Champions League Round of 16 (1st Leg) Wednesday LiveBlog

By: chris | February 25th, 2009

Finals:

Chelsea 1 – Juventus 0
Real Madrid 0 – Liverpool 1
Sporting 0 – Bayern 5
Villarreal 1 – Panathinaikos 1

Just an awful, awful day on the Iberian peninsula.

The winner of the contest is Peter of Greece Offside fame, who correctly selected 9 goals with the letter R. Peter would now like to give Franck Ribery a hug while I would like to punch Luca Toni in the face – something I haven’t said since Euro 2008.

That’s game in London and the others are starting to finish up as well…

Done in Madrid, and Daryl has one last token to offer us:

Both Juande Ramos and myself have learned a lesson about probing the opposition tonight. Not sure exactly what I mean by that.

Nor I – fortunately.

93′ Nedved drives one for the last chance of the game and it deflects off Alex inches wide. Unlucky there.

91′ Bayern 5-0. Words fail.

90′ Would now be a good time initiating a petition saying the second leg in Bavaria should be called off? That just seems like cruelty to animals.

89′ Madrid update:

OMG! She wasn’t a woman at all! I want my money back!

Don’t we all.

87′ Rout in Lisbon: Bayern 4-0 through Luca Toni.

Who had eight? (I did.)

84′ Mancienne’s inclusion officially makes Chelsea the worst coiffed team in the CL.

Apparently Mr. & Mrs. Arshavin were onto something regarding those London stylists.

83′ Pandemonium in Madrid: Yossi Benayoun puts Pool 1-0 up.

Juande just can’t beat Prem teams, can he? And really, who needs Gerrard?

83′ Momo Sissoko goes in on Malouda’s hair for a swift yellow.

81′ Michael Mancienne on for Ballack.

77′ Malouda’s hair might just generate enough bad karma for Chelsea to drop the clanker in the late stages here.

74′ Daryl’s gone silent in Madrid which means either the game is dreadfully lethargic or he’s met a nice senorita and said “phuck phootball”. Provided said senorita isn’t a Guti ex, I’m hoping for the latter.

70′ Wonderful trivia nugget from last night’s match in North London (particularly if you’re an anti-Arsenal patriot): Who was the only English born player on the pitch?

Simone Perrotta.

68′ Villarreal get one back through a Beppe Rossi peno. Villarreal 1 – Panathinaikos 1

68′ Nedved misses an absolutely fantastic opportunity to dive in the box. That’s when you know he’s really off his game.

63′ Forget that last bit, Ribery double on a penalty. Bayern 3-0 in Portugal.

Na na na na hey hey hey goodbye.

62′ And while I’m singing tunes:

Panathinakos 1-0 (Karagounis)
Bayern 2-0 (Klose)

Yowza, Villarreal.

61′ We aaaaare the childreeeen….Marchisio on for Tiago.

60′ Penalty cries in the Chelsea box as Cech baby crawled through gold-kitted bodies to do absolutely nothing of use. (Actually, upon further review, he may have swiped it out at the last moment. Atta boy, Helmet Head.)

59′ News from Madrid:

Torres came out for 2nd half. Gerrard warming up on touchline. Possibly with a pint glass.

58′ Ballack yellow for a tackle on King Jacques Cousteau, Pavel Nedved.

57′ We are still sitting on two goals nearing the hour mark, which brings the projected total to a whopping three. Hoorah.

54′ Del Piero bossed by Ballack and Chelsea on the break….Drogba goes down a bit easily (You are Jacques Cousteau!) but no peno.

50′ Camoranesi looks as though he may need to come off with a hamstring injury – and here comes….someone. Marchionni.

46′ Ballack on the side volley. Love the side volley. That’s all.

SECOND HALF

And finally, someone else scored. 1-0 Bayern through Mr. Ribery. So that’s….

Chelsea 1 – Juventus 0
Villarreal 0 – Panathinaikos 0
Sporting 0 – Bayern 1
Real 0 – Liverpool 0

Who had four goals for a prediction?

45′ Madrid:

Casillas just tipped over one of those Alonso Halfway Line Shots ™

44′ Del Piero, “a master of the free kick art” per Derek Rae, fires one off a two man wall.

43′ Splendid day in Madrid for Liverpool (thought 0-0 isn’t a bad result by any means should it say this way):

Fernando Torres has twisted his ankle. Limping like an old man. Commentators saying he’ll be checked out properly at HT, and there’s a chance he’ll be wearing a tracksuit for the 2nd half.

