Champions League quarter final draw

Here’s how the balls came out, so to speak:

Villarreal v Arsenal
Manchester United v FC Porto
Liverpool v Chelsea
Barcelona v Bayern Munich

(The winner of Villarreal v Arsenal will play the winner of Man Utd v Porto in one semi final, which means you don’t have to be a genius to guess what happens in the other side of the draw).

The Anorak verdict:

Not Liverpool v Chelsea again, please! - that was about the only requisite for this draw, and Uefa f**ked it up. We all know from previous experience that when those two teams meet in Europe they cancel each other out and you end up with football that no one wants to watch, not even some fans of the two clubs. What is this, like the 50th time they’ve met in the CL in the last few seasons. Almost, or that’s how it feels. For the record, Chelsea will pull off a minor shock by knocking out Liverpool.

The other English teams, Man Utd and Arsenal, must be very content to have drawn the so-called weaker teams left. United will surely be too strong for Porto, and Arsenal - who are getting stronger as the season goes on, albeit too late for their league chances - have more than a fighting chance of getting past Villarreal.

Anorak

Posted: 20th, March 2009 | In: Sports Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink