Midweek we had a relatively boring round of Champions’ League matches. Most of the groups were more or less decided going into the round, so many top clubs played their reserve squads, including an interesting 1-8-1 formation by Manchester United against Wolfsburg. However, one of the more intriguing matches of the CL midweek was Bayern Munich vs. Juventus, with the winner advancing to the CL round of 16. After an early David Trezeguet goal for Juventus, Bayern rattled off 4 unanswered goals, including a penalty kick by their keeper, Jorg Butt, owner of one of the greatest names in football. Consequently, Juventus will be going home and Bayern advancing into the knockout stages.
The weekend matches were highlighted by two enormous premier league upsets. Both Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur lost very similar matches, with their vastly inferior opponents going up 1-0 early then switching to an 8-1-1 formation in a desperate (and successful) attempt to protect their lead. After Chelsea’s 3-3 draw with Everton at the Bridge, it appeared to be an ideal spot for United to catch up to Chelsea, as a win would have tied things up at the top of the table. However, United came out flat against Aston Villa and lost 1-0, leaving them 3 back of Chelsea.
Sunday morning Liverpool went up 1-0 quickly on Arsenal, but the gunners fought back to win 2-1 at Anfield to put even more pressure on Liverpool skipper Rafael Benitez, who is certainly starting to feel the heat as his club’s form continues to slide. They’ve now fallen to 7th in the Premiership, and are eliminated from the Champions’ League.
In La Liga, our top teams fared pretty well, with wins by Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Sevilla.
Our Serie A teams were crushed, with AC Milan losing, Juventus losing (twice this week), Inter drawing unimpressively, Fiorentina losing, and Genoa losing. After such a topsy turvy week in Serie A, however, one thing does still remain clear, and that is that Inter is the class of the league, as they retain a significant lead over AC Milan, Juventus, and the rest of Serie A.
Keep an eye on our Dutch representatives in the rankings, as FC Twente and Ajax Amsterdam continue to look very impressive in both the Eredivisie and in European play.
That’s about all for this week, I’m being forced to wake up in about 7 hours to go to jury duty so I’m not going to write any more, plus this is getting rather long anyway. Continued thanks to those who are reading this blog, your support does mean quite a bit to us all here.
Now here are the rankings:
1. Barcelona (Esp) 50
2. Chelsea (Eng) 48
T3. Manchester United (Eng) 45
T3. Real Madrid (Esp) 45
5. Inter Milan (Ita) 40
6. Arsenal (Eng) 39- Just a brief bit on Arsenal: It appears that Andrei Arshavin is more than willing to fill the void left by Robin van Persie's 4-6 month injury, as he scored a magnificant go-ahead (and eventually decisive) goal vs. Liverpool today at Anfield. Leave it to Arsene Wenger to lose one of the top players in the world and continue to win, Arsenal should continue to be very fun to watch this season.
7. AC Milan (Ita) 38
T8. Sevilla (Esp) 34
T8. Juventus (Ita) 34- "The Old Lady", as they're lovingly known throughout Italy, has hit a patch of miserable form as of late. After losing 2-0 last week to Cagliari in Serie A action, Juventus were visited by Bayern in a crucial Champions' League match this past week. The winner of the match moved on to the knockout stages of the CL, and Bayern fell down 1-0 before scoring 4 goals and in the process embarrassing Juve 4-1. As though that weren't bad enough, Juve dropped an easy 3 points this weekend with a 3-1 loss to Bari, to put their hopes for the Scudetto on life support, as they are now 6 points behind Inter Milan and 1 behind AC Milan. They are coming onto a difficult stretch of matches, with fixtures at Parma, then at home vs. AC Milan and AS Roma. These matches will be without their starting keeper, and the undisputed greatest keeper on the planet Gianluigi Buffon, who underwent surgery after the Champions' League exit, and will be out for about 6 weeks. Juve needs to go on a brilliant run to have a legitimate shot at challenging Inter, and at this point it doesn't appear that they're able to do that.
T8. Bordeaux (Fra) 34
11. Bayer Leverkusen (Ger) 29
12. FC Twente (Ned) 27
13. Tottenham Hotspur (Eng) 23
14. Valencia (Esp) 21
15. Werder Bremen (Ger) 19
T16. Manchester City (Eng) 18
T16. Ajax Amsterdam (Ned) 18
T16. Schalke 04 (Ger) 18
19. Aston Villa (Eng) 16- Prior to this week, Villa had been chugging right along on their Premiership campaign, sitting in 5th place in the Premier League and playing some pretty good football. This weekend, however, Villa scored an absolutely huge win at Old Trafford over Manchester United, 1-0. They were successfully able to stymie United's attack, which had been relatively well rested prior to the match given the garbage squad they'd played in Wolfsburg midweek. Villa are being led by Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ashley Young, but are also getting solid contributions from most of their squad. Villa is coming up on a relatively tough stretch, with matches at Sunderland and Arsenal, as well as a home match vs. Liverpool, who, despite their awful form, are always a threat given their level of talent. If Villa can walk away with 9-10 points from their next 4 matches, they may be able to hang around the top of the table for the rest of the season and bring Champions' League football back to Villa Park.
T20. FK Rubin Kazan (Rus) 15
T20. PSV Eindhoven (Ned) 15
22. Fiorentina (Ita) 8
T23. Braga (Por) 4
T23. Dynamo Kiev (Ukr) 4
25. Benfica (Por) 3
Others receiving votes: Genoa (Ita) 2, Lyon (Fra) 2, Parma (Ita) 1
Here is how the voters voted:
| Rank | Tom | Blaine |
| 1 | Barcelona | Barcelona |
| 2 | Chelsea | Chelsea |
| 3 | Real Madrid | Manchester United |
| 4 | Manchester United | Real Madrid |
| 5 | Arsenal | Inter Milan |
| 6 | Bordeaux | AC Milan |
| 7 | Inter Milan | Sevilla |
| 8 | AC Milan | Arsenal |
| 9 | Juventus | Juventus |
| 10 | Bayer Leverkusen | FC Twente |
| 11 | Sevilla | Tottenham Hotspur |
| 12 | Schalke 04 | Bordeaux |
| 13 | Werder Bremen | Bayer Leverkusen |
| 14 | Valencia | Manchester City |
| 15 | FC Twente | Ajax Amsterdam |
| 16 | PSV Eindhoven | FK Rubin Kazan |
| 17 | Aston Villa | Valencia |
| 18 | Tottenham Hotspur | Fiorentina |
| 19 | Ajax Amsterdam | Aston Villa |
| 20 | Manchester City | Werder Breen |
| 21 | FK Rubin Kazan | PSV Eindhoven |
| 22 | Dynamo Kiev | Schalke 04 |
| 23 | Benfica | Braga |
| 24 | Lyon | Genoa |
| 25 | Braga | Parma |
Next Five in for Tom, ranked by population of the country's capital city: Hamburg, Bayern Munich, Fiorentina, Red Bull Salzburg, FC Porto
Next Five in for Blaine, ranked by their country's 2010 World Cup chances: Napoli, Bayern Munich, Lyon, CSKA Moscow, Galatasaray
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