40′ And yet still 0-0 outside of London. How lame.

35′ These games are so spectacular (actually this Chels – Juve fixture is quite nice) that Daryl and I have taken to discussing the fright factor of the My Little Pony google image search. My Little Scissorhands?

The unicorn pissing a rainbow is also nice. Do you suppose that’s just a spectacular STD?

33′ Another begging aerial challenge for Chelsea.

Still just one goal across the board today. Real stormer, eh?

32′ I think Hugh Grant is working as a photographer today. Nice to see him with respectable employment again.

27′ Does Chelsea officially have the worst hair in the Champions League? If not they’re at least in with a solid shout.

Del Piero puts a shot 5 yards wide…..of the corner flag.

25′ Bounding ball to Camo and his shot from 22 is deflected up and over for a corner. Second great chance in minutes for Juve.

22′ And just moments later Torres goes 1v1 with compatriot Casillas, Iker wins.

21′ Apparently Real v Liverpool isn’t the game to watch, because after 20 minutes this is the second highlight.

Yossi Benayoun has a very long throw for a man who’s basically just a skin-covered skeleton.

20′ Frank Lamps is changing shoes already. A fashion thing, no doubt.

17′ Nothin’ doing in any of the other fixtures, though there’s a rumor Lahm cleared one off the line in Lisbon. He’s on my fantasy team and he knows it.

15′ If Juve don’t get their acts together quickly the second leg is going to become a formality. Chelsea are surgically slicing them open. And Drogs misses a header 5 yards in front of goal.

12′ 1-0 Chelsea Kalou feeds Drogba through and he coolly slots it by an isolated Buffon. Just onside, too. Very close.

11′ Flashback to 2004: Juventus defender (Molinaro) pushes Drogba down from behind in the box, no whistle.

10′ Derek Rae just referred to Hiddink as a “serial achiever”. Guus’ momma must be proud.

9′ Did Drogs just puts a near post header over the bar. First real chance here today. Chiellini might earn two paychecks today – he’ll have to.

7′ Daryl’s reporting from Madrid (and by Madrid I mean his sofa):

Diarra officially the strongest midfield man in Madrid. Just won the ball and held off two ‘Pool tackles before playing it short.

What he didn’t say is said tackles came from Torres and Benayoun. (One would assume.)

6′ Buffon’s outfit physically pains me. Purple is by no means off limits – just the opposite – but the shade….dear god.

3′ A fairly quick, by Serie A’s pedestrian standards, start in West London. Let’s see how well senior citizens Nedved & Del Piero last.

KICKOFF

-2′ Whoever color coordinated Gigi Buffon’s keeper outfit needs a quick injection of masculinity. Deep purple when his teammates are wearing metallic gold? Where’s the purse?

-3′ Second competition for the night: Predict the exact minute when Derek Rae first mentions Aberdeen in the broadcast.

I’ve got the 36th minute.

-5′ Juvents fans are already waving the white (and black) flags. Guus effect.

-11′ (ish). Some incredible keeper battles this evening: Buffon v Cech & Casillas v Reina? Only in the Champions League. (And Spanish intrasquad scrimmages.)

-15′ (ish). All the lineups are down the end of the page for your perusing pleasure.

-22′ (ish). Stevie G’s hamstring has found itself hamstrung and on the bench. Is he still good for an 85th minute crowd silencer? Probably.

Pregame festivities.

Back in the saddle again. Yesterday was sort of…eh…and today is featuring some matchups which are, on paper, far less sexy. Let’s hope someone, somewhere decides to turn on the sexy – not you, Sepp – and light up our adoring eyes. And preferably whichever game I’m watching (most likely Chelsea v Juve – it’s a Guus thing). The fixtures are as follows:

Sporting v Bayern
Chelsea v Juventus
Villarreal v Panathinaikos
Real Madrid v Liverpool

The latter is obviously the most anticipated and enticing matchup, but because the good people at ESPN couldn’t pick the lotto with the winning ticket in their hand (yet another 0-0 draw yesterday), they’re showing Chelsea v Juve instead.

Actually, maybe now is a good time to throw down a substantial amount of money on a 0-0 draw in London. (I’m not recommending that – at least not for legal reasons.)

