Champions League Quarter-finals

Liverpool 4-2 Arsenal (5-3 agg)
Wow. That was a hell of a game.

Rafa surprised everyone by switching things up and giving Peter Crouch a start alongside Fernando Torres, with Ryan Babel left on the bench. Crouch certainly deserved a chance after his performance against Arsenal last weekend, and he combined with Torres for Liverpool's second goal, but even so I wonder if it was a mistake to change from the formation that they were used to and that had been working so well. With Steven Gerrard nominally on the left, it meant that they had one fewer player in centre midfield, which is always dangerous against a team like Arsenal that can pass around you, and certainly for the first half-hour Liverpool were being overrun.

Emmanuel Adebayor was giving the defence problems from the start -- although fortunately he kept being flagged offside -- but it was Abou Diaby who scored the opening goal, beating Pepe Reina at the near post. Up front for Liverpool, Torres wasn't seeing much of the ball, and it took a set piece for them to equalize, as Sami Hyypia broke away from Philippe Senderos at a corner to power in a header. The goal seemed to give Liverpool confidence, and they started to get more of a grip on the game -- helped by Mathieu Flamini being forced off with an injury just before halftime.

They were much stronger at the start of the second half than they were in the first, and eventually went ahead with an utterly fantastic goal from Torres -- a long ball forward from Reina, flicked on by Crouch to Torres, who spun around and fired it into the far corner as the hapless Senderos strugged to keep up. With 20 minutes left, Arsenal brought on Theo Walcott and Robin van Persie, flinging everything at Liverpool in an attempt to survive. It was Walcott who created their second goal, bringing the ball forward from deep in his own half and dodging four Liverpool players before setting up Adebayor in the 84th minute.

But they barely had time to savour the goal when Liverpool scored again. Ryan Babel, who'd looked lively since he came on as a substitute for Crouch, was pulled down in the box by Kolo Toure for a penalty, and Gerrard coolly stepped up to smash it past Manuel Almunia. The tie may have come down to a tale of two penalties -- the one given to Liverpool here, and the one not given to Arsenal last week -- and I have to admit that both incidents looked pretty similar to me. But Babel made it all moot with a fourth goal in stoppage time, racing onto a clearance from Dirk Kuyt and outmuscling Cesc Fabregas (who was carefully stubbled, just to remind everybody that he's a big boy now) to put the game away.

So-called football purists will lament the fact that Arsenal and their beautiful football are out of the competition now, but ultimately I do not give a damn. Beautiful football is meaningless if you don't have the balls to win games, and I will take Steven Gerrard and his magnificent hairy thighs over Arsene's boy-toys any day. And now we get yet another Liverpool-Chelsea semi-final, which even I am not going to pretend is likely to be a scintillating match-up. Although there is always the opportunity to make John Terry cry.


United 1-0 Roma (3-0 agg)
Sir Alex might have claimed not to be taking anything for granted ahead of this game, but the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney started on the bench tells you everything you need to know about the relative importance of Roma versus Arsenal this weekend. Even without those two players, United still had enough to win, with Carlos Tevez scoring the only goal. But there were some nervy moments, particularly when Wes Brown brought down Mancini for a debatable penalty -- it's hard to tell, but I think he might have got the ball first -- which Daniel de Rossi blasted over the bar. (And I laughed, because I dislike de Rossi for no apparent reason.) The clean sheet was encouraging, with Mikael Silvestre making his first start in ages (I'd almost forgotten about him), Rio Ferdinand making it through the game despite a foot injury, and Gary Neville finally returning from injury as a substitute. Player of the game, though, was Owen Hargreaves, who worked his socks off for 90 minutes and even set up Tevez's goal with a perfect cross.


Chelsea 2-0 Fenerbahce (3-2 agg)
Okay, somebody out there has a voodoo doll with a Chelsea goalkeeper kit, right? Because they are totally cursed. First Petr Cech gets his face all cut up in training (50 STITCHES! That is ridiculous.), and then Carlo Cudicini takes over from him and pulls a hamstring. And didn't this happen last year too? Voodoo doll, I'm telling you. Anyway, third-choice keeper Hilario made a few good saves to see Chelsea through to the next round. But they made things a bit tougher for themselves than they needed to. Michael Ballack's header gave them an early advantage, but they waited until the 87th minute to put the tie away with a second goal from Frank Lampard. Michael Essien, who set up that goal, however, will be missing the first semi-final game at Anfield through suspension, which is a boost to Liverpool.


