To the average football fan, there's nothing more enjoyable to witness "trophy Buying" teams fail in major competitions!
Of course this does not happen very often & in most instances money brings better quality players & wins trophies.
nevertheless, in defeats by the highly expensively put together trio of Real Madrid, Manchester City & Chelsea brought lots of smiles to fans around the world, especially in case of the English teams:
Manchester City, simply because they are attempting & o far failing miserably to buy trophies. And Chelsea because they did eventually buy themselves the CL trophy last year with their anti football brand of tactics, for introducing questionable billion dollar amounts into the game, AND for playing awful in their defeat vs a brilliant Shaktar Donetsk.
Amazingly, Chelsea at 2-0 down were so badly under siege by Shaktar that it almost felt as though Shaktar were behind 0-1 & time was running out!
So, for the sake of the beautiful game, let's hope both Chelsea & Manchester City get eliminated in the group stage this year & their expensively assembled squads cost them a fortune with little return!
But half way through the group stage, here are the main points:
This year, the first knockout phase is going to be one of the most difficult in the recent history of the tournament. The likes of Dortmund, Schalke, Malaga, Porto, PSG, Shaktar, Valencia, Bate & even Ajax are all playing very well & would be a real threat to any of the favourites in most bigger teams in the knock out stages.
Here are my thoughts half way through the group stage:
Barcelona & Real Madrid are once again the favourites
Bayern provide the stiffest threat to Real & Barcelona
Malaga, Schalke & Dortmund have been simply superb
Manchester United are having major defensive issues which if not addressed will see them eliminated in the knock out stages by any of the above teams
English teams are once again under performing although both Arsenal & Chelsea should qualify for the knock out stage
Italian Teams & Serie A are in a steep decline & even Juventus won't go to far this year
German & Spanish teams are so far the dominant forces of this year's CL
Nevertheless, as this most exciting competition proves year after year, these are early days, forms can fluctuate AND luck can play its part ! Just ask Chelsea how they won last year's CL!
Bitter? Me? No way! :)
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