Champions League Matchday 7 Wrap-ups

By: Laurie | February 21st, 2008

Eight games down, and we’re halfway through to the quarterfinals. How did the teams do?

Tuesday, Februay 19 games

Liverpool 2-0 Inter

Zlatan Ibrahimovic says Inter’s 0-2 loss to Liverpool is all Marco Materazzi’s fault. Matrix saw double yellow yesterday and got sent off after half an hour, leaving his team to face the last sixty minutes with ten men. Thing is, though? All accounts are saying that both were extremely soft yellows. And that Ibra didn’t play so hot himself. But it’s always easier to point the finger away, isn’t it?

In the end, Liverpool looks good going to the San Siro, and Rafa can live to rotate (or not rotate) another day.

Schalke 1-0 Porto
If there were any minnows remaining in this competition, it might be these two teams. Neither are high-profile outside of their own countries. And since I’m not all that familiar with the play of either team, I’ll let The Independent tell you about it:

Schalke 04 see no need to alter their game plan for the second leg of their Champions League tie against Porto after a textbook display in the home leg took them close to a place in the quarter-finals.

Schalke, playing in the knockout rounds of the Champions League for the first time, were rewarded for an aggressive start with a Kevin Kuranyi goal in the fourth minute.

They then showed real nerve to hold off a Porto fightback in the closing 20 minutes and secure a valuable 1-0 win. It was just what coach Mirko Slomka had asked of his players, with the side’s usual fighting spirit matched this time by unwavering concentration.

Roma 2-1 Real Madrid

Madrid’s Raúl González scored first, and Madrid dominated for long stretches, but in the end Roma got the job done with strikes by Mancini and Pizarro.

Chris at Roma Offside gave us a liveblog with a distinctly Roman flavor. Madrid blogger Steve was going to do the same, but alas, he had a date. Hope it was better than the game, Steve!

Olympiacos 0-0 Chelsea
I’m writing this up more than a day after watching this game, and I think that all of my body parts are finally awake again. I won’t say this game was boring, but… Oh, okay, yes I will. This game was boring. Chelsea played the better match but fell apart every time they reached the final third. If they reached the final third.

Would somebody please slip into Avram Grant’s bedroom while he’s sleeping and whisper into his ear: “Four four two, four four two, four four two…”

(But you might want to do it when his wife is gone. She scares me.)

Wednesday, February 20 games

Celtic 2-3 Barcelona
Heartbreak for Celtic. They play well at home and were counting on this home leg to carry them through. And they even went ahead, not once but twice, at one point leading 2-1. But Lionel Messi wasn’t going to let it happen. He scored a brace, and Thierry Henry scored once. And even guys with wonderful names like Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and…um…Barry Robson (with one goal apiece) couldn’t top that.

Lyon 1-1 Manchester United

Lyon almost pulled this one off. Nearly everyone expected Manchester United to dominate, but instead Lyon was able to shut down their longball attack with tightly controlled, on-the-ground play. It paid off when Karim Benzema blasted a shot into the net in the 54th minute. And that’s how things stayed for more than hald an hour, until ManU substitute Carlos Tevez managed to slip his marker during a prolonged period of in-the-box chaos and knock the ball home. End result, a 1-1 draw. Liveblog is here.

Arsenal 0-0 Milan

UEFA.com gave this one the delightfully (or annoyingly, depending on your preference) alliterative headline, “Resilient Rossoneri frustrate Arsenal.” That says it all.

Zeljko Kalac was apparently spectacular in goal for Milan (should Dida be worried?), and Pato again impressed. (And was responsible for the injury that took Kolo Toure off after seven minutes.) But Pato could not score. Nor could Kaka. Not could any of Arsene Wenger’s men, despite looking like the better team for much of the game.

The end result was a nil-nil draw, but it sounds like a much more entertaining game than the Olympiacos-Chelsea match.

Fenerbahce 3-2 Sevilla

This was the only scoreline that surprised me a bit. Do we underestimate teams from countries like Turkey? There’s a chance we do. Although Sevilla is probably not one of the strongest teams in the competition, they’re no slouches either. But in the end the game belonged to the home side.

Mateja Kežman and Lugano scored for Fenerbahce, and anEdu own goal and a Julien Escude goal left it tied till the 87th minute, when Semih Şentürk finished it off for the Turkish side.

Two bits of good news for Sevilla from my point of view. First, they got two important away goals, and second, my French boy Escude scored. LOVE Escude.

(Oh, okay, maybe that’s just good news for me. You probably don’t care.)

Return matches in two weeks. Stay tuned.