The international break may once have been cause for great excitement – a time when fans could put aside partisan differences and unite behind a common cause (or a mutual enemy) – but increasingly tedious qualifiers and ‘glamour’ friendlies prove less of an attraction, and more of a distraction from domestic dramas. It is refreshing then that midweek football returned to its rightful home: the Champions League.
And what a return it was. Four games over two days, yielding eighteen goals, two red cards and a glut of incidents, both captivating and controversial. Yet as the eight teams retreat to their corners, are slapped, insulted and encouraged by the press, spit in the bucket of public opinion and await the bell for round two next Tuesday, who is looking in best shape to crowned champions of champions at Wembley in May?
Arguably the heavyweight tie of the round kicked off at Stamford Bridge – in more ways than one with the increasingly familiar sight of Chelsea players accosting the referee at the final whistle. Even as a United fan, I can understand the frustrations of the players and manager: the Evra tackle was a stone-wall penalty, in all likelihood a red card and subsequent suspension that would shatter Man U’s already fragile defensive recovery. All in all, a tie-changing call (or lack thereof).
This having been said, United dominated the match, especially the first half, much as they did in the league there last month. This time however, while they created much less in the second half – due in no small part to the enforced switch of the impressive Valencia to right back and the introduction of a stagnant Nani, whose form seems to have disappeared with most of his left shin after Carragher’s tackle at Anfield – they held it together at the back better. And while Rio’s return and the first decent Michael Carrick performance in recent memory (prompting a genius tweet into the BBC: “to whoever’s wearing the number 16 for United; who are you and what have you done with Michael Carrick) contributed to this, the key factor was the man in the middle, and his spare-prick mates behind the goal.
Numerous BBC pundits agree that United and Chelsea are so evenly matched that games between then are decided by desire. Wrong: they’re decided by officiating. (And acts of God). The last Premier League meeting was decided by a shoddy penalty decision and a lack of an obvious red card; the previous one at Old Trafford last season saw Drogba clearly offside when he scored the winner; and eighteen months ago at Stamford Bridge John Terry headed in the game’s only goal from a freekick that wasn’t a freekick.
After three defeats due to poor officiating, United probably deserved to cement their first win at the Bridge for nine years by not having to face a stoppage time penalty. (Though I would have loved to have seen a camera on JT if it had been given. Would Captain, Leader, Legend step up?). Though for all the good those fifth and sixth officials do they might as well make sure the ballboys and girls are properly hydrated. Six yards away and staring it straight down the barrel, your man still couldn’t spot Evra’s pincer.
Chelsea as a potential winners look to be their own worst enemies. The team’s core probably wouldn’t be so acutely aware of just how fast their chances of winning the tournament were dwindling if they weren’t constantly barraged with the information at the start of every season. They have a manager who can’t play the formation he wants, and which has served him so well in his time there, because the owner spent his weekly pocket money on a player whom the system doesn’t suit. And the pressure of this supposed realisation that time is ticking and the conspicuous lack of a Plan B means if they come up against a team who they can’t or won’t be bullied in midfield, desperation deposes determination. Look at Torres’ two pitiful dives on Wednesday.
United are far from through to the last four, and irrespective of opposition, look a far cry from the Tzars of 2008. Experience in defence will be vital, assuming Van de Saar, Vidic, Ferdinand and Evra can keep themselves fit and, the captain especially, on the pitch. Going forward, questions and even assertions that Rooney is back to the form of last season are massively premature; when he reaches half the number of goals he scored then, maybe the claim could tentatively be made he is close. Until then, he is merely performing you would expect a player of his calibre to be.
Hernandez looks the more likely partner as Berbatov shows the familiar signs of frustrating when faced with expectation, and only ever performing when you least expect it (which is never going to happen in at this stage in a Champions League campaign), but if Rooney’s form does prove to be a false dawn, he’ll play regardless and cynical as it might be, I’d back him to lose us a high-pressure match before winning one. And this isn’t even the biggest worry. As I discussed a few weeks ago, it is in the middle of the park that United are weakest. None of the highly uncomfortable questions asked by Barca’s carousel two years ago in Rome have been answered, and the options Ferguson has are either highly form-dependent (i.e. can Carrick play like that for the rest of his recently-extended time at Man U) or aging.
The winners of the all-English affair will most likely come up against the team they would’ve most fancied be drawn in the quarters. Schalke 04 have sky-rocketed in most people’s opinions (mine including) from a mid-table German team to real contenders as the next Porto. Coach Ralf Rangnick is the man who led Hoffenheim from far greater obscurity up two divisions in two years and into genuine European contenders, and despite only having been in the job a few weeks, already seems to have the measure how his team play (due to a previous spell in charge at the club) and which tactics are most appropriate for the big games.
With Raul’s CL pedigree and the surprise element of strike partner Edu, the Germans look extremely capable of doing more than protecting their sizeable advantage, and booking an Easyjet flight over to England in the coming weeks. And as Porto proved in 2004 if a minnow can use property utilize its resources there are no limits to how far they can progress. Fergusson, Ancelotti, Guardiola, Mourinho; all have come across each other’s teams enough times to be able to feel reasonable prepared when their players run out. Unfamiliarity can prove the most lethal scourge of so-called favorites, something you’d think Rangnick is more than aware of from his time at Hoffenheim. The question is: can he transfer this experience to the grandest scale of all?
The perfect juxtaposition to this potentially meteoric rise is the possibly cataclysmic decline of Inter, who have gone from winning the Quintuple with the Special One to looking outsiders to even qualify next season with their biggest rival’s former legend via the worse squad-builder in history, the fat Spanish waiter. And all in the space of 9 months. As long as Sneider’s ego is massaged and one of two genuinely world-class centre forwards are played (take your pick from Milito or Eto’o) they’re not going to have any problem scoring. All you need to do, as Mourinho demonstrated at the Nou Camp last year, is get them to defend properly. So surely having a World Cup winning defender at the helm is the ideal solution?
