Grab your officially sponsored Heineken, your favorite club's jersey and play hookie from work for the afternoon. It's that time of year where a 2-1 loss on the road feels just as good as that nail biting 1-0 victory at home. That's right. It's Champions League season.
Although we have been served a few tantalizing appetizers in the qualification rounds it is time to get on to the meat and potatoes entree that is the round robin round. 8 pools, 6 games for each club that can propel them among the elite of Europe or relegate them to the kiddy pool Europa League.
With the first match day behind us already it is no surprise to see Barcelona shaking their proverbial fist at the rest of the continent and perhaps a come hither to a young man named Cesc in London. Manchester United appears to be attempting to reverse the commonplace strategy of clinching early and resting your stars late with their lackluster performance against Rangers. I'm sure Sir Alec will claim he's starting a tactical renaissance. Tottenham seem to have bounced back from their post qualifier hangover and managed a nervy 2-2 draw against Werder Bremen in Germany.
Looking forward to the months of competition that lay ahead I am interested to see if the English Premier League can regain its slipping foothold against the continent's elite. Last year was the first year since 2004 that an English team did not appear in the final and that was after a period of pure dominance from the EPL's top 4. It seems too easy to crown Barcelona the early favorites, but consider the following. Last years Champions, Inter Milan , lost the new European mastermind Jose Mourinho to Real Madrid and settled for the former Liverpool gaffer Rafa Benitez who believe it or not once held the edge over Mourinho in European tactics. I have to take a wait and see approach on the Italian giants. Real Madrid, now under the control of the aforementioned Mourinho seems like the sexy choice, given they have the games most overrated superstar in Christiano Ronaldo as well as a plethora of the world's best to surround him. My bold Madrid prediction, we will care a lot more about new boy Mesut Ozil by the time May rolls around than CR7.
I suppose the real question is who will break the mold of the the multi-millionaires this year and be the thorn in the side of tradition. Nothing used to annoy me more than watching a game played in Turkey listening to thousands of fans whistle obnoxiously throughout the match. But after watching the World Cup and the inevitable migraine of vuvuzela droning, well the whistling might sound downright musical. Plus nothing is more amusing than watching a world class club spoil their shorts when they give up a goal to the home side 10 minutes in and realize they may not leave that god forsaken country alive if they mount a comeback. So for the sake of this post I'll assume Bursaspor just had an off night and will show their true colors in their next home fixture against Man U.
The only thing that is for certain is that over the next few months there will be heroes and there will be villains. Wonder goals and blundering kicks from the spot. World class goaltending and Robert Green impersonators. Lots of Heineken commercials and creative excuses to get the afternoon off.
The Champions League is here. Enjoy.
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