Barcelona 1-0 Schalke (2-0 agg)
Barcelona did enough to get themselves into the semi-finals with another 1-0 victory over Schalke, but they didn't exactly look convincing in the process. There's been a constant stream of dressing-room drama, with Ronaldinho and Deco supposedly being dropped for partying too much, and Thierry Henry being generally mediocre now that he's left his Arsenal harem. Leo Messi will probably be back from injury for Barca when they face United later this month, but the bad news is that Carles Puyol will be suspended for the first leg after picking up another yellow card here.

Why do I always seem to be away during Champions League weeks?

Apologies for the lack of posts around here, but I've been on vacation all week. I meant to put something up before I left, but an insufficient amount of time and an oversufficient amount of alcohol conspired against it. Probably just as well, because all my Champions League predictions would have been woefully inaccurate.

The resort did have ESPN, but even I wasn't about to give up valuable beach time in favour of watching football. So I'm just catching up now.

• I did see the second half of United's game against Roma, as they took a 2-0 lead home to Old Trafford. It looked like a solid performance, not as over-cautious as they too often are when playing away in Europe. And Cristiano Ronaldo will have shut a few more people up with his goal here. The bad news is the injury to Nemanja Vidic; combined with Rio Ferdinand limping out of their game on the weekend, it leaves the back line looking rather shaky. Reminds me of last season, actually, when I think seem to recall them being forced into playing Darren Fletcher at right-back.
  
  
• Liverpool drew 1-1 with Arsenal at the Emirates, which gives them a slight advantage going into the second leg. But it's a very slight advantage. It's quite possible that Fernando Torres will score a brilliant goal and they'll put together another magnificent defensive performance and stymie Arsenal for 90 minutes, but it's equally possible that Pepe Reina will have a brain fart and then Dirk Kuyt will fall over his own feet when presented with an open net. I am expecting dreading that it's going to be another 1-1 followed by penalties.
  
  
• Chelsea took the lead against Fenerbahce through an own-goal, but then gave up two goals in the second half; it was the reverse of many of their games this season, as they played well but still lost. Ha. And Barcelona beat Schalke, as expected, albeit by only one goal -- the first Champions League goal for wunderkind Bojan Krkic.
  
  
• Meanwhile, in the league, United started the week by destroying Villa 4-0, demonstrating what they can do if you are foolish enough to go to Old Trafford and attempt to play rather than stringing 11 men across the goalmouth. They followed that up with a snowy 2-2 draw at Middlesbrough, who have been surprisingly tough against the so-called big teams this year. Uh-oh.
  
  
• Liverpool faced a couple of tricky games but have done pretty well, beating Everton 1-0 in the derby and then drawing against Arsenal with their second-string team in the league game sandwiched between their two Champions League matches. They still have only a narrow lead over Everton in the table, but it should be enough to preserve their spot in the top four. The boardroom drama continues; I continue to stick my fingers in my ears and chant "La la la I can't hear you."
  
  
• Chelsea are still steadily winning games, beating Middlesbrough and then Man City. They're now only three points behind Manchester United and I'm starting to get a bit worried. But I refuse to believe that United can be caught by a team managed by one of the Gorgs from Fraggle Rock.
  
  
• Arsenal staged an amazing comeback last weekend, beating a doomed Bolton 3-2 after going down 2-0 and then having a man sent off. I was laughing at them when I left for the airport at halftime, and then they had to go and win after all, the bastards.
  
  
• Also, Newcastle apparently don't suck anymore...when did that happen?
  
  
• In the FA Cup, Portsmouth beat West Brom and Cardiff beat Barnsley, both one-nil, to reach the finals. I am trying to care and failing miserably, especially now that designated minnows Barnsley are out.
  
