Monday, December 8, 2008

Most and least impressive

With MLS out of the way, I'm dedicating Tuesday's column to the Champions League. I haven't yet checked in on the Champions League this season (okay, maybe I have and I just don't remember it but off the top of my head I don't recall a CL column). So it's good to check in on the league and try to put some sort of wrap on the group stage.

I figured I'd divide it up into the most impressive and most disappointing clubs, with three teams in each category. You'll have to wait until the column comes out to see who I've got in each category but there weren't too many disappointments in the group stage thus far. I'm not sure any team that was supposed to have gotten through is now sitting on the outside looking in.

There were various levels of ineptness that I capitalized on in terms of the bad clubs, but overall the teams that were supposed to go through have or on the verge of doing so. You could argue that some of those teams haven't been as impressive - Chelsea for instance still hasn't clinched a spot in the knockout rounds. If that happens, they of course would head the list. But for now, they just missed my cut.

As far as impressive teams go, I don't think you could leave out Barcelona. Four wins and a draw thus far has been impressive. But they aren't the only teams who have yet to lose - Atletico Madrid, Liverpool, Manchester United, Villarreal, Arsenal, Juventus, Lyon and Bayern have yet to lose through five matches. And I picked two of those to round out the list.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Check this out Luis , according to ESPN the Barcelona backed mls expansion team is a go for 2010

http://espndeportes.espn.go.com/news/story?id=754983&s=gen&type=story

And in other MLS news , Dulio Davino is done with FC Dallas