The Other European Cup

“Baled” Out

The Welsh Player once again had to step out to save Tottenham with two fantastic free kicks that would have been a problem for any goalkeeper on any day. Bales fantastic run of form continued last night as he made sure Tottenham would return to France with a one goal advantage. Lyon gave a good account of themselves on the night tho, they were even denied a penalty when Gomis Bafetimbi was brought down by Jan Vertonghen. Bale on the night gave an exceptional paradigm of what a match winning performance looks like.

Tottenham 2-1 Lyon

Super Sub

Chelsea came out tops in Czech after supersub Oscar scored just less than 1 minute after coming off the bench with a beautiful partnership with Hazard slotted the ball into the bottom corner. Personally I think the best chances of the game fell on the laps of Daviv Lafata in the first 45 minutes but on both occasions he seemed to be aiming more for the stands than the post. As Sparta return to Stamford Bridge they will look to deny the Champions league defending champions from becoming  the fifth club to have won all European cups adding to haul of records which also includes being the first defending champions to be sent packing in the group stages of the champions league.

Chelsea sure has a good chance of going through but they once again showed why they were eliminated from the Champions league.

Sparta Prague 0-1 Chelsea

Resourceful Reina and Wasteful Suarez

Liverpool failed to make their chances count against a very determined Russian side with Luis Suarez having the lion share of the misses. This is coming on the heels of Liverpools latest home defeat to West Brom by the same scoreline. In my own opinion looking at the misses by Suarez in both games I think he really needs another striker to challenge him to do better. Reina on the other hand looked sharp and very efficient in goal with a couple of brilliant saves but still notwithstanding his saves Liverpool still fell short.

Zenit St. Petersburg  2-0 Liverpool,

We should have won.

 “We should have won”, those were the words from Alan Pardew after what was a very unlucky night for the host team. Having two goals ruled out for offside and having some clear goal scoring opportunities missed, Newcastle will be hoping for better fortunes as they head to Ukraine for the second leg of the match. Cisse had a game to forget with two goals ruled out for offside and a few missed chances. The visitors had few good chances too but their most lethal player in my opinion was Marlos, who threatened the Newcastle defence with a few deadly balls. The team with the advantage come the second leg seems to be Newcastle.

Newcastle United 0-0 Metalist Kharkiv