Champions League - Last 8

The Champions League draw was made earlier today and it was thrown up some interesting ties.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE QUARTER-FINAL DRAW:

1.Villarreal v Arsenal
2.Manchester United v FC Porto
3.Liverpool v Chelsea
4.Barcelona v Bayern Munich

Winners of Match 1 v Match 2
Winners of Match 3 v Match 4

So lets break these games down

VILLARREAL v ARSENAL

First leg at El Madrigal could be a tough game for an Arsenal team that isn't exactly firing on all cylinders, after 5 0-0 draws in a row, a 3-1 win against West Brom and 4-0 against Blackburn aren't gonna set fear into Spanish hearts, but it does show a little turn in form.

Arsenal need Walcott back 100% fit as his pace will keep full backs awake at night, Arsenals good form is in no doubt credited to Andrei Arshavin, he was a major part of the Blackburn victory, and he will not be available for any of the games left in the CL.

The Gunners had solidified their defence in recent weeks, and if Fabergas is able to play any part, maybe the 2nd leg then Arsenal have a good chance of progressing, however Villarreal are no mugs.

Sitting 4th in La Liga, they have a good home record only 2 defeats however the away record lets them down only 4 wins.

Giuseppe Rossi will look to build on his 12 league goals making him The Submarines top scorer, but also look out for the midfield duo of Marcos Senna and Santi Cazorla, and the attacking full backs Capdevila and Javi Venta.

Goals have not been a problem for Villarreal however the defence could be their downfall.
I predict Arsenal to win by 1 goal.


MAN UTD v FC PORTO

The only bad point for Man U in this draw is having to play the 2nd leg at the Dragao, Porto have only lost once there in the league, United will hope the game is over before it returns to Oporto.

United need to bounce back from their shocking defeat to Liverpool at Old Trafford, which could give Ferreira's team some hope that if you take the game to United they could come away with something, They may be an unknown force in Britain but do have some quality, Argentine's Lucho Gonzalez and Lisandro Lopez have an eye for goal scoring 6 in the CL already, and Lucho adding 11 goals from the midfield this season, with some of the squad playing at Euro 2008 this is no minnow team.

United will be looking to have everyone fit and ready for the Porto games, Rooney, Berbatov and Ronaldo the trio they need fit to progress.

Anderson returning to face his old team, yet to score for United, is the script written for him to be a hero.

It will be very hard for Porto to knock the World Champions out, and I expect United to progress by 2 goals.

LIVERPOOL v CHELSEA

The only all English class of the Last 8, Will it be the fitting end to the Trilogy, this time the tables have been turned and Liverpool will play the first leg at Anfield, the last 2 times, they have had the advantage of returning to Anfield to finish the tie.

This will be as always a very close encounter, Hiddink has breathed some life into the Chelsea team, and the return of Essien in the midfield is a massive boost as he's already shown his importance, with decisive goals against Juventus and Man City.

Also Drogba is coming back to form at the right time, add this to the like of Lampard, Terry, Anelka the team looks alto stronger, the loss of Deco is a blow, but his form his been shaky as of late, so maybe it could be a blessing in disguise.

The main key for Liverpool is keeping Torres fit, he has had too many injury problems this season, if he is fit and plays Liverpool are a threat to any team, the partnership between him and Gerrard is lethal, one thing Liverpool must avoid is letting this game feel like a Premiership game, the tempo they played with against Real Madrid was higher than any Premiership game they had played until the recreated it at Old Trafford for a famous 4-1 win, when they play at breakneck speed they are at their best, if Chelsea get the game down to their tempo Liverpool could struggle.

This one is too close to call, I'm gonna say Liverpool to win on penalties.

BARCELONA v BAYERN MUNICH

This is my pick of the ties, from the last 16 these are the 2 form teams, Bayerns destruction of poor Sporting, and Barcelona's crushing of Lyon has brought these 2 european superpowers together for a place in the last 4.

