MATCHDAY 8 AT LAST !
The two biggest nights of the football season are here.
After Wednesday night there will be no duff teams left in the Champions League.Just the top eight.
Lyon will be French champions, Juventus will be Italian champions, Bayern will be German champions, Barcelona should be Spanish champions, and Chelsea will be English champions, and we are now wondering who will be European champions.
With Arsenal-Real Madrid it’s a simple case of Arsene telling his team : same again, lads, but score earlier than 46 minutes .
Every second leg is interesting, with Rangers going to Villareal tonight level at 2-2.
Juventus are 3-2 down as they host Werder Bremen in the third game tonight.Don’t be too surprised if Patrick Vieira scores the only goal of the game. Juve can meet Arsenal in the quarter-final.
EVERYONE except Chelsea fans wants Barcelona to go through tonight. But it’s conceivable that Chelsea might still win the European Cup this year.
Inevitably, the tabloids have hyped it up : Mourinho faces hate mob in Boo Camp. And Mourinho has made this game about him. He loves being billed as Public Enemy No.1. If he loses, how will he attract attention for the rest of the season ?
Everyone hopes Messi and Ronaldinho rip Chelsea to shreds and quickly build on their 2-1 lead from Stamford Bridge.They should have pressed home their advantage against 10 men and scored three or four at the Bridge. If you are as good as they are, that was possible, definitely. They let Chelsea off the hook.
In this second leg Terry, Lampard, Eto’o, Messi or Ronaldinho might score the decisive goal, but the most important players could be Claude Makelele and referee Markus Merk.
Barcelona like to play in triangles round the D and Makelele protects the D like nobody else. Since he was sold by Real Madrid, their team has never been as good.
Makelele was the midfelder that Roger Lemerre ignored in 2002 when the players were begging him to play Claude alongside Patrick. He didn’t and they crashed out of the World Cup without scoring a goal and Lemerre lost his job.
MAKELELE is a rottweiler with a judo champion’s balance. He is a black belt who protects small areas with maximum concentration. He denies passes, denies angles, denies space. He is the quickest anchorman in world football, the most agile, the tidiest, the most ruthless. He collides with you, goes down with you, gets up with his arms outstretched and a lovely smile that says,”Did you see that, ref? He ran into me !”
Makelele has turned defending into a martial art. You could put him on a mat in the Royal Albert Hall and nobody could throw him. Where other ball-winners launch tackles from ten yards away, Makelele’s fouls are small movements of ten inches, tiny movements which are invisible to officials.
I had thought that Makelele was a small, muscular man. But at Xmas when I was at the Chelsea-Fulham game I was watching him closely. He is very slight as well as small.
Chelsea won 3-2 but looked vulnerable that day. Apart from the goals Fulham scored, Chelsea looked vulnerable. I can’t remember why, but they looked shaky. I could see how Makelele, this tiny, slim footballer, had played a huge role in putting Frank Lampard where he is today, just as William Gallas played a huge role in putting John Terry where he is today.Gallas will mark Messi tonight.
Remember : Makelele has played against Barcelona many times.
TONIGHT I’m expecting an exciting battle which explodes into controversy.
Messi has said, “We’ve got people here who hate Chelsea even more than they hate Real Mdrid.”
Two weeks ago the disgusting Mourinho attacked Messi, an 18-year old, for “diving” when Del Horno had gone over the ball twice to intimidate the kid. A current international full back does not miss the ball when the ball is stationary, as it was there, unless he intends to miss the ball.
What happened was this : ref Hauge noted a shocking foul by Del Horno when he got a toe to the ball and then rammed his studs into Messi’s thigh. He gave a throw, not a free-kick, but noted that foul in 33 minutes. .
When Del Horno went to whack Messi again in 35, after he had beaten Robben sweetly in the corner, Messi saw him coming. Hurt by Del Horno’s previous assault, Messi jumped up as the left back came over the ball and collided violently with him. Messi jumped up, not towards Del Horno. Then Del Horno pretended to be badly injured by slamming into a kid half his seize. There was a melee of protest and counter-accusation. Like any good ref, Hauge took his time and showed Del Horno the red card.
Two weeks ago I forgot to mention one thing. Nobody has mentioned it in the last 14 days: MOURINHO BOTTLED THE FIRST LEG .
I’m sure he planned to have a rubbish pitch and planned to attack at a high tempo with Drogba knocking people over, winning free-kicks and corners in the crucial opening period. But there was so much bad publicity about the pitch that he did not play Drogba. He started Crespo and that allowed Barcelona to play their way into the game and win 2-1.
Regretting that, he might use Route 1 tonight.Chelsea need to score the first goal tonight, just as Real Madrid need to score first at Highbury.
We would all love to see thrilling end-to-end football with superhuman goals by Eto’o, Ronaldinho and Messi. Realistically, it’s more likely to be a cagey game of corners and free-kicks.
UNFORTUNATELY, BARCELONA cannot afford a good player in every position.
For instance, Motta, the big Brazilian midfielder, is a makeweight who could be found out tonight.Maybe coach Frank Rijkaard will play Van Bommel, who is a leader and a warrior.
VICTOR VALDES is a young keeper who makes mistakes. The back five struggle to defend set-pieces, an area where Chelsea excel.
Still, I’m looking forward to the game. It’s always fun to see a morality play, a clash of ideologies, the good guys against the bad guys. I’m just a bit worried that Barcelona might cramp up, try too hard to keep their shape and discipline, and, by doing that, freeze their natural attacking flow. They can win an open game but they might lose a cagey war of attrition.
MOURINHO has built a mountain of bad karma for himself. I’ve seen people handle success gracefully, and I’ve seen people handle success disgracefully, and I’ve even seen people handle success disgracefully and then learn to handle it gracefully over a period of five or ten years. During the disgraceful years, I tend to avert my eyes.
When Barcelona lost 4-2 at the Bridge last year the aggregate winning goal was a foul by Carvalho on Valdes.He held the keeper’s shoulder at the crucial moment, preventing him from diving for Terry’s header.
Collina missed that foul because no ref could have seen it. He was watching the ball to see if it went into the net. Collina asked Rob Hughes if HE had seen the foul in real time. Rob was there but did not see it. Collina correctly insists that nobody saw that foul on the first TV replay, the second replay, or the third replay. It was only obvious on the fourth replay.
Who would be Marcus Merk tonight ?