  
• And here at home, Toronto FC are off to another dismal start to the season, losing their first two games on the road, against Columbus and DC United. I think this could be a chronic problem for them, because they're probably going to start every season away from home while they wait for the snow to melt. Makes it hard to build any sort of momentum when you've already dropped points in your first few games. A bit of good news (I guess?) is that they've signed Laurent Robert from Derby. Yeah, only in MLS is picking up a player from the worst team in the Premiership seen as an asset.

Champions League Round of 16: March 5

Champions League Round of 16: March 5

Real Madrid 1-2 Roma (2-4 agg)
That sound you hear is Iker Casillas weeping into his gloves as the defence in front of him imploded once again and Real Madrid crashed out of the Champions League at this stage for the fourth year in a row. Pepe was sent off for a second yellow card in the 71st minute, and just a couple minutes later Taddei scored the opening goal for Roma. Raul equalized shortly thereafter, but his team would have still needed another goal to bring them level over two legs. Instead it was Roma who scored again, Vucinic guaranteeing their place in the next round with a goal in stoppage time.

Chelsea 3-0 Olympiakos
Fucking Chelsea. I guess it was too much to hope that they would choke. Instead they've cruised through, helped by the fact that Olympiakos were essentially useless. They've also demonstrated that Michael Ballack and Frank Lampard can play together after all: the opening goal was a Ballack header from Lampard's cross, the second Ballack's shot and Lampard scoring the rebound. (Kalou added the third goal in the second half.) So, I don't know; maybe we need to start teaching Steven Gerrard some German.

Porto - Schalke (1-1 agg; 1-4 pen)
Porto were down to 10 men when Lisandro Lopez scored in the 86th minute to cancel out Schalke's 1-0 lead from the first leg and force extra time. But after that ended with no more goals, Schalke keeper Manuel Neuer made two penalty saves to send his team into the quarter-finals for the first time.

Liverpool travel to Italy next week for the second leg against Inter. I will be wearing my lucky red shirt and attempting not to bite my fingernails.

Champions League Round of 16: February 19

Liverpool 2-0 Inter
For 85 minutes, I thought that this was going to be one of those nights. One of those games where, no matter how much Liverpool dominated, they just weren't going to score.

Liverpool started strongly, pushing Inter back and forcing the defenders into errors, like those two fouls by Materazzi on Torres. That may have added up to a harsh red card -- although, come on, if you were going to bet on a player being sent off, it would totally have been Matrix. But even with a one-man advantage and almost 70% of possession, they still couldn't find a way through. You could see the same problems that have plagued them all season with their inability to kill games off; they really didn't create enough clear chances to test the keeper. In fact, I was starting to worry that it would be Inter who'd manage to steal a goal.

But finally, it was the much-maligned Dirk Kuyt who scored the crucial goal for Liverpool, with a lot of help from a deflection. I still don't understand Rafa's penchant for playing him as a winger (considering that he has neither speed nor a great deal of skill on the ball), but at least he was in the right place at the right time for once. By that point, Inter's defence had been weakened further as their other centre half, Ivan Cordoba, had already been taken off injured. And substitute Patrick Vieira, who looks to be about half the player he once was, had been very lucky not to concede a penalty after a blatant handball in the box.

Gerrard added a bit of gloss to the scoreline with a 90th-minute goal that found its way through a crowd of players and arrowed in off the far post. That leaves Liverpool with a two-goal advantage heading into the second leg in Milan, with the bonus of not having given up an away goal. How come they can do it against the best teams in Europe but not against fucking Barnsley? Gah.

Also: Shut up, Tommy Smyth. I should know better than to expect anything insightful from the ESPN commentators, but really. Whatever strategy Liverpool tried yesterday, he criticized. First he didn't like that they were playing the ball back and forth across the pitch -- despite the fact that that's a pretty good way to pull the other team out of position, especially when they're a man down. Then he said that they needed to keep possession more. (More than 70%? Whatever.) Then he said that rather than holding on to the ball, they should be running at defenders instead. Eedjit.


Roma 2-1 Real
Real will be disappointed not to have come away with at least a draw, after taking an early lead with a goal from Raul and dominating much of the play. But Roma got over their intra-team squabbling and came back to win the game, helped by a deflected goal and then a defensive lapse by Gabriel Heinze. Poor Iker Casillas. He deserves better.

