The first week of the four that constitute the UEFA Champions League round of 16 did not disappoint. The Juventus-Tottenham game in Turin was the most riveting I have watched all season, with the Real Madrid-PSG encounter 24 hours later not that far behind.
Manchester City and Liverpool have (all but) ensured a minimum of two Premier League teams present in the quarter-finals with their respective away-day annihilation of Basel and Porto, but there is plenty of life left in the other two ties – even if Spurs and Madrid will kick off the second legs as favourites to progress.
Here are some of the talking points from this week’s action:
Delightful Dembélé
Ever since I first saw him playing for AZ Alkmaar, and helping Louis van Gaal’s side win the Dutch Eredivisie, Mousa Dembélé has always struck me as a footballer of special technical gifts. But I have never seen him marry his skill with so much power and control as he did for Spurs against Juventus on
Tuesday.
The Belgian was the man of a marvellous match by a distance, his blend of silk and steel repeatedly taking him past opponents and his elegant left foot threading the ball into areas that the revered Juve rearguard found troublesome to defend.
I have watched Tottenham many times, and Dembélé has often flattered to deceive, the product not matching the potential. But in the pressure cooker of the Juventus Stadium he was bewitchingly good.
It was only his second start of the Champions League campaign – and his first since the opening 3-1 win against Dortmund. Spurs fans will be keeping their fingers crossed that the injuries that have so often stalled his career will now cease, because with Dembélé at full fitness and in that form they boast an asset that is potentially on a par with their two world-class goalscorers in Turin.
Diver alert at the Bernabéu
It didn’t spoil the epic in Madrid but, to my mind, all that diving and playacting that went on in the Bernabéu certainly detracted from the spectacle.
Toni Kroos, one of my favourite players, started it all, throwing himself unnaturally to the turf to try and get an early penalty. Then there was Isco losing his footing and screaming for a non-existent free-kick – which, annoyingly, he got – on the edge of the PSG area. Marcelo, a serial offender, also got in on the act, as did, somewhat more surprisingly, Luka Modrić. And although Kroos later got the penalty he was after when Giovani Lo Celso stupidly manhandled him, his descent to the ground was once again greatly exaggerated.
But perhaps the worst diver of all was the velvet-footed Neymar, whose fall-without-contact near the touchline early in the second half was duly spotted by the referee – but allowed to pass without punishment, presumably because the Brazilian had already been yellow-carded and Signore Rocchi was not keen to take centre stage by curtailing the involvement in the tie of the world’s most expensive footballer.
From the perspective of a neutral, football-loving spectator, it would have been a shame had Neymar been sent off. However, as an impartial, law-abiding arbiter of the contest with the perfect opportunity to punish the sin of ‘simulation’ for all the world to see, Rocchi should have gone to his pocket and removed his red card.
Anything you can do…
With their 4-0 win at Basel’s St Jakob-Park, Manchester City recorded the biggest away victory by an English club in the knockout phase of the Champions League.
Twenty-five and a half years is how long the Champions League has been going. Yet just twenty-four hours later that record had been wiped out thanks to Liverpool’s 5-0 thrashing of a Porto side that went into the game full of confidence as unbeaten leaders of the Portuguese Primeira Liga.
City’s result was kind of expected. Liverpool’s certainly wasn’t. It was an astonishing performance and scoreline. I wonder how Philippe Coutinho viewed the evening’s events on TV as Sadio Mané, Mo Salah and Roberto Firmino – the three ‘Fab Four’ members he left behind when he joined Barcelona in January – repeatedly ripped their hosts’ defence to shreds. Coutinho, remember, is ineligible to play for Barça in this season’s Champions League. What’s the betting that the Catalans, should they overcome Chelsea (which they should), will be drawn against Jürgen Klopp’s side in the quarter-finals?
Cristiano Ronaldo - the Champions League’s GOAT
The first player to record 100 Champions League goals for one club, Ronaldo has now beaten Lionel Messi (on 97 for Barcelona) to that milestone – the latest among a plethora of other competition landmarks that he has arrived at in advance of his great rival.
For me, Messi is the greatest footballer of all time, the most consistently wonderful to watch. As far as the Champions League is concerned, though, Cristiano is the undisputed king.
Couldn't agree more about Dembele in particular, what a performance. Spurs have the knack for finding players who, although their potential is clear, never quite appear on the radar of the absolute top clubs, and he's the latest in this line. Even today, after almost half a decade in the upper reaches of the EPL, he flies under the radar a bit.