Bayern are capable of scoring goals home and away, but all season Klinnsmann has struggled with the defensive side.

Franck Ribery and Luca Toni are a scary partnership, however i', sure Messi, Eto'o and Henry will have something to say about that.

Eto'o has 23 league goals but only 2 in the Champions League, Messi has 6 in the CL, 18 in the league, Henry has chipped in with 14 in the league and 4 in the CL, thats 67 goals between 3 players, I hope Van Buyten and Lucio don't find this out, it could lead to some sleepless nights.
Toni and Ribery have 21 between them, and with Klose out for 6 weeks it'll be up to Podolski to step up and give the germans a chance, both teams can score and concede so it'll probably be a 0-0.

I predict that after the crushing of Sporting Bayern will fail to deliver against the Spanish Giants, Barcelona to win by 2 goals.

So my semi final line up would be

Barcelona v Liverpool
Man Utd v Arsenal

Let me know your thoughts guys

Vive la France

After all the excitement in the past 10-14 days of football all over Europe, Liverpool's 2 fantastic performances and Celtic winning the CIS cup, i'm gonna concentrate on French football this week, maybe educate some people in the process.

Olympique Lyonnais or Lyon have won the French League for the last 7 seasons under such coaches as Jacques Santini, Paul Le Guen, Gerard Houllier and Alan Perrin, this season under the guidance of highly regarded coach Claude Puel was meant to be a forgone conclusion with Lyon expected to win their 8th title in a row, Puel came from Northern France overachievers Lille OSC, who happen to be my 2nd favourite team in the world (more on that later) Puel guided Lille to a 2nd place finish in the league and twice to the Champions League getting to the Last 16 2 years ago.

Combined with Puel's talent and the cream of the talent they had brought in, Hugo Lloris, Ederson (Nice), Jean Alain Boumsong (Juventus), John Mensah (Rennes), Miralem Pjanic (Metz), and Jean Makoun from Puel's old club Lille, added to some of the best players in Europe not just France, this was meant to be a walkover, however it's not been easy sailing for Lyon, as of today they sit 1 point clear of Paris St Germain (PSG) and Marseille. with 6 points between the top 6, anything other than first place would be considered a disaster, and even though Puel is probably the best manager they've had since Le Guen surely he'd be sacked if the Championship was not resting at the Stade Gerland come the end of the season.

They started well winning 5 from the first 6, then a shock 3-0 defeat away to Rennes followed by a draw against Lille and Auxerre showed the cracks, in the 9 games that ended 2008 they only one 5, including 2 defeats.

2009 didn't get much better 2 draws from the first 3 games, then with 3 wins in a row everything looked to be back on track then in the last fortnight it's been a disaster for the Champions.

A 3-2 defeat against Lille in the Cup was followed by a high profile 2-0 defeat by Lille again at the Stade de France in a kind of carnival game classed as Lille's home game, the 2 Lille defeats were sandwiched by Barcelona knocking them out of the Champions League, and to top it off when returning to league duty at home they were shockingly defeated by lowly Auxerre 2-0.

The wheels seem to be coming off the Lyon train, will their previous Championship victories help them to keep their composure and lift their 8th consecutive title.

Now onto their title contenders, mainly PSG and Marseille.

PSG had a terrible season last year, keeping their place in the league on the last day, and everyone thought that mid table mediocrity would have been a good result, Portuguese legend Pauleta retired and all the pressure was on returning yougster Guillaume Hoarau, coming back from Le Havre where he helped them gain promotion, he was going to be the main target upfront, and how he has repaid the Parisians, 15 goals so far this season, combine this with the great play of Ludovic Giuly returning from his time in Italy, unknown Le Mans midfielder Stephane Sessegnon, and the return to form of well travelled striker Peguy Luyindula.

