Champions League – Quarter Finals day 1

Its time for the Quarter finals of the Champions League 2009.

Eight teams remaining and they are all four games away from the final at Rome, and five games from the trophy.

Totally four of eight teams that are remaining in the tournament is from England (Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea). We have two teams from Spain remaining (Barcelona and Villarreal) and the two teams remaining is from Portugal (F C Porto), Germany (Bayern Munich).

The first two Quarter finals will be played Tuesday 7^th of April (Manchester United vs. Porto and Villarreal vs. Arsenal) and the other games will be played the following days, 8^th of April, (Barcelona vs. B Munich and Liverpool vs. Chelsea).

Here are my thoughts for the first two games:

Manchester United vs. Porto, Home win @ 1.35

Manchester United was favourites to win Champions League before the draw and are even bigger favourites now after the draw. In my mind five of the eight remaining temas have a realistic chance to win this tournament (Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, Barcelona and B Munich). Beside Manchester United all the others was drawn into same half. This means that the door to the final is very open for Man Utd.

This first game against Porto is played home at Old Trafford and I can’t se how the Portuguese side is going to threat in this game. They have done a great job passing through the first knock out round by a win against Atletico Madrid, but Manchester United is the toughest possible opponent.

While the first game is played at Old Trafford my guess is that United will try to finish this game here by a 2 – 3 goal win, and that’s not an impossible outcome. With players like Wayne Rooney, Christiano Ronaldo, Carlos Teves, Demitar Berbatov on their attacking side United have several potential match winners.

Porto will probably try to hold on 0 – 0 as long as they can manage and focus on their defence. But against an opponent like Manchester United its hardly impossible to hold on that for a whole game. So I start this Champions League betting with Manchester United as my sure Pick of day one.

Villarreal vs. Arsenal, home win @ 2.40

Villarreal won against the Greek side Panathinaikos in the first knock out stage while Arsenal beat Roma. But Arsenals win came after penalty shoot outs. They deserved to win that shoot out since they where the better side against Roma.

Villarreal showed a great strength by winning in Greece, and that win should not be underestimated.

My guess here is that Arsene Wenger will try to lock the central midfield in this game. Because I think that he has big respect for Villarreal’s offence.  Giuseppe Rossi and Sati Cazorla has shown that they are world class players and if they get some chances its defiantly going to be at least one goal.

With the home advantage I pick Villarreal as winners here and 2.40 is an ok odds.

The odds are picked from Bwin-football.

Best luck

/Amrish