Champions League Round of 16, End of Leg 1: English Woes, German Pressing

The dust from the first legs has settled. Some of the big teams are already looking beyond the second leg and onto the quarterfinals, while others don’t have the liberty of just coasting on autopilot in the return game. Oh, and then there is Arsenal who, despite finishing second in their group, were gifted – on paper – the weakest of the first place group finishers. Monaco, once bankrolled by oil billions, are now a decent team in a not-great, not-terrible league. They aren’t even in the top-3 in Ligue 1, yet Arsenal found a way to turn in a very Arsenally performance (in a bad way) and fall flat on their faces to a 3-1 defeat. At home.

Credit to Monaco where credit is surely due, they counterattacked perfectly, taking advantage of Arsenal’s penchant for tossing all their players forward in an effort to play the most beautiful, silky smooth soccer. Great to see Dimitar Berbatov get a goal. That man basically defines mercurial, but he's fantastic to watch, capable of pulling off ridiculous things with seemingly little effort. I hope he plays forever.

As it stands, things look grim for the Gunners heading to Monaco for the second leg. Arsenal will need to provide a thorough shellacking to a very stingy defense. This was the year Arsenal was supposed to advance past the round of 16. After yesterday, they clearly do not deserve to.

England’s bad week actually started with Manchester City falling 1-2 to a vastly superior Barcelona side. Barcelona unlocked the City defense early, with Suarez nabbing two goals (and no bites of Demichelis). Sure Joe Hart made saved Messi’s penalty to give City and lifeline, and sure Aguero got them a goal back, but the smart money will be on the Catalans wrapping things up at home next time out. But where is the fun in that? I expect a little chaos. City has to bolster their rep in Europe at some point, don’t they?

Elsewhere in Europe, the seemingly impossible happening between Bayer Leverkusen and Atletico Madrid: someone outbullied Simeone’s bullies. Hats off to Roger Schmidt and his extremely well-disciplined, hard-fouling players. If Atleti are bulldogs, Leverkusen were a pack of hungry Doberman Pinschers.

Leverkusen has been attracting a fair bit of attention in the Bundesliga due to their batshit, insane pressing style and tendency to shoot from the middle-of-fucking-nowhere if it suits their fancy. Both of these things suited their fancy yesterday. They pressed, fouled often, and backed Atleti into their own zone. In a harsh, tactical battle, the German side came out on top thanks to a 57^th minute goal from Hakan Çalhanoğlu. A 1-0 scoreline isn’t insurmountable by any means, and Atleti have a strong record at home, but Schmidt has to be incredibly pleased with how his side fared yesterday. Their form has been somewhat inconsistent in the league lately, but their display against last year’s Champions League runner-ups was as impressive as they have been in a long time.

Lastly, I’ll talk about Juventus v. Dortmund, a game that Juve took 2-1 thanks to solid counterattacking mixed with the types of defensive errors that have plagued Dortmund all season. Juventus didn’t feel like the home team in this one, letting Dortmund dictate the pace of the game. Clearly, they did not mind, as they recovered loose balls, flew at Dortmund’s defense, and twice put in low crosses from the left side (where RB Lukasz Piszczek started and left with an injury) that Mats Hummels casually fanned at. Weidenfeller spilled the cross for the first goal, but the second goal was a clean link up between Pogba and Morata. Could Hummels have thrown his body at either one? Maybe, but he didn’t, so this tie returns to Germany with Dortmund needing at least a 1-0 win. The away goal will be some compensation. After all, they played well against the champions of Italy who are notoriously solid defensively. In my preview I said this one would be tight, and I stand by that claim. Can The Yellow Wall propel Dortmund to victory in March? I sure as hell hope so.

First leg results:

PSG 1 – 1 Chelsea

Shakhtar 0 – 0 Bayern Munich

Schalke 0 – 2 Madrid

Basel 1 – 1 Porto

Juventus 2 – 1 Dortmund

Manchester City 1 – 2 Barcelona

Bayer Leverkusen 1 – 0 Atletico Madrid

Arsenal 3 -1 AS Monaco