It is great to see such a big team with a fantastic history coming back to their glory days, not sure they will be able to keep up the pace, but woul dbe great to see it going to the last day, Hoarau needs to keep scoring though.

Marseille find themselves only 1 point behind, this is after a fantastic 3-1 victory over PSG at the Parc des Prices, PSG and Marseille have a very heated rivalry kind like the english North/South divide, with a win PSG would have went top, Marseille will have taken great pleasure in preventing PSG going top and also moving 1 point from top themselves.

The southern giants have had a up and down season, great start opened with a 4-4 Rennes, then winning 3 in a row, but followed that with 4 draws, the problem with Marseilles season is that every month if they win 3 games they'll always lose one, even worse between October and December they lost 3 games, each one at home in the Velodrome, games you should win if you want to win the league, but they have only lost 2 away games which is fantastic form, it's been the goal scoring of the trio Mamadou Niang, Bakari Kone and Hatem Ben Arfa.

Marseille have the better squad between them and PSG which is what you need for a season campaign, more experience in the spine of the team aswell.

Now for the last team to profile, it probably should be Toulouse or Bordeaux, but its the team much closer to my heart, Lille OSC, 100 miles north of Paris and 90 mins Eurostar trip away from London, you'll find the little hard working team from Lille.

They came to prominence when Claude Puel was in charge, they didn't get into Ligue 1 until the turn of the millenium, then in 2005 they finished 2nd and then 3rd in 2006, beating Man Utd at the Stade de France in their first campaign, 2nd time around, they beat Milan in the San Siro to reach the Last 16, they drew Man Utd again, and after a controversial 1-0 defeat in France they lost 1-0 at Old Trafford.

The defeat by Man U sparked a down turn in form and Lille finished 10th, and that Summer the players that made Lille great all left, 13 first team players left and it was a very young team that played next season and Lille did well to finish 7th, that was Claude Puel's last season and he moved to Lyon with influential midfielder Jean Makoun, for so long the Lille heartbeat.

New coach Rudy Garcia came in, he used to play for Lille and was impressive in his job at Le Mans, the expectations were getting higher again.

Now before I go onto Lille's performance this season, you may be asking yourself, why do you support Lille, well it's a strange stort, some of you may be aware of the game Pro Evolution Soccer, well it was PES5 where a canadian friend of my called Sina had spent his time using the ingame editor to correct all the french teams stats so they would truly reflect each player on each team, to improve the enjoyment of the game.

He asked each person on the forum to pick a team and play a few seasons, and report back your thought on the players to see if the stats truly reflected the players, I choose Lille cause at the time one of my housemates Lee's mum had gone to a football match in France, and I asked her to get me a scarf (I collect them). The scarf that came back was a Lille scarf, so as I had the scarf why not go them and learn something.

So from playing the game start to know the players and wanting to see the real life Lille I started to watch French foootball, and watched some Lille games, and liked what I saw, players such as Peter Odemwingie, Kader Keita, Jean Makoun, Gregory Tafforeau, Tony Sylva all made me fall in love with the Northerners.

2 years ago I planned a trip to Lille to watch them play Le Mans at the Lille Stade Metropole a small 18,000 stadium, the stadium is so small as they used to play in the 22,000 Stade Grimonprez Jooris, and it was knocked down to increase the capacity to 35,000 but as soon as the stadium was knocked down the council said the ground was their land and no work was to be done, so Lille had no stadium, so they moved to the Metropole until they could build a new stadium, this was in 2004 and only this month have they broke ground on the future 50,000 Stade Borne de l'Espoir.

My trip was planned for the 17th of March, and then on the 16th just as I was about to go to bed, it was brought to my attention that their had been a fire in London right next to the train line that the eurostar runs on, and all Eurostar trains for the next 24 hours had been suspended indeffinetly.

So the trip was off, i was gutted, so on St Paddy's day I went out and got wankered haha, Lille got beat 3-1, so maybe good not to have gone, I plan to go again next season, this will defintely happen.

