Today was the first match of the Champions League quarter-finals and it was an exciting one! The team couldn’t be more different from each other. On one side we had Atalanta, a humble team from Italy that despite not having any famous player, they were the team that scored the most goals in the Italian League. 98 goals in total! More than Inter and Juventus. In contrast, Neymar who is the PSG's player with the highest salary earns more than the whole Atalanta's squad combined. Atalanta certainly has a good attack but their defense isn’t necessarily great.
On the other side, we have PSG, a well-known state-club owned by oil money from Qatar, the same country that bribed its way to organize the World Cup of 2022. Neymar and Mbappe are its main stars. Di Maria, who is another important player, wasn't able to play today and the same happened with Verratti while Mbappe only played 30 minutes because he is recovering from an injury.
The match started great for Atalanta, in the first 3 minutes they already had a shot on target. Neymar then quickly had his first opportunity and he missed it inexplicably. Neymar had an amazing match dribbling and creating danger, but a horrible one shooting. He had at least 3 clear goal opportunities and all of them were missed.
The first half was for Atalanta though, they scored the goal and caused more danger than PSG (Neymar). In the second half, they made the mistake of adopting a more defensive strategy. This team isn't well-known for its defense but rather for its attack. They should have continued with their intensive attacks and try to score the second goal. But instead, they tried to protect their 1 goal advantage and it worked until the 90-minute mark.
In that minute, PSG was able to score a very ugly goal but enough to fill them with energy and make Atalanta's players depressed. 2 minutes later PSG scored the second goal, and Atalanta got kicked out of the competition!
I was hoping for Atalanta to win but it is also good to have Neymar and Mbappe still in the competition. This is a tournament to enjoy watching the best players in the world and those 2 are certainly top-notch strikers. I believe PSG's next match will be against Atletico de Madrid, they play tomorrow against the German team RB Leipzig which finished in third place in the Bundesliga.
The third German team vs the third Spanish team, a good match for sure but I think Atletico will win because they have more experience in the tournament. They have recently reached 2 finals and 1 semifinal, and they have beaten a lot of powerful teams in recent years such as Barcelona or Bayern Munich.
In fact, if it wasn't for Real Madrid, Atletico de Madrid would probably have at least 1 Champions League or even 2. Between 2014 and 2017 the only team able to beat Atletico de Madrid in the Champions League was Real Madrid. 2 finals, 1 semifinal, and 1 quarter-final. Atletico is a solid team that has been so close to winning this tournament in recent years that I honestly believe they deserve a win. The problem is, Lewandowski (Bayern Munich's striker and main star) also deserves a Champions League trophy, and this year he has been killing it with a super performance. I am eyeing a final between Bayern Munich and Atletico de Madrid but it is still too soon to tell for sure.
I am already looking forward to tomorrow's match but the main plate will come on Friday, Lewandowski's Bayern Munich vs Messi's Barcelona. Good football.
By the way, yesterday I saw this super funny video where the guy tries to mock each and every team that participates in the quarter-finals. I think the funniest part is at the beginning when he makes fun of Atalanta xD. Check this out 