UEFA Champions League 2012/13 Knockout Stage Draw

Mouth-watering. Clash of the Titans. Return of Cristiano Ronaldo. Sir Alex vs. Jose Mourinho.

These were some of the multitude of exclamations that were uttered when the draw for the Knockout Stages of UEFA Champions League 2012/13 was revealed earlier today.

For the standout tie of the round was Manchester United vs. Real Madrid. The two biggest football clubs in the world will do battle in the round of 16 come February and again in March 2013 to secure their passage into the last 8 of the competition. Full draw is as below:

Other tantalizing fixtures include Arsenal taking on Bayern Munich, Barcelona tussling with AC Milan and Juventus getting to battle Celtic. But those pale in comparison to the battle of the big two in club football!

One has to hark back to the 2002/03 season for United & Madrid’s last meeting at the European stage – Madrid running out eventual winners by 6-5. The stakes are much higher this time around. With their La Liga defense looking all but over, what with a 13 point deficit to Barcelona, and talks of Mourinho heading for the Bernabeu exit, the CL remains Madrid’s top priority.

For Sir Alex, another European triumph might only be second on his to-do list after wresting back the EPL crown from City but that doesn’t make it less wanted. Especially after those defeats to Barcelona and their disappointing campaign last season in the CL.

As I said in my post about the group stages’ draw – once gain, Le Jeu Commence!

UEFA Champions League 2012/13 Group Stages Draw

The 2012-13 domestic football season has started off in earnest across across Europe over the past few weeks and it is just a matter of days before the continental championship kicks off as well. The draw for the group stages of the UEFA Champions League 2012/13 was held earlier today and the best of European clubs found out whom they will be facing come September

Holders Chelsea are grouped alongside Juventus whereas Arsenal have Schalke & Montpellier for company. Manchester United have an easy looking draw with Galatasaray, CFR Cluj & Braga being their opponents; but we all know what happened last season with a similar “easy looking” draw! The toughest group has to be Group D with Real Madrid, Ajax, Borussia Dortmund in there…and yeah, Manchester City round off that group…all four champions of their respective leagues!

The first legs of the round robin matches start on the 18th of September and the group stage will complete on the 5th of December. Le jeu commence.

UEFA Champions League 2012 – Quarter Final Draw

The draw for the 2012 UEFA Champions League was held earlier today and as usual, one of two interesting ties were thrown out. Holders Barcelona would take on Serie A champions AC Milan whilst the lone remaining English side Chelsea were handed a trip to Portugal against Benfica.

Real Madrid were handed an easy match against Cypriot side APOEL, whose fairytale run in this season’s tournaments continues. Bayern Munich take on French side Marseille in the remaining QF.

First legs of the matches are on the 27th/28th of March with the return legs on 7th/8th of April. The Semi Finals’ first legs are scheduled for 17th/18th of April and return legs on 24th/25th of April. Final is on the 19th of May at Bayern’s Allianz Arena.

Champions League 2012 – Round of 16 Draw

The draw for the round of 16 matches of the UEFA Champions League 2011-2011 was made earlier today at Nyon.

And know what, there is no Manchester United innit! They are in the draw for the *blegh* Europa League

Pick of the lot? AC Milan Vs. Arsenal. I’d also expect Chelsea to be given a stern test my the Napoli whiz-trio of Hamsik, Cavani & Lavezzi…but it remains to be seen if either or all of them will still be with Napoli come February

The first legs will be played on 14/15 & 21/22 February 2012 with the return legs on 6/7 & 13/14 March 2012

More: UEFA.com | BBC Sport

My European Football Team of the Year 2010

From UEFA.com’s Team of Year Poll | Link via Phil Minshull

Champions League 2011 – Round of 16 Draw

The draw for the round of 16 matches of the UEFA Champions League 2010-2011 was made earlier today at Nyon and it threw up some mouth-watering and some predictable ties.

Pick of the lot? There’s the battle of the tiki-taka: Arsenal Vs. Barcelona and also the rematch of last year’s final in Inter Milan Vs. Bayern Munich or how about AC Milan Vs. Tottenham Hotspur!

