Chelsea & Manchester City lose in the latest round of UEFA Champions League

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! :)

Champions League semi finals: Will Mourinho finally win against Barcelona? Will Schalke surprise Manchester United too?

The quarter finals are over & as it has become a tradition, all encounters produced exciting & high scoring encounters. Whilst in most pundits' view, Barcelona with Messi & co were once again in another class, the humiliation handed down to Inter Milan by Germany's Schalke led by the Champions League legend Raul & possibly currently the best keeper in the world Neuer was undoubtedly the one of the greatest shocks in the CL history. Inter Milan have been a pale shade of the team that won in Madrid in May 2010 & were very lucky to get to the QF anyway. Nevertheless, no one could have ever predicted an aggregate 7-3 double loss elimination by erratic yet potent Schalke, whose players seem to be once again enjoying their football after the sacking of much criticised Magath.

I predicted 3 out of 4 overall results right. I still believe this Manchester United side is not as good as the teams that reached the final in the last few years & expected Chelsea to beat them.

As for the semi final pairings, both are very hard to predict! In case of Real & Barcelona, this is due to multiple matches the clubs will have to play each other in the coming weeks. Barcelona under the magnificent coaching of Guardiola & the irresistible magical displays of Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Villa & co have beaten Real Madrid 5 times so far including a 5-0 in La Liga earlier this year. Real & Barcelona will however meet twice in CL semi finals as well as in La Liga & the Spanish Cup in the coming weeks. It will be a chess game between two master tacticians & interesting to watch. Both Mourinho & Guardiola would rather win the CL semi final matches & lose the other two.

with regards to the other semi final pairing of Manchester United vs Schalke, as I said in my last post about Schalke, they may be underdogs but on their day have the players & the finesse to beat anyone, and with their coaching issues resolved, they may even dispose of Manchester United, although United are a much more formidable opponent than Inter Milan ever was.

So, here's my prediction for the final: Barcelona vs Schalke

(although my head tells me Manchester United will be there in the final!)