beautiful week for the beautiful game

Four more teams will punch tickets to the Champions League quarterfinals over the next 2 days.

TUES:
I'm not too optimistic about my Beloved Inter's chances to advance.  Chasing a 1-nil home loss back on Bayern Munich's turf is a tall task.  It's even taller considering Lucio should miss.  Eto'o has been playing well of late, but much of Inter's success over the past month has been due to Giampaolo Pazzini...who is cup-tied and can not play.  Bayern is coming off a massive 6-nil W over Hamburg, Ribery is a stud, and even Robben (while not flopping all over the place) is in top form.  My official stance is I'm abstaining and rooting from the heart with a little bit of hope.

Hopefully, the return leg of this Man U / Marseille fixture offers a bit more.  The nil-nil draw back in France was a dud.  Marseille hasn't conceded a goal in 512 minutes.  Man U is undefeated in their last 11 knockout stage games at Old Trafford.  1-1 would get it done, but we don't see it that way.  I've already laid the 4-1 odds for the Red Devils to advance, so we'll abstain from the game and pray for our rivals to move on.

WED:
Chelsea won pretty easily at Copenhagen in the 1st leg, 2-nil. It felt more like 5-nil. The only thing amusing about this match was watching Fernando Torres fail time and time again to score. Admittedly, we're not that up Copenhagen. But it left us wondering how the fuck they got this far. The only hope they have is if Chelsea somehow looks past them, looking ahead to their big game against Man Shitty this weekend. Probably won't happen. Not laying the odds, though. Abstain.

A late goal by Lyon in the first leg (1-1) gives them a puncher's chance. And while Real Madrid gained 2 points on Barcelona over the weekend, we gotta think Jose has the full focus on this competition. While a nil-nil draw would get Madrid through (and one could argue Mourinho is no stranger to that tactic), we're gonna back the Special One, and lay the odds.

Officially 7-6 in the Knockouts, with a slight plus. A loss here would suck...two would be ugly.

THUR
Europa League: 4:00pm on GOLTV. Liverpool chasing a 1-nil L at Braga in the return leg back at Anfield. Our last chance for hardware. C'mon Boys!!

MLS Opening Weekend
The beloved TFC kicks off this Saturday at Vancouver at 6:30 est!  A recent look at Sports Illustrated has them predicting TFC to finish a dismal 7th place in the East.  They've got "Sporting" Kansas City playing (surprise) the LA Galaxy in the Final.

Hopefully, Dutch dude Aron Winter can get us into the playoffs for the first time since forever.  We're waiting on Yast to give us a TFC Preview.  But seeing we're still waiting on Part 2 of his 5-part TFC breakdown from the 2009 season, we could be waiting a while :)