Madrid dominate in Nicosia

Last night, Apoel Nicosia's fairytale run through the Champions League effectively came to an end. Nicosia topped their group and knocked out French side Lyon in the Round of 16. Before last night they had also only conceded 7 goals in the tournament. At home in the first leg of the Quarter Finals, Apoel would have been looking to keep a clean sheet in order to stay in the tie, unfortunately for the Cypriot side Real Madrid had other ideas.

The game ended up as one of the most one-sided ties ever in the competition. Apoel didn't manage a single shot in the entire match, and only had 22% of the possession. Real Madrid won the match 3-0, but the scoreline really flattered the home side. Below are some selected chalkboards which demonstrate the level of domination.

Passes 

Real Madrid completed over 500 more passes than Apoel Nicosia, and had 78% possession.

Shots 

The goals didn't come until the second half, but Real Madrid had 28 shots at goal compared to Apoel's none. 

Attacking Third 

Amazingly, Apoel only completed 12 passes in the attacking third of the pitch. Surely a Champions League record low? 

Paulo Jorge 

A perfect example of how bad Apoel were last night was Paulo Jorge. The Centre-back played the full 90 minutes and only completed 4 passes, two less than Iker Casillas.

The Champions League is there for the taking for Madrid or Barcelona

While the Champions League has been away Real Madrid have been storming ahead in La Liga. Jose Mourinho’s team are now a massive 10 points clear at the top of the league having collected 58 points from a possible 66. In the Champions League this season Real Madrid’s record is immaculate. Winning all 6 group games, Madrid are the first team to have a 100% record since Barcelona 9 years ago in 2002. Real scored 19 goals and kept 5 clean sheets. From such a position of dominance, Madrid are arguably the best side in Europe right now.

The only problem for Madrid is that while they seem to be able to wipe the floor with everyone else on the continent, there is one obstacle that continues to trip them up. Despite clearly looking way off their best this season, Barcelona still have the upper hand in the head to heads. The two sides have met 5 times this season, Barcelona have won 3 and drawn 2, winning the Supercopa and knocking Madrid out of the Copa del Rey. This means that should the two teams meet again in the Champions League, Barcelona will feel that they still have the advantage over the La Liga leaders.

Since the end of the Group Stages Bayern Munich have slipped off the top of the Bundesliga, while Chelsea and Arsenal have both continued to falter in the Premier League. Napoli have stumbled into a very poor patch of form and while Milan may currently be top of Serie A, they too have looked far from convincing. Internazionale were shaping up to be contenders again after they won the Milan derby in January, but their form since has been horrendous and they have lost 4 of their last 5 matches.

Considering all of the above, it doesn’t seem as though anyone will be able challenge Madrid and Barcelona this year. Madrid are better than they were last season, and while Barcelona may be struggling in the league, very few teams get the better of them when it matters. The rest look weaker than in any other season. Both Manchester clubs being out clears the path a bit more, and while the other big experienced sides shouldn’t be completely written off, it is surely Madrid or Barcelona's tournament to lose now.

Bayern Munich 2-0 Manchester City - Germans pass their test

On Tuesday night Bayern Munich beat big spending Manchester City at the Allianz Arena by a surprisingly comfortable 2-0 scoreline. City started well, and while the first 30 minutes were relatively even, two goals from Mario Gomez before half-time sealed the victory. In the second half Man City didn’t put up much of a fight, and with Tevez refusing to come on as a substitute with around 30 minutes still to play, it was a poor night for Mancini’s men.

Manchester City found it difficult to retain possession at crucial times in the game, and Bayern never let them rest, unleashing 24 shots at City’s goal. Joe Hart had an excellent game, but was visibly angry with his defence, who stood almost completely still for both of Bayern’s goals. City struggled to get the ball forward, which meant that Aguero and Dzeko failed to make much of an impact on the match. David Silva was not able to have as much an impact on proceedings as usual, but he was still City’s most dangerous player. Silva completed more passes in the final third than any other City player, creating 3 chances.

David Silva’s commitment to the team couldn't be questioned either. Silva made more tackles than any other Manchester City player, but also committed the most fouls.

Bayern Munich bossed the majority of this match and Manchester City really struggled throughout to deal with Franck Ribery and Bastian Schweinsteiger. Ribery was a handful all night for Micah Richards and anyone else who came across to cover. Ribery made more attacking third passes and created more chances than anyone else on the pitch. The Frenchman, who was taking on defenders all night long, was also fouled more than anyone else.

Schweinsteiger and Ribery had a combined 9 shots at goal - the same as the entire Manchester City team.

Mario Gomez once again showed his predatory striking skills, scoring both goals from rebounds off the goalkeeper, in fact all 6 of Gomez’s shots were from inside the penalty area.

