Initial Conditions

Quarter Finals

1. Villarreal v Arsenal

2. Man Utd v Porto

3. Liverpool v Chelsea

4. Barcelona v Bayern

Semi-Finals

Winner 2 v Winner 1

Winner 4 v Winner 3

(First team drawn plays first leg at home)

This is very interesting. Thankfully (from a pan-European point of view) the possibility of an all-English semi-final is quashed by Bruno Conti’s magic balls, so Jonny Foreigner is guaranteed a place in the last 4. How very dare they!

Villarreal and Arsenal met each other previously, in the 2006 semi-final, with Arsenal coming through 1-0 on aggregate. Indeed, this tie might be worth missing since Villarreal have played six games against English teams and lost by an aggregate total of 1-0.

I’m going for Arsenal to win this, probably 1-0 after extra time.

The last time Man Utd played Porto resulted in Jose Mourinho doing a jig on the touchline. However, Porto are probably the worst team in the draw now and I think it would be quite monumental for them to beat Man Utd.. if they’re on from.

Man U to win 3-1

There’s not much you can say about Liverpool v Chelsea. It’s become something of a Champions League institution in recent years to have them play each other and for it to be quite dull (last year’s semi excepted). It’s a tough call, but I think having the second leg at home might work in Chelsea’s favour.

My tie of the round is Barcelona v Bayern (but unfortunately we’re not likely to hear much about it in the British press other than a cursory nod). In an ideal world, this would have been my final, but things don’t work like that, sadly. I think if Barca had the second leg at home they would be a dead cert, but with the second leg in Munich, it’s really hard to call. As a fan of the Bundesliga, my heart says Bayern, but as a realist, my head says Barca.

If these happen, I would expect Man U to beat Arsenal (by no means a guarantee though) and Barca to beat Chelsea to set up an anglo-spanish final. But who will win it?

What do you think?