So onto this season.

It was a very poor start, in the first 8 games, only 3 wins and 3 defeats, after this Lille went on a fantastic run, in the next 21 games only 3 defeats and 5 draws, drawing was Lille's undoing the last 2 seasons, highlights including beating St-Etienne 3-0, 1-0 away win to Nice, then in the space of a week beating Lyon twice, then beating Caen to move within 3 points of 2nd and 4 points of the lead.

The reasons for Lille's success this season is down to the play of some key young players, Michel Bastos in his third year is the top scored with 11 goals and 11 assists, Centre back Adil Rami has came to prominence, and super youngster Eden Hazard has burst on the scene with some eye opening performances, add to this one of the best midfields in France, Yohann Cabaye, Florent Balmont and Rio Mavuba are a hardworking but skillful trio and hard to break down.

The success is even better when you realise Lille's struggles upfront, young Kevin Mirallas moved to St-Etienne, and Tulio De Melo was brough back to France by his old coach to score the goals but he has been out most of the season with injury, journey man Pierre-Alain Frau got injured in the 2nd game out for 3 months, this put big pressure on Nicolas Fauvergue and Robert Vittek, and it also gave Hazard his chance which he grabbed with both hands, and now they have a genuine chance to finish 2nd or 3rd and reclaim a Champions League place, although I'd be happy with a Europa Cup place.

Well I hope you've learnt something about a league you might not have experience before and might keep a wee eye on the scores in the coming weeks, the smart money will be on Lyon holding on, but with 5 others team just 4 points away with 30 points still up for grabs, It's a long way to go.

Au revoir

Man U - PSG - Milan

Hey everyone welcome to my new football blog.


Hopefully each week, I'll be blogging with my thoughts on the games I've watched over the weekend and any other issues that I wanna express my opinion on.
If you know me, you know this will not only cover the British Isles but football all over the place, from South America to France to International stuff.

I'll try and leave YouTube links with goals you need to see, or anything else worth watching.


This week I have watched Sheffield United v Birmingham, the Carling Cup Final between Man Utd and Tottenham, first half of Atletico Madrid v Barcelona, the highlights of Celtic v St Mirren, plus some highlights around Europe.


ENGLAND

May aswell start in England, big big week for Man U, not only lifting the Carling Cup which I'll come back to, but Liverpool had a shock defeat by Middlebrough, must say Tuncay's goal was nice, some good build up and nice finish.

This leaves the Premiership in Man U's hands it's their title to lose now, and with Giggs having an awesome season and the rest of the team firing on all cylinders, I can't see Liverpool or Chelsea catching them now but anything is possible.

It was nearly a Bad weekend for Aston Villa, it could have been so much better, 2-0 against lowly Stoke, but they rallyed back and picked up a point, luckily for them Arsenal could close the gap any further, another 0-0 for the Gunners, Is it time for Wenger to move on?

Anything but a victory this week and I might not be the only person thinking this, not reaching the Champions League would be a massive blow for them, and surely the Arsenal board would have to look at the situation, yeah they have been unlucky with injuries but so are most teams, I wouldn't want Arsene to leave the club as his work with youngsters is second to none but maybe someone else needs to hold the reigns.


Back to Man Utd winning the Carling Cup, i really enjoyed the game, even thought there wasn't a goal, it was end to end, fast paced, good chances, apart from goals it had everything else, Tottenham did really well, Aaron Lennon terrorised Patrice Evra most of the match and did a great job defensivley, my one concern with Lennon though is his delivery from the wing, If I was a coach at Spurs, i'd have Lennon in training and he would be made to cross in 100 balls a day under pressure, he has so much pace and great movement if he could put in a good cross he's be so so dangerous, but all he does is hit the ball hard towards the middle of the touch, there is no variation, now is this down to technique or mentality, to look up and dink a cross in now and again.