Bayern extended their amazing win and clean sheet run to 10 matches. This was meant to be a first real test for both sides, and it was Bayern Munich who passed quite comfortably.

Chalkboards created using the excellent Stats Zone iPhone App from FourFourTwo and Opta - http://fourfourtwo.com/statszone/

Champions League Preview - Bayern Munich v Manchester City

Manchester City travel to Germany tonight to take on Bayern Munich in Group A of the UEFA Champions League. Both teams are flying high in their respective domestic leagues, and their statistics so far this season suggest tonight’s match is a real heavyweight clash.

Bayern Munich are top of the Bundesliga and are in such imperious form that some in Germany believe the title is theirs for the taking. After losing their first match of the season 1-0 at home to Monchengladbach, they have gone on an incredible run of results in all competitions. In Bayern’s last 9 games they have won all 9, keeping a clean sheet in every match and scoring 26 goals.

Manchester City have also enjoyed a very impressive start to the season, and they currently sit second in the Premier League, only behind Manchester United on goal difference. Unbeaten in all competitions so far, City have looked excellent going forward, scoring 19 goals in their 6 League games.

Both teams will see tonight’s match as a real test, and viewers should be treated to an absolutely fascinating tie.

Champions League Round of 16 - Brief Analysis Part 2

The second set of Champions League Round of 16 first legs took place this week. This week's entertainment level may have dropped, with only 5 goals being scored as opposed to 11 last week.

Below, I take a look at some points of interest with the aid of the excellent Total Football - Champions League iPhone app.

Impact Substitution
Jose Mourinho has shown this season that he doesn't necessarily trust Karim Benzema at the top end of his team. Emmanuel Adebayor has been brought in on loan from Manchester City, and on Tuesday night he started the match away at Lyon. To say that the ex-Arsenal striker was rather ineffective would be an understatement. Within 40 seconds of coming on as Adebayor's replacement, Karim Benzema grabbed the opening goal against his old side. A great goal after a mazy dribble across the opposition penalty area gave Madrid a crucial away goal to take back to the Bernabeu.

Firing Blanks
Marseille v Manchester United was not the most exciting game. Both sides seemed to be overly cautious, and although Marseille will consider a 0-0 draw a good result, they still have a difficult task of getting a score draw or better at Old Trafford. Manchester United were especially poor going forward, having only 2 shots on target in the match. Their 8 shots at goal was the lowest total of all the 16 teams that played over the last two weeks.

Torres bedding in
Chelsea got a comfortable 2-0 win at Copenhagen on Tuesday night, and look set to make the Quarter Finals with relative ease. They started the game with new signing Fernando Torres partnering Nicolas Anelka up front. The duo managed 13 shots between them and were far too much for Copenhagen to contain. Although Torres did not get a goal, his movement was excellent throughout the game and he got into numerous goalscoring positions. It shouldn't be long before the Spanish striker nets his first goal for his new club.

Bayern show their class
Louis van Gaal's Bayern Munich recorded a fantastic 1-0 away win in their first leg with Internazionale on Wednesday. Inter did have chances of their own, with Samuel Eto'o coming close on a few occasions, but Bayern were bright and bold throughout, and got the winner in the 90th minute through Mario Gomez. Arjen Robben created the goal when he cut in from the right wing and had a shot which was parried by Julio Cesar. Robben tried this all evening, often picking the ball up in a very wide position. The Inter defenders doubled up on him well for most of the match in order to stop him cutting inside, but they ultimately failed.

Bastian Schweinsteiger also had an excellent game, controlling the midfield and dictating Bayern's play throughout. Schweinsteiger attempted and completed the most passes of any player on the pitch. As can be seen on the chalkboard below, the German midfielder concentrated the majority of his balls out wide, looking for the consistently dangerous Robben and Ribery.

Champions League Round of 16 - Brief Analysis

The Champions League Round of 16 began this week with four 1st leg matches. Three of the games ended with rather surprising results as Shakhtar and Tottenham both won away in Italy, and Arsenal beat Barcelona 2-1 at the Emirates.

Below, I take a look at some points of interest with the aid of the excellent Total Football - Champions League iPhone app.

England’s rising star
Jack Wilshere has been getting a lot of positive press recently, and in last night’s game he showed off his qualities superbly. Against Barcelona, keeping the ball while under pressure is vitally important, and Wilshere was magnificent in possession. He completed 90% of his passes in the match and showed a level of composure with the ball that is a rare sight among English midfielders. Of course, the master of passing Xavi Hernandez was pulling the most strings again last night, but Wilshere managed to show his class despite Arsenal only having 39% possession.

