round one round up

so the first leg of the champion's league quarterfinals are complete and it was the usual mix of all over the map football:

liverpool 2 - juventus 1

this game had all the weight of the old heysel tragedy hanging over its head, and it had two storied teams playing to exorcise ghosts, while trying to take the advantage for what really matters: winning their leg and moving on to the semis. i figured juventus was going to take it, but an early liverpool onslaught caught the turin team off guard and before they knew what hit them liverpool were up 2 - nil off goals from hyppia and luis garcia. and they were both beauties.

but liverpool couldn't keep up the pace and juventus kept pressing and pressing until they got that all important away goal on a mistake from scott carson, liverpool's young keeper, in his first champion's league start. he'd been tested on a few earlier occasions and came away from them looking good, but the goal juventus stole should have been stopped. now all juventus have to do is beat liverpool 1 - nil next week and they move on.


liverpool's lad in net 

my prediction: juventus will move on

lyon 1 - psv eindhoven 1

the frenchmen dominated this game from beginning to end. they had more chances, they had better chances, but they couldn't finish more than one, which gave psv the ability to sneak a crappy goal back in the dying minutes to draw even.


psv luck out 

still, lyon is has the firepower to overcome psv's crappy away goal, and i think they will.

my prediction: lyon will move on

ac milan 2 - inter nil

no edgar davids and no adriano. need i say more? probably not, but i will anyway. inter played a great game, but so did milan and, in the end, it was the beautiful header by japp stam that made all the difference.


ac milan celebrate goal one 

no, it was more than that. japp stam was the man of the match. he shut down martens, who was inter's only real attacking threat. and that was enough. sheva's goal was just icing for milan. so can inter come back at the san siro? i doubt it. but i am an eternal optimist and an inter man so...

my prediction: inter will go through

chelsea 4 - bayern munich 2

so the big controversy in this game was ballack's apparent dive to win the penalty that gave munich their much needed second away goal. it's important because it is possible for bayern to pull out a 2 - nil victory at home. if they do that they move on. i never got a good look at the play, though, so i'm not sure if it was a dive or not. it looked like it from the angle espn was showing, but they never switched angles, so it's hard to say.

whatever the case with ballack, the most important factor in the game was frank lampard.


lampard scores 

i fucking hate chelski, but i love joe cole, john terry, makelele and lampard, so when frank is coring beautiful goals, two to be exact, and taking it to a team, even a team i love like bayern, it's hard not to smile and cheer him on. great goals frankie boy.

my prediction: chelski go through, as much as it pains me to say it.