Champions League Matchday 6

Group A
Chelsea 2-0 Levski Sofia
Barcelona 2-0 Werder Bremen

It seems that Ronaldinho is back to his best, and that means Barcelona are too -- even with half of their offence out injured. His ridiculously cocky free kick in the opening 15 minutes -- plus a possibly offside goal from Eidur Gudjohnsen -- means that Barca have survived to the next round. Werder Bremen dominated in the second half but the final ball just wasn't there, and it was too late by that point; they'll have to settle for intimidating teams in the UEFA Cup.

At Stamford Bridge, Chelsea earned the top spot in the group thanks to two rarities: goals from Andriy Shevchenko and Shaun Wright-Phillips. Awww, they let SWP out to play! Isn't that sweet?


Group B
Sporting Lisbon 1-3 Spartak Moscow
Bayern Munich 1-1 Inter Milan

Bayern clinched first place with their draw against Inter, who are also through to the knockout stages. Spartak Moscow squeaked into the UEFA Cup by beating Sporting.


Group C
Galatasaray 3-2 Liverpool
PSV Eindhoven 1-3 Bordeaux

Liverpool had already guaranteed themselves first place in Group C, so they fielded their B team (or, as YNBA put it, "Robbie and the kids," which is also the name of my new band) against Galatasaray. And it seems their thing to do in Istanbul is to concede three goals, except this time without the miraculous comeback and all that. You will note that they were also wearing ugly kits -- not as bad as the yellow ones, but still not good, and not even Xabi Alonso in white shorts will convince me otherwise.

Meanwhile, Bordeaux earned themselves a place in the UEFA Cup with a win over PSV. They will now go on to get slaughtered by Werder Bremen or something.


Group D
Olympiacos 1-1 Shakhtar Donetsk
Roma 1-0 Valencia

TSN, for whatever reason, chose to show the Roma-Valencia game, and I chose to watch it in the mistaken belief that it would be interesting, with Roma's place in the knockout round still up for grabs. Yeah, not so much. Instead, most of the interest came from wondering (a) how many ways Shep Messing could find to screw up the players' names ("Toe-ti," anyone?) and (b) just what kind of a name is "Shep," anyway? (It sounds like a name for a dog, not a person!)

Roma's win means they go through to the next round behind Valencia, while Shakhtar Donetsk are in the UEFA Cup, and Olympiacos are out.


Group E
Dynamo Kiev 2-2 Real Madrid
Lyon 1-1 Steaua Bucharest

Lyon and Real Madrid are both into the knockout rounds after drawing; Steaua gets the consolation prize of the UEFA Cup.


Group F
Manchester United 3-1 Benfica
Copenhagen 3-1 Celtic

Memo to Sir Alex: SACK UP. How many times is he going to fool around with 4-5-1, marooning Wayne Rooney out on the wing, before he realizes that it just does not work? Benfica's goal did come against the run of play in the opening half-hour, but United were still playing way below their potential. After that Fergie realized they were going to have to attack the game, grew some balls and switched back to 4-4-2. And lo and behold, they took Benfica apart. United managed to finish on top of the group, despite wasting their chances to kill things off in the last two matchdays.

In the other game, Copenhagen took advantage of Celtic's continuing dreadful away form in Europe, but it wasn't enough to keep them from finishing bottom of the group.


Group G
Porto 0-0 Arsenal
Hamburg 3-2 CSKA Moscow

The thing about the final round of group games is that you get some matches where everything is up for grabs, so it's utterly insane, and then other matches where there's nothing to play for, so it's utterly boring. And then there are other matches where everything is up in the air and yet they're just insanely boring, like Arsenal's goalless draw with Porto. Apparently the Gooners had a grand total of one shot on goal. Still, they finished top of the group, so maybe Thierry Henry will stop whining for a day or two.

Porto are through to the next round as well, as CKSKA Moscow lost; Hamburg finally managed to grab some points in their last match, but they're out nonetheless.


Group H
Anderlecht 2-2 AEK Athens
AC Milan 0-2 Lille

Milan have somewhat made up for their crappy domestic season by qualifying at the top of the group, despite the loss to Lille, who are also through. Hapless Anderlecht wasted a 2-0 lead against AEK, who go on to the UEFA Cup.

Champions League Matchday 5: November 22

Liverpool 2-0 PSV Eindhoven
Nice to see Liverpool guaranteeing themselves first place in the group (see? It's the red kits). Would've been nicer if they hadn't lost three-quarters of their midfield in the process. Also, Steven Gerrard has apparently decided only to score in Europe this season, for no other reason than to thwart my fantasy football team.

Werder Bremen 1-0 Chelsea
Conspiracy theories, anyone? Actually, no, I don't think that Chelsea threw the game -- I doubt that even Jose Mourinho is Machiavellian enough to have contrived that non-existent foul that eventually led to the goal -- but I don't think they played very hard either. Also, congratulations to John Terry for getting himself booked and suspended for their next game because he threw the ball away. Very captainly, that.

