British teams haven’t done very well in the Champions League in recent years. The glory days of the late ‘noughties’ where British teams were getting to the latter stages of the Champions League on a regular basis are long gone and based on the evidence of this past match day, it’s not going to get much better anytime soon.
Good Week For: Manchester United (Hard-earned draw away to Real Madrid)
Bad Week For: Celtic (Robbed by the referee and plagued by their own inexperience), Arsenal (Destroyed by Bayern Munich)
There was good news and bad news for the Brits this week in the Champions League. It kicked off with the Britain’s very own surprise package in the Champions League this year as Celtic entertained Juventus at Celtic Park in a clash deemed far beyond Celtic’s capabilities of winning. Aside from a bad show of inexperience however and a pretty pro-Juventus ref, Celtic fans will be right to feel a bit aggrieved. It didn’t start well for the Hoops as they conceded in the early minutes thanks to a lapse in concentration by Efe Ambrose which Matri was able to capitalise on. From then on Celtic were a different team and really took the game to Juventus for the majority of the game; had it not been for abysmal officiating, Celtic would have at least levelled by that point. The amount of effort put in by Celtic throughout the match meant that they would surely tire and indeed they did after seventy minutes. Caught on the break, Celtic conceded another goal to give Juventus a debatably deserved 2-0 lead on the night before Mirko Vucinic scored a third for the Turin side. In truth, Celtic were the orchestrators of their own downfall in this match. The lack of concentration at the beginning of the match really killed their moral and when they did get a chance from their relentless pressure, they didn’t take it. The final two goals were classic of an inexperienced Champions League side; the second goal was a result of needless over-committing and the third was just a classic example of a team who’d dropped their heads in disappointment. Neil Lennon said his side will now need a miracle to get through and to be honest that seems a bit of an understatement.
Whilst a case can be made for Celtic’s downfall and how it was undeserving of their performance, the same can’t be said of Arsenal’s ‘performance’ against Bayern Munich. To be fair, going into the match, Arsenal were facing the same uphill struggle against Bayern (if not bigger) than Celtic were against Juventus. The Germans hadn’t conceded a goal in 2013 and had only conceded seven league goals all season so you can imagine the difficulty Arsenal might have especially considering their performance against Blackburn on the weekend. It didn’t take long for Bayern to show the gulf in class either as they took a two-goal lead after less than twenty minutes. Arsenal did break the Bayern rear-guard eventually to pull a goal back in rather embarrassing fashion as far as Bayern were concerned. A complete mix-up with the defence from a corner saw Podolski have an easy finish against his old club; it’s a shame really that Bayern should be defensively so strong for months only to concede in such soft fashion. Eventually, Bayern scored again through their top-scorer, Mario Mandzukic and took a 3-1 advantage in the tie with a home leg at the Allianz Arena to come in two weeks. Again, it’ll take more than a miracle for the British team to progress I think.
The one team who has a realistic chance of progressing is Manchester United. The Premier League leaders travelled to the Bernabeu to take on Real Madrid in what Sky Sports dubbed “The Perfect Match”. it was the men who’d played in both cities though that stole the show. David De Gea and Cristiano Ronaldo were at the centre of the action throughout the clash as De Gea made some world class saves and Cristiano Ronaldo scored a fantastic goal. The match ended in a 1-1 draw with United snatching a crucial away goal; both sides missed some fantastic chances to increase their tallies but a 1-1 result was definitely fair overall. The return leg at Old Trafford should be a fixture to die for.
Results:
Celtic 0 – 3 Juventus
Arsenal 1 – 3 Bayern Munich
Real Madrid 1 – 1 Manchester United