Higuain the missing machine

Napoli are one semifinal away from a European final, and are surely favourites against the Ukrainian side Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk. And in the first match in Naples tonight Napoli had 70% possession and 22 shots on goal. Still they only got a meager 1-1. Although Dnipro's goal was a clear off side, it does not take away that Napoli can only blame themselves for not taking advantage of their enormous pressure, and their striker Gonzalo Higuain, who missed some big chances.
This is not the first time Higuain misses chances. In fact, throughout his career in different teams, he has almost been more known for his misses.
In the other semifinal Sevilla seem to be underway to their second final in a row after trouncing Fiorentina 3-0. 

Sad for Fiorentina

Fiorentina has in my view been one of the best teams to watch in this season's Champions League; I have never followed them closely, but they have been great to watch, in particular the young Montenegrin Stevan Jovetic. It was therefore disappointing that they have just been eliminated in the Champions League after defeating Bayern Munich 3-2 at home. After losing 2-1 in Munich, the Germans are progressing to the next round because of the away goals. Fiorentina was close though: they were 3-1 up until Arjen Robben scored a great second goal for Bayern midway through the second half, giving Bayern the ticket to the quarterfinals.
Bayern Munich played well, and were probably the better team, but the elimination must hurt Fiorentina the more knowing that Miroslav Klose's second goal in the first match in Munich was a clear off-side, and should have been annulled; a correct call then, would have meant that the match tonight would have been different.
But thus is football (until they allow the usage of TV pictures), and it will surely be interesting to see Bayern Munich in the next round, although Fiorentina shall be missed.

In the other match tonight Arsenal destroyed FC Porto 5-0 and is now in the quartefinals with 6-2 on aggregate.

Champions League 2009-2010 4th round group stages

Liverpool had to defeat Olympique Lyon away after losing 1-2 at home in the previous round. But last night the English team only managed a 1-1 draw, and with 4 points it is now almost impossible that Liverpool progresses to the next round: Livepool must win their remaining two matches and Fiorentina must not win any of their remaining two matches (of which the last one is between Liverpool and Fiorentina, and could prove crucial!). Watching Liverpool play, this is not surprising: although managing to dominate at moments, and getting ahead on a beautiful strike by Marcus Babbel, Lyon was the better team, and it will in fact be interesting to see whether this season may be the one for the French side.
In fact, French sides seem on top this season: Bordeaux defeated Bayern Munich 0-2 in Germany to surprisingly take the top spot in group A ahead of Juventus, while Olympique Marseille is only one point behind AC Milan and Real Madrid in group C, and will have to face both in their last two matches. Real Madrid only managed to tie against AC Milan, and while they retain the second spot, they are not looking as strong as expected.
The defending champions of Barcelona are not looking as awesome as last season either, and are struggling in group D, which is certainly the most exciting group: Inter is leading with 6 points, just ahead of Rubin Kazan and Barcelona with 5 points, while Dynamo Kiev has 4 points on last place, but can still win the group! The next round where Spanish and Italians face each other will be nail-biting!
While Atlético Madrid has been hugely disappointing and is already out after only managing to tie Chelsea 2-2 and trailing FC Porto, Sevilla has been the most awesome Spanish team, and is sure to progress from Group D where Unirea Urziceni and VfB Stuttgart are to fight for the second spot.
Finally, Manchester United and Arsenal seem set to win groups B and H respectively, with Wolfburg (by the way, cool intro-music on their web-site!), CSKA Moscow, Olympiakos and Standard Liege all having chances of progressing with them.

Outstanding Fiorentina

Anyone who may read this blog may know that I don't often have anything nice to say about Italian teams. However, as strange as it may sound, now I do: in the Champions League I watched Fiorentina play Liverpool last night, and was very impressed by the Italians, who in the first half of the match in particular were far superior to the great English side. In a non-typical Italian way, Fiorentina attacked all over the pitch, and had some outstanding players, most notably the only 19-year old Montenrgrin Stevan Jovetic who scored both Fiorentina goals in their 2-0 victory. If he can be free of inuries and continue developing, he is surely a player to watch. With two games coming up against a rather weak-looking Debrecen side (that was destroyed 0-4 at home by Olympique Lyon, who is again looking strong enough to be an outsider for the semifinals at least) , Fiorentina has good chances at continuing to the next round.
On the other hand, Liverpool is not looking too strong. The midfield without Mascherano looks very weak, and the two coming matches against Olympique Lyon will be an important test to the English side.
In the meantime, I hope to see more of the outstanding Fiorentina side.

Champions League 2009-10 Qualifiers

Panathinaikos and Atlético Madrid played a marvelous 1st leg qualifying match for the Champions League, which was a great preview for the CL. In Athens, Atlético Madrid showed its attacking force and with goals by Maxi Rodriguez, Diego Forlán and Sergio "Kun"Agüero, won a very useful 3-2 against a Panathinaikos side that will surely be a qualitative asset in the Europa League (or of course, in the CL if the manage to get a highly improbable two-goal victory in Madrid!).

After watching such quality from these two teams, any football fan would have to wonder why in the world either Atlético Madrid or Panathinaikos have to be out, when either FC Copenhagen or Apoel Nicosia will be there... In their dead-boring 1st leg match FC Copenhagen won 1-0 at home, and I think anyone should only watch the 2nd leg match if they have sleeping problems.

Not many people have been noticing that after Real Madrid and Manchester City, Olympique Lyon have been the team most investing in new players this summer, after losing some of their former stars, Juninho and Benzema. And some of these new players showed that Olympique Lyon is again a team to count on this season: Lisandro Lopez, Miralem Pjanic and Bafe Gomis all scored in Lyon's 5-1 victory against Anderlecht. It will surely be interesting to watch the French team this season!

Arsenal won an important 0-2 away victory against Celtic in Glasgow, and the youngsters will again be facing a season in the CL, where they can surely defeat anyone on a good day.

Sporting Lissabon and Fiorentina tied 2-2 in Lissabon, in a match where the Portuguese were left with ten men after Simon Vukcevic was red carded because he took his shirt off when celebrating his equalizing goal to 1-1. Still, Sporting managed to go ahead, before Gilardino equalized to 2-2 for Fiorentina, giving them a good result before the 2nd leg in Italy.

Otherwise, a number of other teams seem well on their way to the Champions League after important away victories in their 1st leg qualifiers: VFB Stuttgart (defeated Poli AEK Timisoara 0-2), FC Zurich (defeated Ventspils 0-3), Debrecen (defeated Levski Sofia 1-2) and Maccabi Haifa (defeated Red Bull Salzburg 1-2).

The Champions League is underway, and after a summer without football and watching a great match tonight, I cannot wait for it to start!