Champions League Matchday Five
There is a reason why Barcelona are the defending European Champions and they showed their class again today. Just think without Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimovic Barcelona were still in a different class compared to Inter Milan. I’ve said this before and I’ll use it again now but when you are a coach of a team this is how your season is going to go. Let’s use a 50 game domestic and Champions League season as an example here. On 10% of those games so five games a club is going to be world beaters and everything is going to click. On the flip side there will be another five games were nothing goes right and are clearly second best. A team’s success is then determine on the other 80% of games where all things are equal. Mourinho won’t be happy about it but today against Barcelona was clearly one of those five games where nothing clicks. Mourinho and his Inter players should quickly forget about this result and focus on their match against Rubin Kazan that will decide their Champions League fate.
Considering how father time has seemingly caught up with Rio Ferdinand wonder if Sir Alex Ferguson regrets selling Gerald Pique?
My other main focus was on Liverpool this afternoon. Before I’ll start with the good. I like Liverpool fans, let’s be honest here going 20 years without winning the league must be tough considering all the success has had previously so you know Liverpool fans are truly devoted without being glory hunters. With that said I’m glad they are out of the Champions League. They started out flat with a previous 1-0 win over Debrecen and were never able to build from there. Congrats to Fiorentina and Lyon for advancing from Group E, both teams were worthy in advancing with Fiorentina beating Liverpool at home and Lyon coming back to earn a last minute win and a draw respectably against Liverpool.
Maybe this is just me but don’t you want to see a non European Giant make the Semi Finals of the Champions League? To a point it’s good seeing the likes of Barcelona, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and A.C Milan in the semi finals but I wouldn’t mind seeing the days were PSV and Porto were able to challenge for the title of being Europe’s best team.
Finally congrats to Arsenal on advancing. Not that there was any doubt but good to get it out of the way before matchday six.