Olympiakos 0-0 Chelsea
"Do I want to watch Chelsea grind out another stultifying scoreless draw?" I asked myself. And the answer was, emphatically, no. Instead, I will give you this statistic: Five shots on target in the whole game. For both teams combined. That's the excitement of European competition, right there.

Schalke 1-0 Porto
Kevin Kuranyi gave his team a narrow lead with an early goal. I strongly disapprove of Kevin Kuranyi's facial hair.

Champions League Matchday 2: October 2-3

Manchester United 1-0 Roma
Another grind-it-out one-nil win. Ho hum. Actually, I thought that United played reasonably well -- better than they have in recent games, at least -- with a couple of caveats: First, although it was a pleasant surprise seeing Louis Saha starting up front, he didn't get much service from the rest of the team. Second, Roma had several good chances in front of the net, and if their finishing had been any less atrocious, they could easily have stolen a win. Still, United are on top of their group for the moment, with home and away matches against bottom-feeders Dynamo Kiev up next. And it's good too see Wayne Rooney with his scoring boots on again, although his return from injury is somewhat overshadowed by the news that Michael Carrick has a fractured elbow and will be out for six week. With Owen Hargreaves crocked as well, that leaves -- gulp! -- John O'Shea to partner Paul Scholes in midfield. Oh dear.

Liverpool 0-1 Marseille
Oh, Liverpool. What is wrong with you? I'm starting to think that they used up all their goals against Derby. I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and blame Rafa's rotation policy for this result, though; considering the players they had injured or suspended, this wasn't a bad lineup. In hindsight, I would've replaced Leto and Sissoko with Riise and Mascherano, but the players Rafa chose really ought to have been good enough to beat a team that's been stinking up the French league and just sacked their manager. Sissoko is probably going to get most of the criticism -- and rightly so, considering the number of times he got caught in possession -- but the rest of the team was awful too. There was just no sense of urgency from Liverpool. They gave Marseille way too much time and space on the ball, and it wasn't until injury time that they really started to attack the other team's goal. Imagine how much better they could have done if they'd played for 90 minutes the way they did for the last five. And I do wonder if that apathetic performance should partly be blamed on rotation: when you have a starting XI that's not used to playing together, or players that simply haven't gotten much playing time recently, it's hardly surprising when their game is so disjointed.

Valencia 1-2 Chelsea
Damn it, what happened to the Chelsea meltdown? I was so hoping for another spectacular crash and burn, and instead they actually went out and played well, those bastards. But maybe this is just a false dawn in the ongoing soap opera at Stamford Bridge (in the next episode: Andriy Shevchenko is revealed to be Roman Abramovich's long-lost non-identical twin brother! Frank Lampard and Carlo Cudicini are having an affair! And Didier Drogba is possessed by the devil!). Also looking on the bright side, I did enjoy seeing David Villa blow past John Terry like he was standing still for the opening goal. Maybe the weight of that face mask was slowing Terry down?


Let's all laugh at Dida, shall we?



Group A
Liverpool 0-1 Marseille
Beşiktaş 0-1 Porto

Group B
Valencia 1-2 Chelsea
Rosenborg 0-2 Schalke

Group C
Lazio 2-2 Real Madrid
Werder Bremen 1-3 Olympiacos

Group D
Celtic 2-1 AC Milan
Benfica 0-1 Shakhtar Donetsk

Group E
Lyon 0-3 Rangers
Stuttgart 0-2 Barcelona

Group F
Manchester United 1-0 Roma
Dynamo Kiev 1-2 Sporting Lisbon

Group G
CSKA Moscow 2-2 Fenerbahçe
Inter Milan 2-0 PSV Eindhoven

Group H
Steaua Bucharest 0-1 Arsenal
Sevilla 4-2 Slavia Prague

Champions League Quarter-finals: Manchester United 7 - 1 Roma

Wow. Just, wow.

What else do you say to that? Roma had only conceded five goals in their entire Champions League campaign up to this point; at Old Trafford they very nearly matched that in the first half.

So were Roma really bad, or were United really good? A bit of both, I'd say. Roma needed to batten down the hatches after United's first goal, which they utterly failed to do, and after that three-goal flurry they just gave up. United, meanwhile, were at their best. Sharp passing, fluid movement, great finishing...they did it all. And they did it all with Darren Fletcher anchoring the midfield.

