Champions League Qualifying: Home Sweet Nothing.

By: chris | August 20th, 2009

Home games are, for some odd reason, supposed to be something of an advantage. Home field, home fans, home cooking, home sex – it all adds up to a decided advantage at the end of the day. And it’s especially important in two-legged home-and-away doubles as the other game is….not at home.

But no one told the participants of Wednesday’s Champions League qualifying fixtures, as only Lyon sent their home fans back to their domiciles without a loss. In fact, each host gave up two or more of those priceless away goals in the process.

Either hosts are becoming far to hospitable, or somebody has some ’splainin to do.

Lyon 5 – Anderlecht 1

Karim who? Juninho what?

Having watched the first 15 or so minutes, it’s impossible to reason how it took Lyon 9 minutes to score – and on a free kick no less. They came out of the gate as though the pregame speech had come from “Adrian Mutu & Friends” and this two-legged tie was over from the opening whistle. A very impressive start for the recently dethroned. (But then, Lyon has never had difficulties feasting on inferior teams.)

Also worth noting: Michel Bastos has the best left foot nobody outside of France knows about and Lisandro Lopez is about two more steroid cycles from batting cleanup in major league baseball. Or maybe it was the beard.

Panathinaikos 2 – Atletico 3

Atletico fans are going to hear two things an awful lot this year (again):

i. God is this team rubbish at defense.
ii. God can this team score goals.

Atletico defender John Heitinga was interviewed before the game and he stated the mattress men would be looking for a goal because they “don’t like to defend 90 minutes”, or something along those lines. I’m not even sure Atletico like defending 9 minutes.

Whatever the case, last year’s Cinderellas look as though they’ll be going home without the glass slipper this year after Maxi, Kun and Diego did the damage (something which you will also hear an awful lot this year).

Levski Sofia 1 – Debrecen 2

Somewhere, Michel Platini has a shit-eatin’ grin plastered across his face.

Not that Levski are a big club or anything, but getting the likes of Hungarian badasses Debrecen to the groups was always the goal, and it certainly appears they’ve got the leg up after the first, errr, leg.

I won’t bore you with stuff that can be read right off of Wikipedia, so we’ll get right down to the good stuff from Lazlo Bodnar:

Dare I say, shades of (a poor man’s) Clarence Seedorf.

Red Bull Salzburg 1 – Maccabi Haifa 2

Despite my constant and bountiful donations, Red Bull just cannot buy its way into the Champions League group stages – at least not easily.

This game was enjoyable for those who enjoyed the ever-rare goalkeeper assist, from keeper Eddie Gustaffson to Alexander Zickler. For those who don’t really care, or weren’t blessed with ESP, you were probably watching something else, so enjoy the epic :40 highlights.

FK Ventspils 0 – Zurich 3

(FK Ventspils? Checking to make sure we’re not in the Europa League……yep, Champions League it is.)

So FK Ventspils are champions of Latvia. Apparently being champions of Latvia will get you thumped by the champions of Switzerland at home. And as I’m typing this, SwissMister Roger Federer just popped onto television.

Does this mean the home fixture will end 6-Love? (Or maybe it just means Roger Federer is on television way too @#4%ing much. Whatever.)

I’m going to drop the highlights just below, but to be perfectly honest, you’d probably be better off scratching something inappropriate for a minute.

Videos found at 101 Great Goals, where you can find plenty more from the day’s game.