Football is coming and the passion is firing up! Some analysis…

By: dan_c | August 26th, 2011

Look who's back. the reunion is earlier than expected

And we thought we could get a few months to move on, pretend he never existed, and then came Thursday and the Champions League Draw.

Lets step back and take a look at the last few days and two very positive and exciting pieces of news.

Firstly, a deal was struck between the highups in La Liga management and the players representatives in midweek which all but guarentees us the kickoff of the season that we’ve all been waiting for this weekend, in what should be a decent game but certainly a winnable one against Racing Sant.

But secondly, the Champions League draw. Lets first remember that we have no right to not LOVE the draw that we got. We avoided the worst in every pot (Borussia Dortmund from pot 4, Man City from pot 3, Man U/Barca/RMad from pot one would have been disastrous.)

In essence we got the mid to upper range of each pot, which should make for a very interesting group stage, and one from which we definitely can progress.

So, our opposition:

Firstly Chelski

Roman Abromovichs pet ego pumper haven’t been their confident, dominant selves over the past 7 months. The Roman Caesar has therefore contrived to go back to a system that worked for him so well some years back. Get an extremely exciting, successful, young coach from Porto and give him free reign over signings. In have come many very young and very promising signings in a bid to safeguard the Pensioners’ future, as many of their stalwarts are aging now at a rapid rate, very much the wrong side of 30. As usual the pressure at Stamford Bridge will be tremendous. Roman’s biggest aim has still not been achieved, that elusive champion’s league victory.

Chelsea are very hard to predict. As the first half of last year’s premiership season showed, when the old guard is injury-free and on form, they are the second best team in the world, indisputably, only barca could stand up to chelsea at their best, drogba, essien, malouda, terry, lampard, anelka, cech in full flight. But that side of chelsea has gone AWOL since the new year, and abromovichs decision to take the reigns and 50m pounds on the world’s current most overrated striker upset the balance of the side and King Carlo, certainly one of the best managers around, left the club just a year after he won the league double.

It isn’t yet clear what change, good or bad, the new mourinho has brought to chelsea. An unispiring 0-0 draw followed by a dodgy win over West Brom when malouda scored the winner in the closing minutes have left them with 4 points from their opening 2 games. They are certainly the group favourites however, they just have such undoubted ability and quality EVERYWHERE. This is their clear strength. However, it has been many moons since we saw anything like the petr cech of old and the defence is just getting slower, something I’m sure we’ll see Los Che take advantage of.

And then there’s the grinning boy at the top of the screen.

AH, the one person I didn’t want to see, much less play against, any time soon.

Secondly: Bayer Leverkusen.

The team is known as Neverkusen for a reason. The eternal pretenders that never win anything, but are always there or there abouts. Last year was no different. They did a great job of reeling in Dortmund after the winter break in the bundesliga but through 4 or 5 abject performances in the last 2 months of the season threw it all away.

What can we say about Leverkusen this season?

Well firstly they are significantly weaker than the team who did solidly in the Europa League last year. Their wonderful, intelligent and just generally top quality coach, Jupp Heynkes, left for Bayern, the FC Hollywood of Germany as they are known. To easily understand JUST what a loss this is simply takes a glance at Heynkes’ achievements. A Champions League and a Spanish Supercup with Real Madrid, 2 Intertoto Cups with Schalke and 2 Bundesligas and 2 German Supercups in his first stint with FC Hollywood.

Secondly they lost their best player, the quality attacking midfielder Arturo Vidal, to Juventus a few weeks back. Others have left too, and the aging of some squad members, especially the old hero Michael Ballack, led to pessimism about their chances for this season. After losing their opening game to last season’s surprise package Mainz, they bounced back with back-to-back 1-0 wins over Werder and Stuttgart.

Neverkusen benefit from a strong defence, as is shown by their back-to-back clean sheets, which is an especially impressive statistic considering the fact that they play in the highest-scoring league in Europe. They have a sloid, capable team, but lack real quality such as the likes of BVB and Munich possess, which keeps them from being a real force to be feared. Each department is good, but not special. Of the strikers, Stefan Kiessling is one to be careful of. The German international is strong and good in the air (tall man too) and with the ball at his feet. The Brazilian Renato Augusto should pull strings in the midfield. Rene Adler, the man who was the future great of all-time goalkeeping prior to world cup 2010 (when he sustained an injury that ruled him out and also dethroned him as Germany’s first choice, allowing Manuel Neuer to become the focus of world admiration) has been plagued with injuries in the last year and is currently out, but if he is fit will provide quality between the goalposts. However, he can be nervous off crosses and high balls and is prone to a few Heurelho Gomes-esque moments now and again.

To be honest, I see them as 3rd place in our group. They will be hard to conquer but I see Los Che and Chelski seeing them off.

Finally, and barring a tremendous upset, the team set for last place in the group, Genk.

First ups, no disrespect intended but the Belgian League is not a big threat in this day and age. Known as a great league in terms of nurturing talent (think Romelo Lukaka as the latest in a long production line), it rarely manages to offer teams which mount any challenge to the european establishment. It struggles to attract big-name players, which is part of the reason why its focus on youth development has been so necessary and so effective, but tbh a game against any side from Belgium must be seen by a club like ours as a must win. Non-negotiable.

Onto Genk specifically, I don’t have much to offer on them, as out of the four leagues represented by teams in our group, Belgian League is the only league that I don’t watch on a weekly basis. Actually, I don’t watch it at all. Except now and again on Goalissimo, but that doesn’t count, I mean, Goalissimo shows games from the Faroe Islands.

The fact that they are champions ergo means that they must have something to offer, particularly because of the challenge of winning the Jupiler (belgian top) league. After the regular season the top for play a round robin and the winner of that new table of four is crowned champion so they certainly proved their worth as kings of Belgium. However, each side in this group simply contains too much class for them and I think finding a win somewhere in their fixture list would be an awesome result, but highly highly improbable.

So there you have it. Chelsea for the win, just, us to follow, Bayer for Europa League.

How far Los Che can go depends totally on the last 16 draw for me. We have a really good side that aside from the loss of Mata has been strengthened well. Adil Rami and whoever partners him at the back will be an improvement on last year, Soldado is Soldado, nuff said, and I trust that the midfield will blossom into its huge potential. With a good draw, I so no reason why Los Che can’t make semis. After that who knows? Anything can happen once we get to that stage of the competition. Most of the squad has been there and experienced the pressure before so I don’t see a problem of being overawed by the occasion.

Of course, as happens so often with fans, a bad performance on the weekend will crush all that I’ve just said and send me into a spate of terrible depression.

But hey, that’s fine. A true fan spends more time mourning than rejoicing as they saying goes.

I think.

Take that all of you new Barca fans.

AMUNT