(I joke about that, but actually I think Fletcher had quite a good game -- the first time in a long while that I haven't assumed he'd blackmailed Sir Alex to get into the lineup. He's never going to be the most skilled player, but he was solid, and he harried the Roma midfield all night; I think they were missing a player like that, with both Perotta and Taddei out.)

United lined up to match Roma in a 4-2-3-1, with Giggs pulling the strings behind Alan Smith, and Rooney and Ronaldo on the wings -- a formation I normally hate when Sir Alex tries it, but for whatever reason it worked. (My own theory is that calling it 4-2-3-1 instead of 4-5-1 meant the attacking players felt like they had more licence to get forward, rather than the overly cautious way they usually approach European ties.)

Roma started the game with a decent spell of pressure; I wonder if things would have turned out differently if Totti's early shot had been on target instead of just wide. But instead it was United scoring first, as Ronaldo fed Carrick, who placed it perfectly past Doni in the Roma net. That opened the floodgates, as United scored twice more in the next 10 minutes, with goals from Smith and Rooney -- in both cases a combination of slide-rule passes from Giggs and defending so bad it was like watching Newcastle in disguise.

Ronaldo made it four just before halftime. He'd been dancing around defenders all night like he was protected by a forcefield or something, and this time they made the mistake of giving him space to shoot and he drilled the ball in at the near post. Then another one on the other side of halftime, from a Giggs cross, and again some woeful Roma defending. United's defence might be kind of shaky at the moment too, but it's hard to tell when you keep the ball in the other half all game.

Things calmed down a bit after Carrick's second goal -- making it 6-0, with Doni once again rooted to the spot. I think Roma might have done just as well to play without a keeper and bring on an extra outfield player instead, because all he did was pick the ball out of his own net and model a jersey that looked like something out of Star Trek. Unfortunately for Roma, there's no such thing as a mercy rule in Champions League football. Although United did the next best thing by bringing on Kieran Richardson.

Roma did get a consolation goal (very small consolation), a gorgeous volley hit on the turn by De Rossi. But United hit back for a seventh, from Patrice Evra, playing out of position at right-back for absolutely no reason I can think of, apart from maybe to rub some Italian noses in it.

Just watch it for yourself. It's like a goal-of-the-month competition in the space of 90 minutes.

Champions League Quarter-finals: April 4

Roma 2 - 1 Manchester United
OH MY GOD SCHOLES LEARN TO TACKLE.

You'd think he would have learned his lesson after being suspended for the Champions League final back in 1999. And yet he just keeps doing it. Sir Alex can blame the referee or the Roma players all he likes, but both tackles looked like clear yellow cards to me. And he'd already given up a couple of other free kicks in dangerous territory.

United actually adapted pretty well to the sending-off -- not panicking, hanging on to possession -- but the defence let them down for Roma's first goal. Unsurprisingly, with three regular starters out injured, the United back line looked shaky all night, and Roma's 4-6-0 formation must drive you nuts trying to figure out who to pick up. But the goal came from sloppy defending, no excuses. They left a bunch of Roma players unmarked at a corner and didn't react quickly enough, giving Mancini time to cut the ball back to Taddei for a shot.

Roma stepped up the pressure to start the second half. But United got an equalizer against the run of play, created by Ronaldo -- undoubtedly their most threatening player all game -- and finished beautifully by Rooney. Unfortunately they weren't able to hold Roma off, with the Italians attacking in waves straight through the middle. I think Van der Sar could have done better for the second goal if he'd tipped Mancini's shot it over the bar rather than parrying it straight at Vucinic. Again the United defence was scrambling, but that one you couldn't really blame on them.

Anyway, the result leaves United not too badly positioned for the next leg -- 2-1 is better than 1-0. It's hard to imagine them not being able to score at least once at Old Trafford, but the question is whether they'll be able to keep Roma from doing the same. And I wonder who they'll draft into the lineup to replace Scholes. (Probably Fletcher? Oh joy.)