Ben Foster again showed how good a keeper he is with some fantastic saves, and thoughts go to Tottenham born Jamie O'Hara and his penalty miss, it was a poor penalty, just the right height for a keeper to save it.

I think everyone felt when it got to penalties Man U would have the edge and so it was. I can honestly see them winning the 5 trophies this year, the Champions League is the hardest one yet.


SCOTLAND

Now to Scotland, big week for Celtic a thumping 7-0 victory over St Mirren, the highlight not only Nakamura's hat-trick but Marc Crosas's first for the club, the midfielder on loan from Barcelona had yet to score in Spain or when on loan with Lyon in france, has now opened his Celtic account and will do well to score a better goal, this win along with Rangers 1-0 win at Hamilton meant Rangers still are on top but only now by 4 goals, it's gonna go down to the wire again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bNO8FafKRo

SPAIN

It's all heating up in Spain, since Juande Ramos took over Real Madrid have gone on a great run, Barcelona have stuttered a bit, after losing last week in the Catalan derby, they had a tough match ahead in Madrid against Atletico, I only managed to watch the first half due to alcohol from Saturday night but it was quality football all the way Superb goals from Henry and Messi, but a fantastic strike from Diego Forlan meant it was 2-1 at Halftime, and who would have thought Atletico would upset the mighty Barca, winning 4-3, leaving the gap at the top only 4 points, the momentum now in Real's court.

Messi's goal for me shows he is on top of the world right now, quick turn burst of pace and he's in on goal, he is right now ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo in the best player stakes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxDEqSzN41w

FRANCE

Another interesting week in France, my team Lille got beat by Northern rivals Valenciennes, losing touch with the teams at the top, Lyon could only manage a draw with Rennes and with PSG's 4-1 victory over Nancy this closed the gap at the top to 4 points.

PSG are having an awesome season, after hangin on to their Ligue 1 place by the skin of their teeth, legendary striker Pauleta retired and coach Paul Le Guen remained in charge, I didn't have high hopes for them, but the master stroke has been the loan return of striker Guillaume Hoarau 28 goals in 38 games last year at Le Havre getting them promoted, and this season he is joint top scorer in Ligue 1 with 15 goals, not alot of players adjust to stepping up a league so easily but he has and the inclusion of Le Mans midfielder Sebastien Sessegnon and winger Ludovic Giuly, do PSG have what It take to stop Lyon winning 8 titles in a row, more on that in the coming weeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-J4FiEaPPU

ITALY

Last topic I want to cover this week is AC Milan, why oh why oh why do they want to sign Beckham for any longer, the initial "Beckham factor" has gone, beaten off Sampdoria 2-1 this week, knocked out the UEFA cup by Werder Bremen, beaten in the Milan derby a draw at Reggina, they did manage a 1-0 victory against Cagliari but any decent Milan team should be winning this match most times.

So what has Beckham brought to the San Siro apart from shirt sales and English media attention, not alot, he has scored 2 goals and showed his boundless energy, however Milan need to think of the future.

Paolo Maldini 40 years old
Emerson 32 years old
Pipo Inzaghi 35 years old
Clarence Seedorf 32 years old
Alessandro Nesta 32 years old
Andriy Shevchenko 32 years old

Plus people like Gattuso, Ambrosini, Abbiati, Dida and Jankulovski are all the wrong side of 30.

As Man Utd have shown the way to success is combining the mix of youth and experience, Milan still have Pato, Kaka, and Flamini but it is a very old squad and adding the 33 year old Beckham to the squad, especially if they have to pay £10million for the service, this is money that can surely be put to better use, there are lots of talented players in Serie A around 23-26 year old mark that could be brought in to take the team forward.

My advice to the people in charge of the Rossoneri, is ditch the plans to keep Beckham and put money into players like Cigarini (Atalanta) Montolivo (Fiorentina) and Lavezzi (Napoli).


Until next week Ciao