The big boys return to action tomorrow with their eyes all set on Istanbul and the June 10th Final. But first they have to navigate the two legs of the quarter-finals and then the semi-finals. After getting through the Round of 16 the remaining 8 clubs first thoughts went to March 17th and the all important draw. Who would they face and would they get the coveted home leg second?
Back in February we previewed the Round of 16 and projected Tottenham, Bayern, Benfica, Dortmund, Real Madrid, Napoli, Man City, and Inter Milan to advance. Went 6 for 8 missing on AC Milan over Tottenham and Chelsea over Dortmund (still not sure how that happened). As the field narrows so do the odds to advance. At this point any team has the talent to win a short set of matches. Certainly, the current level of play favors some teams more than others and we’ll get into that shortly. At this point in the European seasons most of these players have played closed to 40 matches between their domestic leagues, domestic cups, UCL, not to mention national team duties. So the big questions facing these teams is their fitness level:
- Are they healthy and able to go at least 60 minutes (the benchmark for being able to start).
- Do they have quality depth off the bench and have those bench players been getting enough playing time to be in form?
Then there is always the question of yellow card accumulation and are key players currently sitting on yellows? A yellow in the next match would cause them to have to miss the next match. This presents planning issues for the coaches. Do they sit a player in the first leg? Do they develop a game plan that puts a player into a “safer” position and tell them to play with a bit of caution. Or do you just play the game, be smart about it, but don’t try and get too cute here? We’ll know how the coaches see this over the next two days.
And before we get into the actual matchups just a quick reminder that UEFA went away from the away goals being a tiebreaker. So the away teams can’t luck into a flukey goal or a weak penalty then bunker for the rest of the match betting they can keep the other team from scoring multiple goals on their home pitch in the return leg. Really makes for a more attractive game. Now that said, don’t expect the teams to come out from the starting whistle balls to the wall. The first 20 minutes or so teams will still be feeling each other out and trying to determine their opponents tactics and where there may be weaknesses. Things will open up just have some patience. Now if a team scores an early goal then things will open up quickly.
Benfica – Inter Milan
Benfica sit in first in the Portugal La Liga and come in on a 5-0-1 stretch, with the lone loss being to fellow UCL quarter-finalist Porto. Inter come in on a pretty dreadful run going 0-3-3 in their last 6. Not the form you want to be showing. Neither of these teams have faired will in UCL of late. Benfica have made the quarter-finals 5 times in the UCL format. They have not advanced yet. On the other side of the field, Inter has not made it to the quarters since they won it all in 2010. So both teams are looking to improve on some recent history. Neither team have significant injury issues although Benfica is missing a couple of players and CB Nicolas Otamendi is suspended. The difference here looks to be two fold. Benfica is on much better form and they have more goal scoring ability than Inter.
Projection – Benfica moves on.
Manchester City – Bayern Munich
Poor Bayern. First they drew French power PSG for the Round of 16 and now they have to face Man C, the team most still have winning it all and with good reason. Saturday Norwegian super striker Erling Haaland returned from an injury and scored two more goals in Man C’s win. That gave him 30 goals on the season. To put that in perspective that is more than 7 teams in the EPL have scored. As to form, well nobody wants to play Man C right now. They have won 8 straight (all competitions) and sit second in the EPL (but still have a great shot to win it). Unfortunately for Man C though, they drew Bayern who, as usual, sit in first in the Bundesliga with a goal differential twice as high as the next best club. Both teams have an injury that could factor in to the matches. Midfielder Phil Foden is out for Man C and Bayern’s long time #1 keeper Manuel Neuer is out. At this level its pretty hard to replace a world class keeper like Neuer. Still Bayern has gone 4-0-2 of late even without him. Its just a shame that one of these teams won’t even make the semi-finals.
Projection – Erling Haaland, I mean Manchester City, moves on.
Real Madrid – Chelsea
Prior to the season this would have been a marquee matchup. Two of the top clubs in Europe with both having plenty of recent successes. Then something went awry at Stamford Bridge in West London. So awry that they are on their third manager of the season bringing back Frank Lampard for another stint last week to finish out the season. Chelsea sit waaaaayyyy down in the EPL in 11th place with a negative goal differential (they are on of the 7 EPL sides that Haaland has outscored). Form wise, well its not good. The have gone 2-2-2 in their last 6 but 0-2-2 in their last 4. On top of that they have injuries to a number of key players and a whole raft of guys sitting on yellows that would miss the return leg if booked.
Real on the other hand have gone 4-0-2 of late and striker Karim Benzema has been on a scoring tear with 2 hat tricks in his last 3 matches. Ferland Mendy (defender) is the lone Real player out with injury and likely won’t have much of an impact as he hasn’t played much since the winter break anyway. The other good news for Real fans is that not a single player is sitting on card accumulation. This could be a major factor in this matchup.
Projection – Chelsea fans were hoping that the team might get the mystical bump in play when a new manager come in but that was not the case in their 1-0 loss to Wolverhampton on Saturday. Blues fans are going to be singing the blues when this one is over. Real advances.
AC Milan – Napoli
Milan comes in on a 1-2-3 run, if you can call it a run, and have hit a scoring snag. In their last 7 home matches they have only scored 7 times. In a competition like UCL, where goal scoring is hard as it is, especially on the road, that doesn’t bode well for AC. Napoli comes in on a 4-0-2 run and continue to sit atop the Serie A and unlike AC, they have been scoring plenty this season (+45 goal differential in league play). AC will have basically their entire roster. Napoli has most of theirs but they are going to be without their striker Victor Osimhen for at least the first leg. That is a huge blow. Then there is the fact that two weeks ago AC went to Naples and dismantled Napoli 4-0 on their home field. This one is a tough one to figure out. Over the season there is no doubt that Napoli is the deeper and more talented side. But in a two match setup that may not mean much,
Projection – Going to go with Napoli just because but I wouldn’t put money on either of these teams
All the matches will be shown on Paramount + and they should all be pretty entertaining matches. But the Man C – Bayern match is must see soccer.
Soccer Analyst
Steve is an avid fan of all things soccer and the O’s. Originally from the west, he grew up in the Baltimore area. He returned to the west for college where he earned a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Montana State University and spent 36 years working at the Idaho National Laboratory prior to retiring in 2013. It was during his school years in Baltimore where he learned to play soccer and that developed into a life long passion. He played competitively for over 40 years and was a four year starting goalkeeper at MSU. He also coached and refereed in the Idaho premier soccer and High School programs for many years.