As for the crowd trouble: there are a lot of people who are better informed than I am about this (especially considering that they didn't even show it on the version I saw), but the impression I got is that although neither set of fans was blameless, the Italian police handled the whole situation incredibly badly. Not that I expect UEFA to admit it, though.

And finally, kudos to TSN, who, in their infinite wisdom, decided to start the match 27 minutes in. Well done, boys.


Chelsea 1 - 1 Valencia
A very tight game, as expected, and the second leg will probably be more of the same. I think Valencia just had the edge in this one, but there's a good chance that Chelsea will grind out a victory in Spain. And I do mean grind, because although both teams were playing at about a jillion miles an hour, there's wasn't much flow to Chelsea's game in particular.

A few items of note:
- Petr Cech's puffy helmet is still funny. I know, that's not nice of me. But it makes him look like he should have idiot strings attached to his gloves.
- Canizares really is a terrible keeper. I noticed more than one free kick where he started to come for the ball and then got blocked by his own players or just stranded in no man's land. So it was hardly surprising that he was caught out of position for Chelsea's equalizer.
- David Silva's goal = fabulous. Just watch it.

Champions League Round of 16 Wrapup

I was a less than impressive three for eight in my predictions. But I'm quite happy with that, because in almost every case the team I liked better is through (the obvious exception being Chelsea, and even there I couldn't quite bring myself to cheer for Porto).

Liverpool 0 - 1 Barcelona (2-2 aggregate)
Yeah, they lost. But who cares? Because last year's champions are out and Liverpool are not. And now we do the dance of joy!

I was nervous before the game about how Liverpool would approach it -- whether they'd try to just defend their lead from the first leg and end up paying for it. And they did put on a very organized, disciplined display. Jamie Carragher was awesome once again (I could watch him make tackles like this all day, seriously), and the whole back line was solid, including Arbeloa once again playing out of position at left-back (which makes more sense than you'd think, since Leo Messi cuts inside onto his left foot a lot). They didn't spend the whole game sitting back, though. Liverpool actually had a lot more shots than Barca did, but they just could not hit the net. And I've made that exact same comment way too many times this season. More shooting practice, please, boys?


Tuesday's other games

• Valencia 0 - 0 Inter Milan (2-2 aggregate): Ok, you've all seen the fight, right? Watch it again anyway. It's not like there are any goals to tell you about. Plus, even though we're officially supposed to disapprove of this sort of thing, it's still tremendously entertaining. A twisted kind of credit goes to Valencia's David Navarro for actually breaking Nicolas Burdisso's nose rather than just flapping at him like a sissy, but negative points for then running away afterwards.
  
  
• Chelsea 2 - 1 Porto (3-2 aggregate): Chelsea were hardly dominant in this game, but they were also helped by some terrible goalkeeping from Porto's Helton, who made a complete hash of stopping Arjen Robben's shot. And hey, look at that! Michael Ballack finally did something useful and scored the winning goal. He's been well worth that gazillion pounds a week in wages, eh?
  
  
• Lyon 0 - 2 Roma (0-2 aggregate): Yeah, Roma still have no strikers. But apparently they don't need them.

Manchester United 1 - 0 Lille (2-0 aggregate)
Thank you, Henrik Larsson. If that was his last goal for United, it's a good way to go out. I really wish they were able to keep him, though; he may have only scored three goals so far, but they've been valuable ones. And all of a sudden they're short on strikers, with Louis Saha and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer out injured. And considering that Wayne Rooney is now their only option who (a) is fit and (b) hasn't spent the past year recovering from a horrific injury, maybe the thing to do is not strand him out of position and hope that he'll magically be in form. Yes?

No. Instead Sir Alex opted for the dreaded 4-5-1, with Rooney and Ronaldo on the wings and John O'Shea in the centre in place of Ryan Giggs. There are several possible reasons for this: resting Giggs before this weekend's FA Cup game; trying to placate Lille; giving a start to O'Shea in hopes that he'd repeat his heroics against Liverpool; and/or attempting to drive me around the bend once and for all. But whatever the reason, it didn't work out. Admittedly United were less defensive than they often are with this formation, morphing into a 4-3-3 when they went forward, but that flowing attack is still missing. They desperately need to get their attacking form back for the run-into the season, because they're going to be looking for goals from all over without a guaranteed finisher in the lineup.


