The UEFA Champions league is back as the knockout stages kicked of on Tuesday 13th of February...
The results of the matches played are as follows:
Basel 0-4 Manchester City
Real Madrid 3-1 Paris Saint-Germain
FC Porto 0-5 Liverpool
After every round of matches there are always high and low points...we present you with the three major talking points of the first leg of the Round-of-16 ties in the UEFA Champions League 2017/18 season.
PSG ARE STILL 'LEARNERS' IN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Cristiano Ronaldo
Money can't buy you success.
It is one of the most used clichés in football when one is referring to a team who had spent so much money in bringing in top class players but have very little to show for it. This can be said in the case of PSG who has the two most expensive players in world football( Neymar for €222m and Mbappe for €180m) but were overpowered by a Ronaldo-inspired Real Madrid side.
On paper, PSG has the most formidable attack in the world with the trio of Neymar, Cavani and Mbappe having scored 65 goals amongst themselves in all competition this season. Many expected them to be able to hold their own against los blancos who had seen poor form and poor run of results leave them in fourth place in la liga table, but they didn't live up to expectation despite taking the lead at the Santiago Bernabau only to succumbed to a late Madrid surge to lose the game 3-1.
On a night when Neymar was expected to have his presumable Madrid audition, it was the man (Cristiano) he was supposed to replace that stole the highlight and continues to show that he is still relevant to the Real Madrid cause.
Having exited the champions league at the Round-of-16 knockout in two of the last three seasons and have not gotten to the semifinals of the competition before, history is about to repeat itself for le parisien. Having been the first ever team to lose a tie after winning the first leg 4-0 against Barcelona at this stage last season, it is obvious PSG don’t learn from the past and for now we can say they are still LEARNERS in the champions league.
LIVERPOOL HAS THE BEST FORWARD TRIO IN EUROPE
Mane, Firmino and Mo Sallah
That Liverpool beat Porto away from home is not what should raise an eyebrow in any sense if it but that they did it by such a huge margin with calm and guile and that all their forward players- Mo Sallah, Roberto Firminio and Saido Mane all found the back of the net with the latter grabbing his first champions league hatrick is worth a major talking point.
The trio now have 63 goals between themselves this season, only PSG's trio of Neymar, Cavani and Mbappe has got more (66). They are also two goals shy of equally the 65 goals scored by the SSS( Suarez, Sturbridge and Sterling) in 2014. The team as a whole has also scored 28 goals in the champions league this season, more than any other side have managed at this point of the season since its inception in 1992.
Whilst PSG and Real Madrid with all their star-studded forward line can only manage four goals amongst themselves, Liverpool dynamic trio were running riot in Portugal and who’s to say they can’t go all the way in this season and bring back memories of the Liverpool of old.
ENGLISH TEAMS MEAN BUSINESS
Manchester City
Gone are the days when English teams were one of the most feared teams in Europe when the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester united and Chelsea reached the champions league final eight times in eight years between 2005 and 2012 with the latter trio going on to win it once each.
After Chelsea’s triumph in 2012, only two English teams have gotten to the semifinals (Chelsea in 2014 and Manchester City in 2017) with the likes of man utd and Liverpool even exiting at the group stage in previous years.
The glory days are set to be back as Liverpool and Man city ran riot away at Porto and Basel respectively in the first leg of the Round-of-16 tie. Even Tottenham, who had been known to fumble when it matters most were able to hold their own against the Rassonieri of Juventus ( who had been finalist in two of the last three seasons). If Chelsea and man utd be able to negotiao their way through their Spanish counterparts- Barcelona and Sevilla- then the stage would be set for the champions league trophy to find its way back to England for the first time since 2012.
Thanks for reading... I remain my humble self
