The outcome of the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals looks to be something of a foregone conclusion after last week’s first-leg results, with Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Liverpool – a quartet with no fewer than 27 European Cups between them – all in virtually unassailable positions.
The only tie I see with the potential to alter that scenario is the all-English affair between Liverpool and Manchester City – although Pep Guardiola’s side, so imperious all season, followed up their 3-0 defeat at Anfield by butchering the chance to wrap up the Premier League title early when they somehow surrendered a 2-0 half-time lead to lose 3-2 to party-pooping Manchester United on Saturday evening.
Bayern did secure their record-extending sixth successive Bundesliga title at the weekend with a 4-1 win at Augsburg, while Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw at home to neighbours Atlético on Sunday helped push Barcelona closer towards the Spanish title after a Lionel Messi hat-trick – his first since the one he scored against Ecuador in October to send Argentina to the World Cup – had clinched a 3-1 home win over Leganés the previous day.
Like City, the other three teams charged with having to produce improbable second-leg comebacks this week did not warm up in style, Roma losing 2-0 at home to Fiorentina, Sevilla being thrashed 4-0 at Celta Vigo, and Juventus, despite beating Serie A punchbag Benevento, actually conceding two goals in the process – something they have not done in the league since mid-November.
Unfortunately, I anticipate a rather dull and uneventful week. Here, nevertheless, are my previews and predictions:
Tuesday – MANCHESTER CITY (0) v LIVERPOOL (3)
For the first time in his managerial career, Guardiola has watched his team concede three goals in successive matches. City can ill afford to allow Liverpool even one if they are to maintain their bid for a Premier League/Champions League double. The way they are defending at the moment, a clean sheet looks unlikely, and if, as expected, they throw everything into attack in search of the goals they need to erase their first-leg deficit, that will expose their dodgy back line even more – especially if the deadly Mo Salah is fully recovered from the injury he sustained in the first game at Anfield.
If Jürgen Klopp’s side get one goal, I expect them to do as they did at home after they went 3-0 up and park the proverbial public transport. Indeed, with such a favourable cushion, they might even deploy that tactic from the very start, although that could spell trouble as it would hand City the initiative.
What City can’t afford to do is squander easy chances like they – or, rather, Raheem Sterling – did against United on Saturday. With natural finishers Sergio Agüero and/or Gabriel Jesus to spearhead the attack instead of the mercurial England winger, I expect City to score the goals they need to prolong the tie into extra time… but also to concede, thereby ending their hopes of European advancement and leaving Liverpool as the last Premier League side standing in the 2017/18 Champions League.
Prediction: 3-1 (3-4 on aggregate)
Tuesday – ROMA (1) v BARCELONA (4)
Roma’s first Champions League quarter-final in a decade looks certain to end like the previous two (against Manchester United in 2007 and 2008) – in ignominious defeat. Two sloppy own goals triggered their 4-1 loss in the Camp Nou, and even when Edin Džeko got them back into the tie at 3-1, more inelegant defending allowed Barcelona to score again as Luis Suárez rifled in his first Champions League goal in over a year.
Oddly, Messi was not among the first-leg scorers, which by the law of averages means he is bound to find the net in the Stadio Olimpico. Roma have only scored one goal in their last four fixtures at home to Spanish teams – Alessandro Florenzi’s outrageous lob from his own half against Barça in the 2015/16 group stage – and it is barely imaginable that they can score three or more against a team that has lost just two matches all season, neither of them in La Liga or the Champions League. It should be a canter for the Catalans in the Eternal City.
Prediction: 1-2 (2-6 on aggregate)
Wednesday – REAL MADRID (3) v JUVENTUS (0)
With Madrid 3-0 up and all but certain of booking a semi-final spot for a remarkable eighth season in a row, the focus of attention at the Bernabéu may well turn – as it did in Turin – to the goalscoring brilliance of Cristiano Ronaldo. His second goal in Madrid’s 3-0 win brought from me – and I am sure from most others who witnessed it – a yelp of delight mixed with disbelief. It was unquestionably one of the all-time great European Cup strikes. Some overhead kicks look better than they actually are, but Ronaldo’s was technical and athletic perfection – and with pin-point placement to boot. Brilliant, just brilliant.
With 14 Champions League goals already this season, including at least one in every game, Ronaldo is set to eclipse his own competition-record tally of 17 that he set in 2013/14. This second leg is his 150th match in the Champions League proper – which places him third in the all-time appearance list (behind only Iker Casillas and Xavi) – and it would be enormously disappointing if he failed to crown it with another goal or two.
Juventus’s defence will be doing their best to stop him, especially Gianluigi Buffon, for whom this is likely to be a final Champions League appearance. The Juve fans’ impromptu round of applause for Ronaldo’s wondergoal in Turin was a genuinely heartwarming moment. I hope Madrid’s followers reciprocate by putting their hands together and giving Juventus’s veteran goalkeeper – however he performs – a fitting European send-off.
Prediction: 2-1 (5-1 on aggregate)
Wednesday – BAYERN MUNICH (2) v SEVILLA (1)
Bayern are brutal at home, and although they are only one goal up on Sevilla, the newly-recrowned German champions were sufficiently dominant in the second half of the first leg in Andalusia to suggest that they will send their Spanish opponents packing with another goalfest in the Allianz-Arena, where they have found the net 30 times in their last nine Champions League outings.
Jupp Heynckes’ men had to make do with a couple of scrappy goals in Seville to come back from Pablo Sarabia’s opener after the home side had given them plenty of problems early on, but their control of the tie after the interval was almost total. I don’t see how Vincenzo Montella’s side can cope with the variety and speed of Bayern’s attacks in Munich. I’d love to be pleasantly surprised by the ambition of a team that – lest we forget – famously won 2-1 at Manchester United in the round of 16, but all I foresee is a desperate desire for damage limitation as Bayern remorselessly sweep them aside.
Prediction: 3-0 (5-1 on aggregate)
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