The easy-peasies? Well, one would expect Manchester United, Real Madrid and Chelsea to have a fairly easy-ish passage into the last 8.

The first leg of those matches will be played starting February the 15th 2011.

More: UEFA.com | BBC Sport

2010-11 UEFA Champions League Draw

The draw for the group stage of the 2010-2011 UEFA Champions League was held earlier today at Monaco and it threw up some really delicious ties for Europe’s top club prize. 32 clubs were split into eight groups of four teams, who’ll play each other home and away between September and December to decide which two teams from each group advance to the first knockout round.

• Group A: Tottenham, Inter Milan, Werder Bremen, FC Twente
• Group B: Benfica, Lyon, Schalke, Hapoel Tel-Aviv
• Group C: Manchester United, Rangers, Valencia, Bursaspor
• Group D: Barcelona, Rubin Kazan, FC Copenhagen, Panathinakos
• Group E: Bayern Munich, AS Roma, Basel, CFR Cluj
• Group F: Chelsea, Marseille, Spartak Moscow, Zilina
• Group G: Real Madrid, AC Milan, Ajax, Auxerre
• Group H: Arsenal, Shakhtar Donetsk, Partizan Belgrade, Braga

Champions Inter Milan have newcomers Tottenham, Dutch champions FC Twente and Germany’s Werder Bremen alongside them with last year’s runners up Bayern Munich in Group E alongside AS Roma, Basel & CFR Cluj.

Among the other English teams, Arsenal have potentially the easiest group as they’re bunched with Shakhtar Donetsk, Partizan Belgrade and Braga in group H. Premier League champs Chelsea were drawn alongside Marseille, Spartak Moscow and Zilina. Manchester United will face a tricky tie against SPL Champions Rangers with Valencia and Bursaspor the other teams in group C.

As is the case always, there’s the ubiquitous group of death and it is group G, with Real Madrid, Ajax, AC Milan and Auxerre grouped together innit!

The action kicks off on the 14th of September.

More: Replay of the draw | UEFA Report | BBC Sport Report

It’s Internazionale Vs. Bayern München

Vs.

Inter Milan were down to ten men (we’ll come back to that later), fought manfully, defended for their lives with striker Samuel Et’oo even playing at left back and ended up losers on the night but they beat the current European Champions Barcelona over two legs to book their place in this year’s Champions League final, where they will take on Bayern Munich for the biggest prize in European Football.

The match against Barcelona was touted as Jose Mourinho’s biggest challenge and he came up trumps again, as he did a week ago at Milan. Yeah they lost the match 1-0 but came out 3-2 winners in the tie and that’s as much down to the manager’s tactical brilliance as it was to the players. Walter Samuel, Lucio, Javier Zanetti, Maicon, Esteban Cambiasso et al put in stellar defensive purposes and stifled Barcelona so much that towards the end they had to resort to long balls and crosses in search of the elusive goal.

The match would’ve been a different affair altogether if it weren’t for the theatrics of Barca midfielder Sergio Busquets, whose dramatic antics after being touched on the face by Inter’s Thiago Motta (who was already on a yellow) and probably the crowd & Barca players’ reactions, conned/convinced the referee into showing a straight Red. Down to ten men with more than an hour to go, Inter downed gears and played as defensively as they could. Though that made the match less interesting, it offered an insight into how Barca would cope up with overtly defensive play – and the answer is: not good. Theyc ould only muster a total of 4-5 shots on-goal even though possession was 75% in their favour! Messi was subdued for the most part but the colossal-est disappointment of the night for me was Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who apart from changing his torn jersey, did little.

Hats off to the Inter side and now they must be favourites to win the big prize, come May 22nd. Of course, Bayern are no slouch and in Louis Van Gaal, possess a shrewd and experienced manager who might just manage to outwit Jose in the big match. We’ll all see in a little over three weeks’ time.

More: UEFA Match Report | BBC Sport Match Report