UEFA Preview

The round of 16 is about to begin and here's a quick preview I essentially plagarized from other sites. These teams will have rematches in a couple weeks to determine who moves on to the next round, but games start tomorrow:

Tuesday 1:45 PM:

Lyon v. Barcelona (Matt) - Barcelona is generally considered the best team in Europe and the favorites in the tournament. They should crush Lyons who play in the relatively weak French league.

Arsenal (Ben) v. A.S. Roma (Bussman) - Supposedly two attacking teams who are pretty fun to watch. Both teams are having slightly down years, but have an outside shot at winning the whole thing. Arsenal has a couple young stars and is a slight favorite in the match up.

FC Porto v. Atletico Madrid - Even matchup between two non-contenders.

Inter Milan (me) v. Manchester United (Lyons) - Best matchup of the first round. Winner of this is right behind Barcleona in their chances to win the tournament. ManU is on fire and has dominated the Premier League lately, but could be without 5 of its top defensemen against Inter Milan, who is similarly dominating Italy's top league and has one of the best strikers in the world in Zlatan Ibrahimovic. United is favored, but probably has a better shot at tying here and winning the return game on their homefield where they are 12-0-1.

Wednesday 1:45:

Chelsea (Campbell) vs. Juventus - Two good teams, but Juventus has injury problems and Chelsea just fired their coach so they're in a bit of disarray. Chelsea has a ton of talent and should win.

Real Madrid (Herman) v. Liverpool (Pat) - The second best team in Spain against the second best team in England. In the Spanish league, Barcleona has left Real Madrid behind, but Liverpool still has a shot at Manchester United. Probably the most even matchup of the round. Real Madrid has the tradition, but has been pretty weak in the Champions League in the past few years, while Liverpool might be more focused on resting guys and staying healthy for the Premier League.

Villareal v. Panathinaikos - Two teams that won't win and nobody owns. Villareal did tie ManU in the group stage and Panathinaikos stole a win from Inter Milan. Still no chance for them.

Bayern Munich (Brian) v. Sporting Lisbon (Zig) - Two mediocre teams in a mediocre matchup. Apparently Sporting Lisbon has never beaten a German team in European competition and are heavy underdogs here.