Wednesday's other games

• AC Milan 1 - 0 Celtic (1-0 aggregate): Celtic's abysmal away record in Europe continues, but they put on a good show here, taking Milan to extra time before they were defeated by a brilliant goal by Kaka, which was the first time either side had scored in more than three hours of football.
  
  
• Arsenal 1 - 1 PSV Eindhoven (1-2 aggregate): Arsenal's season has gone to shit in less than two weeks, and it's all their own fault. This game was a microcosm of their problems this season: Trying to pass the other team to death rather than shooting, and then, when they did deign to shoot, terrible finishing. They probably would have gone through if they'd been able to score in either leg, but in fact their only goal came courtesy of a PSV player -- Alex, who also scored at the other end to put his own team into the quarter-finals.
  
  
• Bayern Munich 2 - 1 Real Madrid (4-4 aggregate): Real Madrid shot themselves in the foot right from the kickoff, as a mistake by Roberto Carlos let Bayern Munich in for Roy Makaay to score the fastest goal in Champions League history. Bayern went 2-0 up before Real pulled one back with a late penalty, but it wasn't enough as the Spanish side went out on away goals.

Quarter-final draw

1. AC Milan v Bayern Munich - Bayern have already knocked out one former heavyweight in Real Madrid. Can they do it again?
   
2. PSV Eindhoven v Liverpool - Probably the best draw Liverpool could have got, although they can't underestimate PSV.
   
3. Roma v Manchester United - This could be tricky. United should try to take the game to Roma in the away leg.
   
4. Chelsea v Valencia - Go Valencia. That is all.

Semi-finals: W1 v W3, W2 v W4

Champions League Round of 16: February 21

Barcelona 1 - 2 Liverpool
You couldn't write this script, could you? Bellamy scores, Riise scores, and Liverpool leave the Nou Camp with an amazing victory. And Bellamy celebrates with a golf swing, because that's exactly the kind of entertaining asshole he is.

Speaking of scripts, you know who could have used one? The announcers on ESPN. I realize that it's unorthodox to play Alvaro Arbeloa, nominally a right-back, on the left side of defence. (Although, doesn't Zambrotta switch back and forth all the time for Barcelona?) Regardless, it shouldn't have taken them the entire first half to figure this out. Maybe if they'd paid attention to what was actually happening instead of mistakenly berating the players for being out of position.

As for what was happening on the field: Liverpool started off well, but Barcelona gradually cranked up the pressure. A surging run from Zambrotta, a cross to the far post and some slack marking, and Deco (not exactly known for being good in the air) headed home the opening goal. It was all Barca for a while after that, and I was starting to think things were going to end very badly for Liverpool. But they held out and sneaked one back just before halftime. Actually, it was gifted to them by Victor Valdes, who caught Bellamy's header but slipped and let his momentum carry it over the line. (Valdes was apparently in self-destructive mode, as he also picked up a back-pass later in the game.)

Having made it to halftime with the score level, Liverpool looked solid in the second half, stifling every Barcelona attack. Meanwhile, on one of their occasional forays forward, Liverpool scored again, with some poor defending allowing Bellamy to set up Riise for the winning goal. Rijkaard's substitutions, bringing on Iniesta and Giuly, didn't have the intended effect and instead just made the team look disjointed. There were a few moments at the end of the game to make me nervous, including a free kick from Deco that hit the post and Pepe flapping at a couple of crosses, but this was far from being the fluid Barcelona football we're used to seeing. You could say that they just weren't up to par. (HA HA I KILL ME.)


Inter Milan 2 - 2 Valencia
I watched this game with the Spanish commentary, because that's the only version that was on TV here, so I didn't understand a word of what they were saying, aside from the occasional "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!" And it was still miles more enjoyable than the morons from ESPN. For one thing, I didn't spend the whole match wincing every time they mispronounced a player's name or were befuddled by the formation.