Mixed Gunners fire power
Before the game Barcelona may have concentrated their attention on Theo Walcott. The lightning fast winger who caused the Catalans a lot of trouble last season may have been picked out as the danger man, but it was in form striker Robin Van Persie who caused most upset.

The Dutchman was a constant thorn in the side of the Barca defence, having 7 shots and scoring the equalising goal.

Walcott on the other hand struggled to make any impact on the game, only completing 9 passes during the 76 minutes that he was on the pitch.

Spurs’ hard work pays off
Every Tottenham player put in a great performance on Tuesday night as Spurs beat AC Milan 1-0 in the San Siro. The win was fully deserved and came on the back of an excellent team performance. Spurs worked extremely hard to restrict Milan and stopped their midfield from creating. Wilson Palacios and Sandro were an instrumental part of Tottenham’s defensive solidity.

This hard work not only restricted Milan, but allowed Tottenham to begin attacks of their own. Away from home, Spurs managed to have twice the amount of shots on target that Milan did.

Harry Redknapp got his tactics spot on all night, and bringing on Luka Modric after 61 minutes was another clever thing to do. Milan were starting to attack with more purpose and the game was getting tougher for Spurs. The introduction of Luka Modric meant that Tottenham were better able to retain possession. Modric only gave the ball away once and was responsible for the pass which set Aaron Lennon away in the build up to the only goal of the game.

Roma wasteful
A demoralising 3-2 home defeat was not how Roma would have wanted to start the Champions League knockout stage. Shakhtar Donetsk look in complete control of the tie after a great result against a rather wasteful Roma side. Only 4 of the home side’s 22 shots hit the target.

Record Breaker Raul
A 1-1 draw at the Mestalla leaves this tie in the balance, but it was ex Real Madrid striker Raul who took the headlines. His equalising goal for Schalke in the 64th minute means that he breaks the record for the most goals in European competition history. Congratulations to Raul and his amazing 71 goal haul.

Champions League Match Day 6 - Brief Analysis

The Champions League Group stage is now over. 16 teams are through to the knockout stage, 8 will play in the next round of the Europa League and 8 are out altogether. The draw for the next round takes place in one week and is likely to throw up some very interesting ties.

Due to the fact that many teams had already sealed qualification, some of the games unfortunately lacked any real intensity or drive. However, there were some points of interest.

Quality over Quantity
Real Madrid brushed aside Auxerre 4-0 at the Bernabeu on Wednesday but somehow the French side managed to have more shots overall.

Benfica were in an even more wasteful and apparently desperate mood as they managed to lose 2-1 to Shalke despite having 16 more shots at goal than the German visitors.

Barcelona philosophy runs deep
Despite fielding a very young and inexperienced side, Barcelona showed Rubin Kazan that their passing philosophy is so ingrained that the youth can slot right in and be very effective too. Barcelona passed the Russian side to death, completing over 700 more passes in the match.

Valencia’s Possession
An impressive statistic in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw between Manchester United and Valencia was that the Spanish side had more possession at Old Trafford. Ever Banega in particular had an excellent night moving the ball around from the centre of the park, completing 25 more passes than anyone on the pitch.

Group Stage Statistics
At the end of the group stage we currently have the following statistics:

Top Goal Scorers
Samuel Eto’o (Inter Milan) - 7
Mario Gomez (Bayern Munich) - 6
Lionel Messi (Barcelona) - 6

Top Assists
Carlos Martins (Benfica) - 5
Aaron Lennon (Tottenham Hotspur) - 4

Most Successful Passes
Sergio Busquets (Barcelona) - 516
Philipp Lahm (Bayern Munich) - 515
Xavi (Barcelona) - 458

Most Shots on Target
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) - 16
Lionel Messi (Barcelona) - 15

Most Shots off Target
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) - 24
Carlos Martins (Benfica) - 20

Most successful take-ons
Gareth Bale (Tottenham Hotspur) - 28
Lionel Messi (Barcelona) - 24

Most Crosses
Gareth Bale (Tottenham Hotspur) - 72
Samuel Inkoom (FC Basel) - 48

Diagrams courtesy of the excellent Total Football - Champions League iPhone app

Champions League Match Day 5 - Brief Analysis

A few snippets of interest from this week’s round of Champions League Group matches:

Luka Modric and Denilson

Luka Modric had a wonderful game last night at White Hart Lane, scoring a beautiful goal and dictating the rhythm of Spurs’ play. In his new deeper role, Modric gets more of the ball than any of his teammates and is continually looking to get the side moving. In a similar role on Tuesday night was Arsenal’s Denilson, who also had the majority of the ball.

