UEFA Champions League Quarterfinals Tips – Leg 2

For a solitary minute, my ‘Juventus to Nil’ tip in the first leg looked like an absolute stroke of genius. Cristiano slotted one away in the 45^th minute and I thought ‘yeah, going into the break with the mental edge, they’ll make it three in the second half.’ All props to Ajax and more directly, David Neres for making me look like an idiot. They do face a far tougher task in travelling to Italy this week, though and it’s tough imagining them ridding the competition of probably the most dangerous side left standing. I’m tipping Ronaldo to convert again, but several times, and the result that I wanted last time actually materialising.

Luke Shaw to open the scoring was pretty much a write your own ticket-like scenario last week, but it happened! Unfortunately for United fans, it was at the wrong end of the pitch and all but ended their chances of progression past Barcelona. The 1-0 loss at home makes this and extremely difficult job for them and you’d think that Barca need only turn up and pass the ball around a bit to lock in a final four berth. The glimmer of hope for United is that this is the only real piece of silverware that they can still win this season and if they can employ a serious ‘All or Nothing’ mentality, perhaps they can get the result.

Match of the week looks like materialising when Liverpool travel to Portugal on Thursday morning. The Reds kept alive their almost unbelievable chances of a double by comfortably beating Porto 2-0 at Anfield last week and as long as they don’t crap the bed, a second-consecutive season in the Champions League semi-finals is looking good. The home side will relish a return to playing in front of their parochial fans and they tuned up for this with an easy road win over Portimonense in the local league, but this is clearly a big step up in class and they’ll need to bring the whole kit and caboodle. I think that they can challenge, but I also think it’s the end of the road for them.

Spurs did what they needed to do by beating City in Leg 1 last week, but they’ll still need to improve to both contain the Blues and record a similar result at Eastlands on Thursday morning. Stupid arguments about the Premier League not being up to the calibre of other domestic leagues (stop reading and turn off your phone/computer now if you think that – there’s nothing for you here) aside, City is arguably the best team in the world currently and if one club can class their way to reversing the result and their Champions League prospects, it’s them. This in stark contrast to the club that went out of their way to lose unlosable matches as recently as two seasons ago, I think that they are all class and I think they’ll put several away here.