Spartak Moscow 2-2 Bayern Munich
Best moment of the game: Kovac's unique goal celebration, when he limped off the field clutching his groin, after what the commentators praised as excellent ball control in front of the net. *snerk*

Other results
Levski Sofia 0-2 Barcelona
Inter Milan 1-0 Sporting Lisbon
Bordeaux 3-1 Galatasaray
Valencia 2-0 Olympiacos
Shakhtar Donetsk 1-0 Roma

Champions League Round of 16: March 7

Barcelona 1 - 1 Chelsea (aggregate 3-2)
You know what's great? Coming home from a long day at work, settling in on the couch with some leftover curry, and watching Chelsea get schooled by Ronaldinho. I kind of love him and his crazy teeth now. He just always looks so happy out there -- whether he's scoring a goal or getting called for a foul, there he is, smiling away. Which is more than you can say for Jose Mourinho. (I especially love whoever it was in the editing booth who put together the montages of the Not-So-Special One looking disgusted on the sidelines.)

Mourinho has been about as charming and gracious in defeat as you'd expect, insisting that the better team didn't win and Chelsea would have prevailed if they'd played 11-v-11 for both legs. Which is crap, because Chelsea didn't play that well. They came into this game knowing they had to score at least twice, but with a few exceptions like John Terry, they weren't really playing like they wanted to win. Mr 2nd-Best-Player-in-the-World was invisible for way too much of the game, aside from scoring that dubious penalty.

Plus, it's not as if Chelsea had one of their players sent off arbitrarily in the first leg, just to spite them or whatever. Del Horno fouled Messi because he couldn't defend against him cleanly, and his team paid the price. Gallas must have breathed a sigh of relief when the wee Argentine went off injured in the second leg -- not that it really seemed to help.

Also: I think this was the first time I'd seen footage of the Nou Camp, and wow, it's incredible. It kind of reminded me of the quidditch stadium from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, actually. (Shut up.)


Juventus 2 - 1 Werder Bremen (aggregate 4-4)
You know, I kind of wish I'd watched the Italian commentary instead. I woildn't have understood what they were saying, but at least I wouldn't have had to listen to the Americans on ESPN and their obsession with offside calls.

Anyway, on to the game itself: I was half-heartedly rooting for Werder Bremen on the strength of their whacked-out orange and green uniforms, plus the fact that I figure Juventus is sort of the Chelsea of Serie A. The first leg was a crazy 3-2 in favour of Bremen, but Juve had the advantage on away goals, so both teams needed to press hard in this leg. Which they did, albeit only sporadically.

Tim Wiese, the Bremen keeper, had a damn good game up until the last five minutes, when he dropped the ball and Emerson pounced to put Juve through. Ouch. (Someone also needs to tell Wiese that his tight pink jersey makes him look like he has man-boobs.)


Villareal 1 - 1 Rangers (aggregate 3-3)
Oh, come on. You didn't really think Rangers were going to make it through, did you?


Up next: Liverpool go out with a whimper rather than a bang, Arsenal are the last quote-unquote English team left in the competition, and I attempt to console myself with Andriy Shevchenko.

Champions League Round of 16: February 22

Just pretend I posted this a couple days ago, okay? The Olympics are wreaking havoc with my football-watching schedule.

Chelsea 1 - 2 Barcelona
I'm not sure what was the most frightening visual: Puyol's hair (how does he even see the ball through that mop?) or Barca's neon yellow uniforms. Deco's eyebrows were a distant third.

Actually, it was kind of an ugly game all round, from the condition of the pitch to the two own-goals. Although Chelsea did a decent job of containing Barcelona in the first half, you still had the sense that the Spanish team could break through at any time. Chelsea came out hard to start the second half and eke out a goal, but after that it was all Barca. Samuel Eto'o scored a gorgeous second goal, leaving Chelsea with a huge disadvantage to overcome at the Nou Camp.

As for that controversial red card for Del Horno? I thought it was a bit harsh, but definitely at least a yellow. Plus, I'm in favour of anything that pisses off Jose Mourinho.

Werder Bremen 3 - 2 Juventus
This is where you pull out all the clichés about it being a game of two halves and whatnot. It was end-to-end play in the first half, with Bremen enjoying most of the possession, finally grabbing a messy goal just before the break. The second half was much chippier, with momentum shifting back and forth. Juve equalized and then took the lead after some terrible defending from Bremen, but the Bundesliga's top offence scored twice more in a frantic end to the game. This one could go either way next week.

Ajax 2 - 2 Inter Milan
Ajax scored twice within the first 20 minutes, with Inter's defence looking ragged. After that, Ajax were content to sit back, soak up the pressure, and break forward when they could. Inter had lots of possession but still looked cautious, although they were unlucky not to score just before halftime, with the ball pinging off the crossbar twice in a row. But a totally different Inter team came out for the second half and pulled one back right away. The game opened up again then, with both teams giving the ball away a lot. Inter managed a well-deserved equalizer in the last five minutes, giving them the advantage heading into the second leg.

Rangers 2 - 2 Villareal
They didn't show this game here, which was fine with me since I don't care about either team -- aside from my residual bitterness that Villareal got through to the knockout rounds instead of United. I'm sticking with my prediction that Rangers will be the team to go out.