The stage has been set today for the UEFA Champions League quater finals which will be held on March 30/31 followed by the second leg on April 6/7.
The draw was open meaning any team out of the 8 remaining could have drawn any of the othr 7 teams.
So, there were no seeded teams even though unoficially we could say we have two value groups. One would be "the underdogs" and the other I will unoriginally call it, "the big 4"
Don't get me wrong, each club more then deserves it's spot in the quarter finals of the most pestigious club competition on the planet and while I personally welcome the diversity, realistically and historically speaking we do have four favorites in Arsenal FC, FC Barcelona, FC Interazionale Milano and Manchester United.
Here are the 1/4 finals match ups:
Lyon v. Bordeaux
Bayern Munich v. Manchester United
Arsenal v. Barcelona
Inter v. CSKA Moskow
Glancing at the above, I think we could all agree one one fact that the most anticipated match up of this stage will be the Arsenal versus Barcelona clash, a rematch of the 2005/2006 season final when Barcelona went all the way.
The semi-finals will be played in the following format:
Lyon/Bordeaux v. Bayern/ Manchester United
and
Arsenal/Barcelona v. Inter/CSKA
Having said that we could have a dream final on the 22nd of May this year between Barcelona and Man United, a rematch of last year's final between the two best teams in the world at the moment, in my opinion or Man United v. Inter, a clash between the most in form strikers Rooney and Milito and the meeting of the. arguably, best two managers in football right now, Jose "The Special One" Mourinho and Sir Alex Ferguson.
What are your thoughts about the draw? Post them in the comments section.