Champions League Quarter Final Draw

By: chris | March 20th, 2009

A pretty solid draw, but you’d have to say Manchester United were given a clear road to defend their title in the final. If we were to rank the teams four out of the top five would likely be sitting in that second semi-final group with Barca, Bayern, Liverpool & Chelsea. The Red Devils, on the other hand, have Porto, who were unable to beat Atletico in either leg, and if they win that will either face Villarreal, a solid team but by no means a juggernaut, or an Arsenal team that may or may not show up. So you’d probably do well to wager them into the finals.

Oh, and if you hadn’t figured it out yet, they did set up a Barca – ManU final, yes. Didn’t see that coming. Nope.

As for the other draws…does anyone have more to lose than Jose Mourinho? What happens if both Avram Grant and Guus Hiddink do something he couldn’t? Not only that, but what happens if it’s exciting, like last year, instead of those paint-drying, grass-growing displays of years gone? And Chelsea win to boot? Will Guus run onto the center circle, pound a double shot of vodka and yell, “Who’s the Special One now, huh?!?!?“? I vote yes.

On the other side, well, you’re going to have to do a lot of heavy convincing for me not to believe that’s a little bit of karma for the Bavarians.

All in all a few great and interesting draws. But then, this is the Champions League – shouldn’t that always be the case?

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Category: Champions League, World Football

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Juliet

Wait... what? Chris are you still holding to the notion that Bayern are a "mean" team for doing their job?? Hilarious.

Bayern-Barcelona is an interesting tie, can't wait to see the result.

Ja gibt es denn was Schöneres als einen Bayern Sieg?
Aaron

Yeah why no UEFA Cup post? A French team might finally win a continental competition! It's looking good right now with the prospect of a PSG Marseille semi. Ohhhhhhhh that would be something!
Foreverzidane

I find it amusing Chris that you totally discounting the Gunners! They're peaking at the right time, and it's a two match affair and so far other than Bayern no other team has dominated the other side, oh I'm hearing the Liverfans
saying otherwise! The sleeper team this year is definitely Munich, and the most enjoyable matches to watch will be Barca-Munich without a doubt.
Love Barca but go Gunners!
john

Just because I'm having a hard time finding any evidence that the good folks at The Offside care about the lesser UEFA cup at all, here's the draw:

Hamburg SV v Manchester City
PSG v Dynamo Kiev
Shakhtar Donetsk v Marseille
Werder Bremen v Udinese

As usual, they may not be giant clubs with ridiculous amounts of wealth at their disposal (Man City excepted from the latter), but there's still some pretty exciting matches on the docket.
Al

I'm just happy that those Porto jerks drew the best team in Europe (aside Barca). Take that!
Hawk

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRACCCCCCCCCCCAAAAAAA
Noel

Well, it's either trying to set up a ManU-Barça final, or trying to set up another all English affair since the winner of Liverpool-Chelsea gets the second leg of the semis at home. Which seems an unlikely thing for them to want to set up, as does guaranteeing the exit of one of the two strongest non-English sides at this stage.

I know ManU's the name, but given all the talk of English dominance and it being a bad thing from UEFA's point of view, for this year this seems like just about the worst draw imaginable from their standpoint. Unless Barça gets through, which is quite the gamble given the road they've been given.