The Uefa Champions League action returns and we do be seeing four dominant teams in their respective league face each other on Tuesday and Wednesday to book a ticket for the final stage of the competition, all matches will go down in England as Liverpool host Villarreal at Anfield while Manchester City and Real Madrid game would go down at the Etihad Stadium.
It is the first leg of the semifinal round and the teams expectations are high since the results would be having a big impact on the teams' chances of qualifying, something I don’t find cool is why both English teams are playing at home in the first leg, Liverpool should at least be playing away since their last game was at home while Villarreal played away last and should be at home this time.
The defending champions didn’t make it through the last round; they were knocked out by Real Madrid despite all their effort. As it the stand, the title is either staying in England or returning to Spanish, which will be judged by teams that make it to the finals.
The Manchester City fixture interests me a lot because I have seen some pundits write off the English side, I don’t think football prediction works that way anymore.
Manchester City must be going through a tough time having back to back tough matches in all competition, their ticket into the semifinal didn’t come easy as they went through a tough one against Atletico Madrid, and playing against another top Spanish side could be a big problem but we mustn’t forget that Manchester city can’t be underrated.
We saw them dump Real Madrid out of the competition in 2020, they defeated the title record holder in both legs. Judging Manchester City by their performance against Atletico would be wrong because the Spanish side has different playing styles. Atletico Madrid is known to be a defense-minded team while Real Madrid wants to push forward whenever they get the ball.
Manchester City is also an attacking side with a good defense as well which makes the match balanced for me but the absence of Kyle Walker and Cancelo in defense could put the team at risk against the likes of Vinicius and Benzema. City manager must be tactical with his lineup to avoid conceding too many goals because the chances of both teams scoring are high, it now depends on which team would concede more going into the second leg in the Santiago Bernabeu.
Liverpool and Villarreal haven’t met in the Uefa Champions League and it would be their first time playing against each other in the competition, the last time they met was in the Europa League back in 2016 and it ended 3 - 1 on aggregate in favor of Liverpool but that’s a long time ago because there has been lots of transformation and new energies in the team.
Villarreal did the unbelievable getting into this round of the competition; it was hard to believe that they would knock out Bayern Munich a very dominant team since the beginning of the competition.
This round is beginning to look like the same thing we saw in the previous, PSG eliminated Bayern Munich and Manchester United kicked the French side out of the competition. Chelsea also knocked out Madrid which resulted in an all-English final; could we be seeing the same thing?
I am sure it would be a great game, the attacking prowess of Liverpool should give them a good chance against Villarreal but that doesn’t mean the Spanish team can be underrated. A side that knocked Bayern Munich out of the competition is not here for a joke; they can shock the football world if they progress to the final.
Liverpool seems to be having their eyes on four titles this season and it would be an unforgettable record if they can win at least three out of the four titles in sight, they have three more to go.
The matches would be great, I expect both matches to have not less than 2.5 goals each. It would be great to see an all-English final but it is football, anything can happen so I will just urge everyone to enjoy the games.