1st leg
Leipzig 0-2 Liverpool
I thought Liverpool controlled the ball better, had a much more dangerous attack; Leipzig had a few moments, especially late, but they were never scary around the goal and shanked the best opportunities badly. Both of the goals were bad defensive giveaways (an errant pass that left Salah wide open and a whiff on a high arcing long ball that left Sane wide open) but otherwise Leipzig's D was pretty good. This easily could've been a scoreless draw but Liverpool was the better team and a two goal W is probably the right outcome. Gotta figure Liverpool will make it stand up and move on to the quarterfinals.
Barcelona 1-4 Paris. St. Germaine
Wow. For 60 minutes I thought this was an even contest. But when Mbappe scored his second goal around the 65th minute, PSG just went off and destroyed Barca for the rest of the night. Barca scored first on a PK (looked like the right call, then it didn't, then it did again, it was the right call), but Mbappe got loose in the box and tied it up before halftime. Both sides attacked well and kept the action spicy pretty evenly until PSG took the lead. Soon after PSG got another goal on a header from a direct kick (kinda looked like when an extra linebacker rushes the passer and the running back never picks him up). Barca had some moments after that but PSG made better use of their possessions and put it on Barca. Mbappe's hat trick was off a beautiful pass during a breakaway, Barca's D got carved up. Barcelona's got a tough hill to climb but they're really good so that makes the next match all the more intriguing.
Porto 2-1 Juventus
Weirdest line I've seen in a while: Porto scored in the 1st minute of the game on one of the dumbest goals I've ever seen (lazy back pass, caught the keeper off guard, free goal for the other team), then scored in the 1st minute of the 2nd half (nice give-and-go up the right side that just sliced through the D). Otherwise, Juve was the better team but Porto never really had to be any good, so it's hard to tell what the next match will look like. Juve's goal was a thing of beauty: fast break up the left, swing the ball back across to find the open man on the other side, lovely slotted home finish; when you score goal like that on PlayStation, you know you're ready to move up a level. Can Juventus come back and take the 2nd leg? Absolutely, I think they will.
Sevilla 2-3 Dortmund
Sevilla scored a quick goal but Dortmund dominated the rest of the half and was up 3-1 at the half. Sevilla played hard, got a goal late (not insignificant). High scoring which makes the 2nd leg aall the more exciting.
Ateletico Madrid 0-1 Chelsea
I thought Chelsea had the more dangerous attack but really this was an evenly matched contest. Nice goal, I thought it was offside until the showed the other angle (like 30 minutes later!...man, I hate replay, I'd rather just complain about the refs blowing a call than watching a replay 50 times and then still getting it wrong). Very even match, the 2nd leg will definitely be worth catching.
Lazio 1-4 Bayern Munich
Uh....yeah...Bayern's just better than Lazio. Add in that Lazio just had a bad day and I think this result looks kinda right. And for good measure: I thought Lazio was offside on their goal and that the ref pitied them for most of the 2nd half. The next leg doesn't even seem necessary, but, hey, crazy things happen in soccer (I do not anticipate any crazy things happening here, though).
Atalanta 0-1 Real Madrid
Atalanta suffered a red card early (good call, it was pure hip check and no ball), though I'm guessing Atalanta's strategy was to bunker in anyway. For the first few minutes Atalanta attacked well but then played defense throughout. I thought it was gonna work and it almost did: it wasn't til the 85th minute that Mende was able to connect on a long shot off a corner (nice rip!). Real handled the ball well and it really never felt like Atalanta was gonna score, but Real didn't exactly dominate the attack even though their opponent was a man down. But I anticipate that Real will move on from here because Atalanta didn't display any offensive firepower (and they'll missing one of their defensive starters, no?).
Monchengladbach 0-2 Manchester City
Gladbach just didn't have any offense, didn't get anything going at all until the last few minutes--although how the ref failed to give them a PK in the final minutes was mystifying to me (clear foul, man, clear foul). Gladbach's best shot was a flailing back heel that almost snuck inside the post (I thought it went in at first) and then a rip off a bad defensive giveaway in the last few seconds of the match. Man City was fine, didn't feel like they played their best but Gladbach was nowhere near scoring, so a relatively easy W for them.
Predictions for the 2nd leg:
Liverpool (*) 1-1 Leipzig
Paris SG (*) 1-2 Barcelona
Juventus (*) 2-1 Porto (I'm seeing PK's in this one)
Dortmund (*) 2-2 Sevilla
Chelsea (*) 0-0 Atletico Madrid
Bayern Munich (*) 2-1 Lazio
Real Madrid (*) 2-0 Atalanta
Manchester City (*) 1-0 Gladbach
(Hmmmm....just dawned on me that the road team won 7 of the 8 games)
No comments:
Post a Comment