikta?.

In Group B, a resur­gent Chelsea will be look­ing to prove a point against Rosen­borg. The Nor­we­gian side, cur­rently sec­ond in the group, held Chelsea to a draw at Stam­ford Bridge and will look for at least the same result at home on Wednes­day. How­ever, Rosen­borg have not played a com­pet­i­tive game for three weeks due to their sea­son fin­ish­ing ahead of the cold north­ern win­ter. Their play­ers could be lack­ing match sharp­ness and would present Chelsea with an advan­tage. Weather could be a fac­tor in this game as the tem­per­a­ture at kick­off is fore­casted to be hov­er­ing around the freez­ing point and there is a chance of rain/snow. Under those con­di­tions it could be a very turgid match and a draw is not an unrea­son­able expec­ta­tion. The other wild­card will be the fit­ness of Chelsea striker Didier Drogba. He’s their most reli­able source of goals and if not fit they’ll need to rely on the incon­sis­tent Kalou and Shevchenko.

The other matchup in Group B should see Valen­cia put out of the mis­ery by Schalke. I won’t be so bold as to say that Schalke will win the match but a draw is quite pos­si­ble con­sid­er­ing Valencia’s recent form. The pres­sure is on Valen­cia as they know that any­thing less than a win will end their hopes of pro­gress­ing to the knock­out phase. Schalke will take some com­fort from the fact that they have won the only Cham­pi­ons League game they have played in Spain, beat­ing Mal­lorca 4–0 in 2001.

Werder Bre­men are really up against it on Wednes­day as they pre­pare to face Real Madrid with­out tal­is­man Diego after he was sent off in their last Cham­pi­ons League match for dis­sent towards the ref­eree. Bre­men will also have to do with­out lead­ing scorer Hugo Almeida, who will be miss­ing due to a mus­cle strain. To fur­ther com­pli­cate mat­ters, it was reported that Brazil­ian mid­fielder Car­los Alberto and Ivory Coast striker Boubacar Sanogo came to blows dur­ing a train­ing match in mid­week and were left out of the squad for last Saturday’s trip to Energie Cot­tbus. After a poor start, Bre­men had man­aged to turn the sea­son around, at least domes­ti­cally, before these recent prob­lems. They will need Sanogo to have his head right as they do not have many strik­ers avail­able at the moment.

Madrid will guar­an­tee their place in the knock­out stages with a win in Ger­many but they have only won once in their last four games in all com­pe­ti­tions and they have yet to pick up an away win in this year’s Cham­pi­ons League. They will be with­out Wes­ley Snei­jder who is recov­er­ing from a right knee injury. I don’t think there will be many changes to the side from the week­end and oft-injured Arjen Robben, just back from another lay­off, will likely fea­ture among the sub­sti­tutes along with Pepe and Gon­zalo Higuaín, who also are com­ing back from injuries.

As both teams pre­fer an attack­ing style, this could be a very open game with lots of chances at both ends though Bre­men may try to nick an early goal and keep things tight as they des­per­ately need the result in order to have any hopes of keep­ing their Euro­pean cam­paign going.

The other match in Group C could become a win­ner takes all affair depend­ing on the result of the Bremen-Madrid match. If Werder Bre­men do not beat Real Madrid, the win­ner of the Lazio-Olympiakos match will progress through to the knock­out stages. Lazio have a major injury worry as lead­ing scorer Tom­maso Roc­chi has a thigh injury and is cur­rently doubt­ful to be avail­able. For the Greek side, they are likely to be miss­ing defender Raul Bravo as well as defender Didier Domi and striker Marco Ne who are recov­er­ing from longer-term injuries.

It’s a mas­sive game for both sides as Lazio des­per­ately need the cash infu­sion the knock­out stage would bring and Olympiakos would love to end their long and futile his­tory in Euro­pean club tour­na­ments. I’m going to have to go with the home side in this one and I think Goran Pan­dev will be a major fac­tor in the match.

Over in Group D, AC Milan will be look­ing to book their place in the final 16 when they travel to Lis­bon to face Ben­fica. Milan’s Serie A form has been poor by their usual high stan­dards but they are in the driver’s seat in their Cham­pi­ons League group. They will be with­out Marek Jankulovski (knee surgery) as well as Emer­son and Fil­ippo Inza­ghi, who have been left out of the squad. Mas­simo Ambrosini will have to serve the manda­tory sus­pen­sion of one match for yel­low card accu­mu­la­tion and will also miss out. One other change might see Kakha Kaladze step into cen­tral defense for Paolo Mal­dini, who went the full ninety on Sun­day and at . Also, Clarence See­dorf has recov­ered from an ankle injury and could start.

For Ben­fica, a defeat or draw would elim­i­nate them. Mid­fielder Nuno Assis suf­fered a leg injury dur­ing their domes­tic league match on the week­end and is likely to be replaced by Cris­t­ian Rodriguez. Armando Petit, who returned on Sat­ur­day after two months out, should replace Augustin Binya, who has been sus­pended for six games for his hor­ror tackle on Celtic’s Scott Brown.

The other match in the group sees Celtic host Shak­tar Donetsk and all we really need to talk about is Celtic’s tremen­dous Cham­pi­ons League record at Celtic Park — they have won 11 and lost just once at home in 14 group games. The only big worry they have is the fit­ness of goal­keeper Artur Boruc but backup Mark Brown stepped in and had a solid match against Aberdeen on the week­end. I really would be shocked by any­thing other than a Celtic win in this one. A win for the home side should secure their pas­sage into the knock­out stages.

Ran­dom Facts:
At the age of 43 years and 168 days, Lazio goal­keeper Marco Bal­lotta became the old­est player to com­pete in the Cham­pi­ons League when he started against Olympiakos on Match­day 1 . The record was pre­vi­ously held by Alessan­dro Costacurta, the AC Milan defender who played against AEK Athens in the 2006/07 sea­son at the age of 40 years and 211 days.