Here are some of my thoughts on tonight’s two Champions League matches…
Real Madrid @ CSKA Moscow (first leg: 1-1)
Although Real conceded a goal to 25-year-old Sweden international Pontus Wernbloom (who has arguably one of the better names in football) at the death, this has to be viewed as a positive result for the nine-time European champions.
Jose Mourinho’s men took the lead in the 28th minute after CSKA’s horrible attempt at clearing the ball, which allowed Cristiano Ronaldo—who else?—to find the back of the net with a well struck shot off his weak foot that beat goalkeeper Sergei Chepchugov, who was forced to stand on his head more than once in Moscow tonight.
Mourinho supporters will remember his Inter squad that came to the Luzhniki Stadium two years ago up 1-0 on aggregate after the first leg of the 2009-10 Champions League quarter-finals, and doubling their lead before advancing to the semi-finals—en route to their historic treble-winning season—thanks to a lucky Wesley Sneijder strike. Inter did not concede a goal over their tie with CSKA that year, and while Real already have thanks to the Swede’s late-game heroics (something CSKA has shown a real affinity for in Europe’s premier tournament in recent years, actually), don’t expect them to do so in the return leg three weeks from tomorrow. However slim the Russian side’s chances are of pulling off a miracle at the Bernabeu, though, CSKA boss Leonid Slutsky should be extremely proud of his club’s hard-fought effort tonight against superior opposition in front of just over 70,000 spectators.
Real Madrid currently sit a whopping ten points ahead of Barcelona atop La Liga, and will surely move on to this year’s Champions League quarter-finals, but you start to get the feeling that a double-winning season will have an air of incompleteness about it unless the club proves that it can defeat Barcelona…like that’s ever going to happen.
This one, for whatever reason, reminded me a lot of this year’s Super Bowl. I am not a New England fan—and never will be—but I know that the vast majority of my friends who are told me they weren’t the least bit surprised when their precious Patriots fell to the Giants (again).
I am, however, a Chelsea fan, and sadly, I share the same sentiments of my New England adversaries tonight.
This result was to be expected, was it not? The horrid run Chelsea has been on. Their highly questionable backline. The fact that Napoli is just a hungrier club at the moment. All three of these factors—and surely dozens more—conspired and brought down the mighty Blues in southern Italy this evening, and once again put a giant dent in their Champions League title hopes. But it was all too predictable.
The only thing that really surprised me was the fact that over 82% of people who had submitted a pick for the match on ESPN.com’s Streak for the Cash had elected a Chelsea win over a Napoli win…or draw (I chose the latter and can now boast a proud two-game winning streak with eight days left in the month).
Clearly these people hadn’t been paying attention to how Chelsea actually plies their trade these days.
The team is completely different than in years past, and it is becoming more and more evident with each passing fixture just how clueless, helpless, and unsuited manager Andre Villas-Boas is for his current post.
The backline acted almost as a parody of itself with David Luiz leading the way committing his usual comedy of errors, all of which contributed to the three Napoli goals. Chelsea created some chances, but they looked like a dispirited bunch for much of the night, quite the contrary to what we’ve all grown so accustomed to seeing over the past half decade. The most egregious act of the evening, however, was found on AVB’s lineup card.
Why Michael Essien, Ashley Cole, and Frank Lampard—three Chelsea legends who have enjoyed unparalleled success in Europe compared to most of their teammates—were all left out of the starting XI for what was obviously the club’s most important match of the season yet is both baffling and downright inexcusable.
It’s almost as if AVB is trying to get sacked. He is on thin ice as it is—that is no secret—and there’s no telling when that ice might finally crack, but if the Portuguese is still around in three weeks for the return leg at Stamford Bridge and still wants to keep his job, he will put his grand, revolutionary plans aside for 90 minutes and give the club a fresh injection of veteran experience (an oxy-moron if I ever heard one) and leadership and hope for the best. That means starting Essien and Lampard, Drogba and Torres (Yes. Together.), and maybe even Salomon Kalou. Chelsea is not the formidable European side they’ve been in years past, but they’ve scored more than a couple goals at home before. Maybe a desperate, last-second return to the club’s golden era can salvage a Champions League campaign that may have already reached yet another abrupt and premature ending. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I almost miss Nicolas Anelka…almost.
A quick word on Napoli: their front three of Ezequiel Lavezzi, Marek Hamsik, and the ferociously indomitable Edinson Cavani is as good as they come. The trio talked the talk before Tuesday night’s showdown, and then more than walked the walk tonight in the chances they both created and converted. An Argentine, a Slovak, and a Uruguayan, it turns out, form a perfect triangle.
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