One of the most highly excitable results of this season's Champions League draw was the pairing of the 4 EPL qualifiers with the 4 Bundelisga qualifiers in the same groups:
Manchester United with Bayer Leverkusen
Chelsea (2012 winners over Bayern) with Schalke
Manchester City with the defending Champions Bayern and
Arsenal with Borussia Dortmund
Chelsea famously had beaten Bayern on penalties in the 2012 final in Bayern's home in Munich whilst Bayern & Dortmund had contested the 2013 final at Wembley the home of football & in the process raised the wasteful debate over whether Bundesliga was getting the better of the EPL & Spanish La Liga.
And this morning, all 8 teams qualified for the knockout stage albeit under vastly different circumstances:
- An erratic Manchester United side struggling in mid table in the EPL comprehensively accounted for Leverkusen 4-2 & 0-5
- Chelsea also totally outgunned an injury depleted Schalke 3-0 & 0-3
- CL Champions Bayern played scintillating football & beat City 1-3 away & then wasted an early 2-0 lead at home to succumb to a fast improving City 2-3, and
- Dortmund just got the better of Arsenal & edged them to top the group of death by winning 1-2 in London & losing 0-1 at home
All in all, EPL clubs won the battle. At the same time, La Liga giants Barcelona & Real Madrid were complimented by the true dark horses of this year's competition, the hugely impressive Atletico Madrid.
Overall, the lesson from the knockout stage is this:
With the exception of Bayern Munich which are again one of the favourites, whilst other German teams (and the trophy buying power of PSG) are clearly on the ascendency in Europe& catching up fast, hyped up claims of demise of English & Spanish teams are premature & exaggerated & their dominance is far from over. Serie A on the other hand is clearly in trouble although Napoli were fully deserving of qualification & missed out. Milan were lucky to edge out a young & up & coming Ajax side whilst Juventus simply flopped.
Most impressive teams of the group stage: Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid & Bayern Munchen
Most dissapointing: Porto, Benfica & Marseille
Flop of the season: Juventus
Unlucky teams: Napoli & Basel both of which beat their group winners & Ajax
Dark horses: Atletico Madrid without any doubt
The draw for the round of 16 will be interesting with most group winners wanting to avoid Arsenal.
2 comments:
Agree with your wrap but I would include Man C as a team to avoid.....is it coincidence that Pellegrini is now manager and they are doing well in Champions
Alas, you're probably right about ManU.
There's an outside chance Bayern get cocky and ManU have a good night, but it's a very outside chance. Moyes still hasn't gelled the squad.
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