Reaction to match day 2 (part 2)

Well, tonight was far more interesting than yesterday's mediocre round of group matches in the Champions League. I watched the City - Dortmund game and yesterday had predicted a draw. So I guess I can pat myself, and Joe Hart, on the back for that one. There's no way that game would have finished 1-1 if it hadn't been for Joe Hart playing like some kind of 10 feet tall and 10 feet wide keeper tonight. He was insanely good. The result was totally undeserved on City's part though. Dortmund dominated them from about half way through the 1st half to right until the last minutes of the second. Right up until the referee played City's get of jail card free card and gave them an absurd penalty. Yeah, it hit the Dortmund player's hand. But Aguero was standing about 3 or 4 feet away from him and turned quickly to shoot in his direction. No chance of getting his hand out the way. The clearest 'ball to hand' hand ball you'll ever see. I do enjoy seeing Super Mario take a penalty though. The dude is a bit of an arrogant bad ass in those situations. I loved the keeper trying to psyche him out of it before he took it as well. Not the wisest move really.

Dortmund only have themselves to blame though. The worst offender was Robert Lewandowski with his horrible miss 6 yards out with Hart completely beaten. I had a feeling the more chances Dortmund fluffed though City would eventually equalize. Pretty annoying after they'd been completely dominated but I guess Hart deserved something out of the game. Even if the rest of his team didn't.

Looks like from my predictions last night I've gone 4-4 again. So I'm at 8-8 for the tournament so far. Pretty mid-table fare right there. This is why I don't spend my time on betting sites.

The next major event on my football calendar is Barcelona - Real Madrid on Sunday. I can't wait. I'll do a preview of it and list 10000 reasons why David Villa has to start over Alexis Sanchez later this week.

Drop the seeds, let chaos reign

So this week is the 'every second week'. A Champions League week. Looking over the fixtures for the coming round of group games got me thinking that the format of the group stages might need a bit of a shake up. Last week we got lucky. Two huge games in the first two nights. Real Madrid - Man City and Chelsea - Juventus. Those are the two biggest fixtures that this group stage is going to throw up. They're also out the only two groups that are even remotely interesting and that is what I think is the current problem with the CL. Seeding.

Since the Champions League insists on seeding the groups into 4 different pots, you always end up with a round of games like the one we're faced with this week. Nordsjaelland v Chelsea, Cluj v Man Utd, BATE v Bayern... Wednesday night there's a bit of an improvement but only thanks to the interesting group of Man City's. I've always thought that seeding ruins the group stages a bit. It's geared so that the big teams get through unscathed and the usual suspects can meet up from the quarter finals onwards. But I think this predictability is making the group stages a bit of a non-event. It's very rare that any of the major sides get knocked out early and it's all down to the fact they're drawn against lesser opponents.

Consider this idea. Instead of seeding 1, 2, 3 and 4, the group stage is a free for all with the only rule being that no club from the same country can be drawn in the same group. So instead of having the non-event that is Man Utd, Cluj, Galatasary and Braga, you could have Man Utd, Barcelona, Juventus and, say, Bayern Munich. That would be worth watching. I would reckon a free for all would make for far more interesting groups and it would also give the lesser teams more of an opportunity to progress in the competition. Sure, you might end up with a tiny team up against 3 heavyweights in the 1 group, but you would be guranteed to get some group of deaths and some lightweight groups that would favour smaller teams.

I think it would work. Why not? Throw all the teams in the pot and pick. Don't allow countries from the same league in the same group and everyone's happy. Perfect. Make it happen, Uefa.

But for now we're faced with a bit of a mediocre match day 2. Here are my predictions.

Spartak v Celtic (Spartak to win)

Juve v Shakhtar (Juve win)

Nordsjaelland v Chelsea (Chelsea, but pleeeaaase throw an upset unpronounceable named team)

Valencia v LOSC (Valencia, mostly due to not knowing who the hell LOSC are)

BATE v Bayern (Bayern win)

Cluj v Man Utd (Utd, i suppose)

Galatasary v Braga (draw)

Benfica v Barca (Barca to win comfortably)

So there it is. Hopefully my predictions aren't as useless as my fantasy team currently is.