Inter were the better team throughout most of the game, and they'll be kicking themselves for conceding those two goals -- especially the second one. Although Valencia started brightly, Inter had the first real chances, first with a clearance from Canizares careening off an attacking player and having to be cleared off the line, and then with another attempt hitting the post. They finally scored from a free kick, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic poking it goalwards and Esteban Cambiasso heading home the rebound. It looked to me like Cambiasso was offside when Ibrahimovic made contact, but although the goal stood, karma was served when he had to go off injured shortly thereafter, apparently from bashing his head on the post in the follow-through. Valencia equalized in the second half with a venomous free kick from David Villa that curled around the wall, but Inter kept up the pressure and went ahead again 10 minutes later. It wasn't enough, though, as they conceded again late in the game to leave Valencia with the advantage heading into the second leg.

Porto 1 - 1 Chelsea
Has somebody out there got a John Terry voodoo doll? Because he's just come back from injury, and he limped out of this game with a sprained ankle after only ten minutes. (I do feel bad for him, actually. Not for Chelsea at all, but I have a bit of sympathy for him. Just a bit. He looked like a kicked puppy on Wednesday.) Anyway, with Terry on the sidelines being treated, Porto rubbed salt into his wounds and took advantage of a poor clearance to score the opening goal. Jose Mourinho responded by putting on Arjen Robben, and the substitution had an immediate impact, as Robben set up Andriy Shevchenko for the equalizer. I seem to recall saying that without Robben, Chelsea's attack looks unbalanced; does this mean I can start calling myself the Special One? Robben had to come off with an injury at halftime, and Chelsea were unable to score again despite dominating possession. Still, they'll be happy to take this result back to Stamford Bridge. They'd be happier if they were taking a healthy John Terry back as well.

Roma 0 - 0 Lyon
Another draw. Woo. I see that Roma are still playing with their "Strikers? Who needs 'em?" lineup, which probably explains why there wasn't even a goal to enliven things.

Champions League Round of 16: Part 2

Second verse, same as the first: Wednesday's games.

Roma - Lyon
Wheeee, two teams I don't care about at all. That being said, I hope that Roma win, because Lyon annoy me for some undefinable reason. I think the French team will win, though, because Roma have been up and down this season, whereas Lyon are currently thrashing everybody else in Ligue 1 and can afford to divert some of their attention to European competition.

Barcelona - Liverpool
There's been a lot of infighting going on at the Nou Camp recently -- but at least none of the Barca players have been beating their teammates with golf clubs. That we know of. Aside from whatever the hell has been going on at their training camp in Portugal (which, frankly, I wonder how much it's been blown out of proportion by the media, but regardless it's idiotic behavious and it's the last thing they need right now), I think there are two main issues. First of all, obviously, is shutting down the Barcelona attack. Samuel Eto'o may not be 100% fit, but still the thought of Steve Finnan and a gimpy John Arne Riise up against Ronaldinho and Leo Messi is a bit terrifying. The other question is where the goals are going to come from for the Reds. They've put in some uninspiring displays against Everton and Newcastle recently, and I suspect they're going to miss Luis Garcia's uncanny ability to conjure up European goals out of nowhere. I really want to think that Liverpool can win, but I'm going to go with Barcelona, just so I can be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong.

Porto - Chelsea
Chelsea are going to win this one, aren't they? Just so Jose Mourinho can go on being insufferable. Not that I'd really want to cheer for Porto either, since (a) the residual taint of Mourinho lingers and (b) I'm still mad at the whole country of Portugal after the World Cup. Anyway, Chelsea have got John Terry back now, which is apparently all they needed -- who cares that they're down to two centre-backs again, with Khalid Boulahrouz injured. Michael Ballack may be out as well, but I think that would actually help them, because it gives Mourinho a reason to start Arjen Robben and kickstart their attack, which has looked kind of aimless without any wingers. As for Andriy Shevchenko: well, he's doing great against teams from the Championship. So the Champions League should be no trouble at all, right?

Inter Milan - Valencia
Valencia may have topped their group easily, but I think Inter are going to knock them out here. Which sucks, because Inter are another of those teams that I inexplicably dislike (hey, football is all about irrational likes and dislikes, ok? I just go with it). The Nerazzurri are cruising at the top of Serie A right now, thanks partly to the aftermath of last year's scandal but largely due to their own unstoppable form -- they're currently on a record 16-game winning streak. Valencia are doing okay in La Liga, sitting in third place, but Inter are a steamroller.