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The main event

 

Little by little the European Football leagues resumed and somehow they finished their seasons. There was something also still pending The Champions League! (and Europa League as well) and we left in the most exciting part: the knockout stages. So where were we?

 

4 Teams have already advanced: RB Leipzig, Atlético de Madrid, Atalanta and PSG, the rest have one match to advance and the rest of the competition will move the Lisbon and eschew the classic double matches for a single elimination match as we rush for the final on Sunday August 23rd

I’ll try to do a little overview and then please let me know the games you are more excited for, your picks, the ones you most want to lose, etc. Let’s start:

Round of 16

Friday, August 7

Juventus vs. Lyon

Lyon has a slim 1-0 advantage which will probably mean nothing to Juventus that have a great team. Cristiano will also like to prove that it was him and not Dybala that deserved the Serie A MVP award. Should he care about that given all the awards he has? Probably not. Would he? Probably yes

Manchester City vs. Real Madrid

City are winning 2-1 and I caught some of their last games in Premiere League and they crushed everyone, like by a lot, probably frustrated at having no chance on winning the League. OTOH, Real had also played well and, unlike City, they did win their League. Zidane is really a good fit for this team and I would put my money on them given how good they are on Champions League. Of course, City will give it their all just to at least rub something on The Reds face

Saturday, August 8

Barcelona vs. Napoli

Teams are tied 1-1. Barcelona lost the title race and looked pretty old and disheveled and their future looks kinda bleak, with not much coming from the revered La Masia academy… of course this has been said before and they have proven the naysayers wrong before, but they do look at least in a rut. On the other side, Napoli started the season with great hopes and by the end could only finish 7th, outside of European competitions and even lower than the continuous mess that is AC Milan (and also Gatusso does not play Lozano, come on, give the kid a chance!). Does Barcelona have this? Probably, they need this to save their season. Although, for their own good, maybe they need to lose to jolt them out of their complacency

Bayern Munich vs. Chelsea

Bayern crushed them 3-0 so they basically have this. They also won the league, although it was a pretty close race with Dortmund. On the other side, Chelsea was able to finish 4th and then the next week lost the FA Cup final to Arsenal so they are a land of contrasts. For the Americans, check your boy Pulisic if Lampard lets him start

Now lets look at the younger brother, Europa League, the second tier but hey it’s still exciting and we have some good teams here. So where are we?

I caught a bit of the Man U game today but there was not much point to it, they had won the first match 5-0 so they just fielded the bench and was ok. Inter had little problem with Getafe and Shaktar fixed the game in the last 20 minutes or so and send Jon Brooks’ Wolfsburg packing. I won’t go into detail for these matches (I mean, I don’t really know a bunch of these teams), but here’s the schedule, everything happens today for R16:

Thursday, August 6

Sevilla vs. Roma 

Bayer Leverkusen vs. Rangers

Wolverhampton Wanderers vs. Olympiacos 

Basel vs. Eintracht Frankfurt

I personally hope Wolves win the whole thing because if not they will be out of Champions and Europa next year and Jiménez would probably leave them. From what I’ve seen, ManU and Inter look pretty strong, though

I probably won’t create a new thread, but will update this thread every week as the matches are played.