The Colby Echo

Issue date: 2/23/07 Section: Sports

The knockout stage of the Champions League, Europe's Club Championship tournament, began this past Tuesday and Wednesday with all sixteen teams completing the first of the two home and away matches that comprise this round. If you missed this week's games, don't worry: there will be another round of matches on Mar. 6 and 7 and the tournament will progress through the final on May 23, so there's plenty of time to start watching the best soccer competition in the world.
First, for those of you who don't know, the Champions League is the European soccer club championship that pits the best teams from every European soccer league against one another in a year-long competition. Entry into the tournament is based on how well teams did in their domestic leagues the previous season, with more highly regarded leagues receiving more slots than lower level competitions. So the top three or four teams in the Italian league will qualify for the tournament while a team from Switzerland or Denmark will have to win its league to get in. From these initial entries the field has been whittled down through round-robin group play to the sixteen teams currently competing in the Knockout Round.
One of the biggest criticisms of the Champions League in recent years is that the tournament has been dominated by the richest clubs from the three biggest leagues (England, Spain, and Italy), and this year is no different: ten of the sixteen teams that made it to this stage hail from one of these three countries. These teams figure to dominate this stage of the competition, though one of the great things about the Champions League is that upsets can always occur: FC Porto (a Portuguese team that is also in the knockout stage this year) won the 2003-2004 tournament as a heavy underdog. The coach of Porto during that championship run, Jose Mourinho, is now the coach of British powerhouse Chelsea, which has added an interesting subplot to this year's tournament as Chelsea is matched up against Porto in the current stage of the competition.
The favorites to win this year's tournament include the aforementioned Chelsea, Barcelona (the defending champion), and Manchester United (currently sitting on top of the English Premier League). Barcelona may have some trouble facing a tough Liverpool team in this round but Manchester United looks to have a relatively smooth path into the next round as they face Lille, a French side that lucked its way into a weak group and still barely passed through into the knockout round.
Aside from teams from the 'Big Three' leagues the team that might have the best shot at winning the tournament is France's Lyon. The team is well on its way to a sixth straight French League title and has talent on par with the top contenders from England, Spain and Italy. Indeed, Lyon finished with the most points of any team in the qualifying round of the Champions League, finishing with four wins and two draws in the six games that made up that portion of the tournament.
So remember to turn on ESPN 2 on Mar. 6 and 7 when they broadcast the second stage of this round's games. The American sporting calendar is at its low ebb, and the games are broadcast in the afternoon when television usually sucks anyway, so there's no reason to not tune in to the best soccer in the world.

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