Liveblogs:

- Fortunately Steve will have a liveblog up over at the Real Madrid Offside.
- Peter will liveblog Panathinaikos throwing the hopes of a whole nation on its back over at the Greece Offside.
- Jack of Chelsea Offside has a rant box where you can yell stuff at him and/or Momo Sissoko. Momo might take it, but Jack most definitely will not. Beware ye.

And, presumably, I will also be typing stuff which may or may not resemble words from time to time.

Predictions:

Chelsea 1 – Juventus 0 I had this a massive 2-2 away draw for Juve before Guus showed up on the scene. That’s what the magic of Guus means. And no, Tinkerman returning to London means nothing – not for the result, at least.

Villarreal 2 – Panathinaikos 1 I’m going to be completely honest and say I have no idea. Villarreal have blown hot and cold this year, but I can’t in good conscience bet on a Greek team away from home in the CL knockouts.

Sporting 0 – Bayern 1 Thanks for showing up, guys.

Real Madrid 2 – Liverpool 1 I’m torn. On one hand I think both defenses get lit up like a gasoline Christmas tree, but on the other both Spanish keepers have been known to unveil baby-naming performances in big tournaments. 2-1 is my conservative prediction.

Goal Predictions:

You know the drill. And if you don’t, here are Daryl’s instructions from yesterday…

We’re going to stick with tradition and ask for your total number of goals scored today predictions.

And because it’s a bit tighter than when we had eight simultaneous games, we’ll have a random tie-breaker too. Which letter of the alphabet will feature most in goalscorers names? For example, if Ibrahimovic scores, then that’s three “I”s.

Some rules I just made up: you can copy someone’s prediction for number of goals, and you can copy someone’s prediction for most goalscoring letter of the alphabet. But you can’t copy both, otherwise your answer is identical and we have problems. Sound fair?

rules update: The letter count includes surname (basically the name on the back of the shirt, or more specifically, the names on the UEFA Matchcentre teamsheets) only. Just so there’s no confusion.

Cool? Cool. I’m going with 8 goals brought to you by the letter “R”.

Lineups

CHELSEA v JUVENTUS LINE-UPS

Chelsea: Cech, Bosingwa, Terry, Alex, Ashley Cole, Kalou, Ballack, Lampard, Mikel, Drogba, Anelka.
Subs: Hilario, Ivanovic, Mancienne, Ferreira, Malouda, Di Santo, Stoch.

Juventus: Buffon, Chiellini, Mellberg, Legrottaglie, Molinaro, Nedved, Camoranesi, Sissoko, Tiago, Del Piero, Amauri.
Subs: Manninger, Grygera, Marchionni, Poulsen, Marchisio, Iaquinta, Trezeguet.
Referee: Olegario Benquerenca (Portugal)

VILLARREAL v PANATHINAIKOS LINE-UPS

Villarreal: Diego Lopez, Angel, Senna, Fuentes, Godin, Eguren, Santi Cazorla, Ibagaza, Bruno, Rossi, Llorente.
Subs: Viera, Javi Venta, Cygan, Pires, Cani, Fernandez, Nihat.

Panathinaikos: Galinovic, Spiropoulos, Nilsson, Wawrzyniak, Sarriegi, Goumas, Vyntra, Silva, Karagounis, Simao, Mantzios.
Subs: Tzorvas, David, Gabriel, Ivanschitz, Cleyton, Salpingidis, Rukavina.
Referee: Konrad Plautz (Austria)

SPORTING LISBON v BAYERN MUNICH LINE-UPS

Sporting: Tiago, Abel, Tonel, Caneira, Anderson Polga, Izmailov, Rochemback, Joao Moutinho, Romagnoli, Liedson, Derlei.
Subs: Ricardo Batista, Grimi, Daniel Carrico, Silva, Vukcevic, Bruno Pereirinha, Djalo.

Bayern Munich: Rensing, Lahm, Oddo, Lucio, Demichelis, Ribery, Ze Roberto, Van Bommel, Schweinsteiger, Klose, Toni.
Subs: Butt, Lell, Van Buyten, Altintop, Ottl, Borowski, Podolski.
Referee: Bertrand Layec (France)

REAL MADRID V LIVERPOOL LINE-UPS

Real Madrid: Casillas, Ramos, Pepe, Cannavaro, Heinze, Robben, Gago, Diarra, Marcelo, Raul, Higuain.

Liverpool: Reina, Aurelio, Arbeloa, Carragher, Skrtel, Riera, Benayoun, Alonso, Mascherano, Torres, Kuyt.