A quick glance at the comparison above could lead one to believe that both players had a similar influence of their sides. However, a closer look shows that despite Denilson’s passing being accurate and slightly higher up the pitch, it is too often short, sideways and non-threatening. Modric played balls in front of Bale, Lennon and the full-backs, starting lots of attacks down the wings where Spurs are so effective. This lack of ambition is not entirely Denilson’s fault however, as Arsenal like playing short, sharp passes in front of the opposition’s defence sometimes to the detriment of their wingers.

Barcelona’s passing masterclass

Away from home in a potentially tricky tie with Panathinaikos, Barcelona won in the most comfortable way possible. Even by Barcelona’s standards, the diagram below is astonishing.

Barcelona completed almost 700 more passes than their opponents last night, with full-back Dani Alves completing 110 of them. Xavi and Iniesta also completed over 100 passes during the match, with 95% accuracy, and Xavi was substituted after 70 minutes!

Valencia and Inter - Shooting Comparison

I admit that Bursaspor are a poor side, but the below comparison is still interesting nonetheless.

Internazionale had almost twice as many shots at goal compared with Valencia, but had to settle for a measly 1-0 win, while the Spanish side netted six times.

Diagrams courtesy of the excellent Total Football - Champions League iPhone app

Tough opposition ahead for Barcelona

Barcelona suffered a 2-0 shock defeat on Saturday at home to Hercules, with Paraguayan striker Nelson Valdez scoring both goals. This result was definitely a huge upset, and it tells us a few interesting things. First, it was fairly obvious to see that Barcelona were really out of sorts. While they did have the majority of possession they also looked slow, lethargic and uninspired. Most have put this down to last week’s midweek friendly between Spain and Argentina in Buenos Aires. Barcelona had 9 players involved in some way in the friendly match, which involved lots of travelling. It is therefore understandable that Barca’s play seemed unusually flat.

It is also fairly apparent that every team which comes to the Camp Nou this season is pretty much guaranteed to be coming with defending and counter-attacking on their mind. After Inter showed the way last season, Barcelona could find themselves trying to break down hard working and well organised teams week after week. This is unlikely to worry Pep Guardiola at this early stage of the season, but towards the later stages of the Champions League, Barcelona could find Europe’s best coming to do no more than to defend.

In one sense this is a shame for the spectacle of European knockout football, but many big teams have tried to take Barcelona on directly, such as Arsenal in last season’s quarter final, and almost all have failed. Jose Mourinho’s blueprint of dedicated defending and devastating counter attacks may well be taken up by far more teams this season. However, Barcelona will rightfully be favourites to win the Champions League again, and the addition of David Villa should help them in the knockout stages. Regardless of how the opposition sets up, Barca will continue to try and play the beautiful game in the way that they believe it should be played, and expect beauty to defeat the beast more often than not at the Camp Nou this season.

Spurs must seize their chance

Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool have dominated English football for the past decade. The Champions League has been a private playground for these four clubs, and their domination resulted in them being dubbed the ’big four’. In the past 10 years English sides have qualified for the Champions League group stages 37 times, with 35 of those achieved by the ‘big four’. Outside of these four teams, only Leeds United in 2000 and Newcastle United in 2002 have made it into Europe’s finest club competition proper. Newcastle and Everton failed to get past the Third qualifying round in 2003 and 2005 respectively. This trend has been great for the ‘big four’ clubs, but rather embarrassing for the rest of England’s top division. Many neutrals wanted to see a new name in the top four of the Premier League, and last season saw Tottenham Hotspur finish fourth after years of near misses and disappointing shortcomings.

Last season’s fourth place finish has entered Tottenham into the relatively new Champions League Play-off round. The draw was yesterday and Spurs received what would appear to be a pretty straight forward outcome. Tottenham were drawn against Swiss side Young Boys, avoiding the likes of Sampdoria, Auxerre and Dynamo Kiev. In another bonus, the second leg will take place at White Hart Lane on August 25. Back in 2005 Everton were rather unfortunate when they were drawn against Villarreal, who went on to reach the Semi-Finals, eliminating Manchester United (in the group) along the way. Spurs have dodged such bad luck with their draw and have been given an ideal chance to add some fresh English blood to the Champions League for the first time in eight years.

Harry Redknapp has built a large, strong and talented squad over the last season or so. His team has a fantastic home record, and the win at Eastlands at the end of last season which cliched fourth place, was a superb display, showing how far Tottenham have come. Should Tottenham advance to the group stages of the Champions League, I believe that they have a very good chance of making it to the knockout rounds, considering their big squad and strength at White Hart Lane. They proved all their doubters wrong last season, and now Spurs must seize their chance to test themselves at the highest level.