The hot-and-heavy Champions League action took the soccer spotlight this midweek in the wide world of soccer, but the FA Cup made a honest attempt at stealing the headlines.
This week, two European giants played to a hard-fought stalemate, the giant of English soccer succumbed to an old foe, while the not-so-giants continue their quest for Europa glory.
February rolls on in the latest edition of 90 Minutes’ Top Five.
1. Saving it for later
Two costly, elementary, dumb-founding mistakes, two goals.
It must have been the only way a clash between master tacticians Antonio Conte and Ernesto Valverde could be resolved. The clash between European giants featured a lot of early hesitance on both sides, until each settled down in their strategies for the night: Barcelona possessing in Chelsea territory while the Blues held, looking for the quick transition. Advantage Conte, whose relied on the speed and movements of Pedro, Willian, and Eden Hazard to created havoc, and they did.
It must have been the only way to overshadow a stellar performance by Willian, who ran rough shot all over Barca’s back line, and scored what seemed to be the winner in such a tightly-contested affair. The Brazilian, who got the nod over Alvaro Morata, took full advantage of the space provided by the high-playing Barcelona attack, finding himself plenty of one-on-one situations to thrive in. He capped off his night with a perfect curling grounder off a corner kick, in which not one Barcelona player considered defending the Brazilian, who received the ball all alone outside the box, and capitalized.
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It must have been, ultimately, the only way Lionel Messi could end his scoring drought against he Blues, in a match where the Argentinian was neutralized for the most part, as the rest of his teammates put on another flat effort, a theme over the last couple of weeks. Only Andreas Christensen’s blunder, violating one of the cardinal rules of soccer by playing across his own box on the ground, allowed Valverde’s a real scoring chance on a night when such were scarce.
Chelsea held an invaluable advantage ahead of the return leg in Barcelona, only to squander it to a Barca side that stole an away goal from Stanford Bridge.
Until March 14, everyone.
2. No bracket busting
Looking at the overall picture of the Champions League Round of 16, the first legs left expected results and scenarios across the board.
Bayern Munich add themselves to the get-this-over-with club -along with Manchester City and Liverpool- with a 5-0 thrashing of Besiktas at the Allianz Arena. These are the three teams with the most lopsided ties, and lopsided they turned out to be.
The same can be said about Manchester United, who, as expected, played Mourinho-ball hoping for a result that would leave them in prime position for Old Trafford. Is a 0-0 away draw prime position? Despite the danger of a Sevilla goal in the return leg, Jose Mourinho is satisfied with the scoreless draw. The result -at least to him- is success.
Speaking of positive results, Roma can consider themselves blessed to survive their visit to Shakhtar Donetsk, and leave with only a 2-1 deficit. The Ukrainians had every chance to increase their lead, but they were met, time and time again, by Roma’s goalkeeper Alisson, who continues his breakout season with another stellar performance.
Throw this result in the too-close-to-call bin, along with the Real Madrid-PSG, Chelsea-Barcelona, and Juventus-Tottenham ties, which will be decided in what should be highly-dramatic second legs.
3. Quadruple no more
Oh, when and old ghost strikes again…
Post-game altercations and tunnel dust-ups aside, Wigan Athletic pulled off the unlikely once again, denying almighty Manchester City of one of the jewels in their Quadruple crown by defeating them 1-0 in FA Cup action on Monday.
It was all reminiscent of Wigan’s previous spoiler jobs, in the 2013 FA Cup final and the 2014 FA Cup quarterfinals. City found themselves in early trouble after Fabian Delph’s red card towards the end of the first half. From there, it was possession-dominating City, pushing forward but to no avail.
And out of nowhere, Kyle Walker makes a head-scratching miscalculation on a simple back pass, allowing Will Grigg -yes, that Will Grigg- just enough space to put one past Claudio Bravo, the 1-0.
As disappointing as the loss is to a team that had only lost twice(!) all season, the silver lining is the schedule relief that comes as a result of the loss. It will come in handy when the competition ramps up in the Champions League (which will be soon), and when it is time to wrap up the Premier League title.
Oh, and by the way, City is 90 minutes away from winning silverware this weekend, anyway.
4. Close call
Arsene Wenger better thank his lucky stars his team didn’t pull off a catastrophe.
Arsenal almost blew an 3-0 away lead to Swedish side Ostersunds at the Emirates Stadium, falling behind 2-0 early on, and catching the attention of the entire watching audience worldwide. Sead Kolasinac pulled the Gunners back afloat with his goal, but the way Arsenal ended up advancing could not have left any Arsenal fan happy.
So much for Napoli not caring about the Europa League…
Maurizio Sarri’s side almost pulled off the comeback in their visit to RB Leipzig after Piotr Zielinski and Lorenzo Insigne evened out the aggregate score. However, the Serie A leaders fell one goal short, and now they can focus solely on that white-hot race with Juventus for the elusive Scudetto.
Atalanta’s feel-good European run came to a bitter end. With the Round of 16 ticket in hand in the 83rd minute, Marcel Schmelzer put in the equalizer to secure Dortmund’s berth in the next round, leaving Atalanta fans in disappointment.
The remaining 13 tickets belong to Atletico Madrid, AC Milan, Lazio, Viktoria Plzen, Sporting CP, Lyon, Zenit, Lokomotiv Moscow, Dynamo Kiev, Lyon, Marseille, Red Bull Salzburg, and Spartak Moscow.
5. Bend it like Fred
Shakhtar Donetsk left their Champions League match with Roma with a 2-1 cushion, but they left the viewing audience a piece of soccer art.
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It came courtesy of Fred, who put his team ahead with the best goal of the midweek games, a curling free kick past the reach of Alisson.