Evidently not if the man in question is a Brazilian full-back named Leonardo Araújo, who despite being a quality player is not turning out to be a great manager (a Samba Paul Ince if you will). The absence of regular centre-halves Lucio and Samuel – whose efficiency is matched only by their unpopularity – may ultimately cost them their title; you cannot ship five goals at home against arguably the weakest team on paper still in the competition and expect to come close to winning the Champions League. Leonardo is clearly enjoying emancipation from the Silvio’s shackles at the Rossoneri, but the gung-ho brand of football he’s playing (dubbed 4 – 2 – Fantasy) is not suitable for two-legged, home and away knockout competition.
Owners vs. managers and utopian styles of football bring us nicely on to Tottenham Hotspur and Real Madrid. While only the most die-hard Arsenal fans would want Harry’s ‘Ave a Go ‘Eros to be eliminated by a club who relentless lavish vast amounts of cash in their quest for a return to former glories, the real winner of the first leg wasn’t Real, but Jose Mourinho. Coming off the back his first home league defeat in nine years, he employed his unique brand of mind-games: not only pilling praise on his opposite number, but also seemingly questioning his own team’s ability by declaring a draw at home would be a good result against Spurs. His players responded by battering Tottenham and all but assuring their place in the semis. Rest assured, anywhere he wants to go, there’ll be a job for the Special One (except maybe some leading supermarket chains).
As at Inter, the attacking riches at his disposal are subtly but irrepressibly balanced with a top-class defence. Ramos and Marcello might be thought of more as wingers than full-backs – a la the latter, Maicon and Leonardo for Brazil (or Glen Johnson for England, ha!) – but Mourinho gets them to defend, or at least manages to utilize their offensive ability and still keep clean sheets. The master of man-management (he convinced Eto’o, one of the Champions League’s most lethal marksmen, to ply his trade on the left wing for the winning 2009-2010 campaign), he has the almost unique ability to be able to field the same eleven whether he’s looking for three away goals or to park the bus. If Real can contrive to conquer the Classico I’ll discuss later, Mourinho would have ample ammunition to make them nigh-on invincible at Wembley.
Spurs on the other hand are like the guy at the party who’s just tobogganed down the stairs: everyone’s having too much fun watching and anticipating what’ll happen next to do the honourable thing and say, ‘go home before you get seriously hurt; try make it next time’. Optimists will point to Bale’s sensational second-half hat-trick in the San Siro and say that if something similar could transpire at the Lane, who knows. But compare Inter under Benitez to Real under Mourinho and you have to say there’s no way Los Blancos are shipping four without reply. They score once and Tottenham need six. Tottenham’s focus has to be on pulling the finger out in the league and trying to finish in the top four (although on this season’s evidence, Spurs would have to be considered one of the favourites in the Europa League. If Harry stays).
Shakhtar Donetsk’s victory in the last ever UEFA Cup and their shared dominance domestically in the Ukrainian domestic league may have spared them the title of the quarter finals’ minnows (although as I have discussed, this is a tag which could be Schalke’s biggest weapon), they were considered rank outsiders even before they were drawn against the tournament’s favourites. Their squad follows the North-East European trend of blending home-grown and regional talent with Brazilians imported due to lax visa laws: stalwarts Răzvan Raţ, Darijo Srna and former Barca man Dmytro Chygrynskiy are supplemented with a host of Samba almost-stars, including Luiz Adriano, Willian and Douglas Costa. In celebration of this harmony between South America and Eastern Europe they even signed Brazilian born Croatian Eduardo.
Having beaten Arsenal at home and done the double over Celtic and Liverpool’s conquerors Braga in the group stages, and following this up with a very respectable 6-2 aggregate win over Roma in the last sixteen, they might have hoped for a move favourable draw, or even to play in Donetsk first to gain some vital momentum. This is team whose pace, skill and relative obscurity might’ve caused the English heavyweights some problems (though Fulham would scorn this), but it wasn’t to be, and after a pulsating first-leg finished so unevenly, similar advice to Tottenham’s should surely be offered: cheers for coming lads, really impressed by what we saw, sorry it didn’t work out, genuinely hope to see you again next time. Hopefully you won’t get Barca.
Finally then, the favourites: and you’d be a brave man (or woman) to bet against them at the moment; as you would be at any point in the season. No team is better suited to the CL’s format because of the simple fact that Guardiola’s men simply do not lose knockout matches at home. They have been defeated at the Camp Nou in the group stages by minnows, but their recent exists from the competition have been due to away defeats. Their more high profile matches in recent years have seen them travelling first before, Mourinho’s Nerazzurri aside, demolishing hopeful teams in the second leg, though they showed on Wednesday they’re perfectly happy to play away second.
As of yet, no sustainable threat has been developed to their tiki-taka and the only hope I can see for opponents is to get them in the final and win it over one leg, as Barca’s record in England in recent years isn’t great: I make it played four, lost two (United 2008 & Arsenal 2011) and drawn two (Chelsea 2009 & Arsenal 2010). Their semi-final clash with Inter last year was billed as the irresistible force versus the immovable object, and the Classico semi which looks inevitable this year could be set-up similarly (especially if Real play at home first), due to the Special One’s tactics, not only in the Champions League in general, but specifically against Barca. While an all-Spanish encounter could prove to be as finely balanced as the all-English one, the experience of the Barca team, both of winning the competition and losing to Mourinho’s sides, gives them the je ne sais quoi if you ask me.
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