Champions' League

[David Votoupal]

The teams who go to the business end of the Champions' League, aka the Final 16:
Juventus
Bayern Münich
Arsenal
Ajax
Barcelona
Werder Bremen
Villareal
Benfica
Milan
PSV
Lyon
Real Madrid
Liverpool
Chelsea
Inter
Rangers

The following go into the Final 32 of the UEFA Cup (the other finals participants will be decided in the next couple of weeks):
FC Brugge
FC Thun
Udinese
Lille
Schalke 04
Rosenborg
Real Betis
Artmedia Petrzalka

Biggest shocks no doubt would be Rangers scraping through and Man United getting dumped out of Europe so early for the first time in a decade! I'd rank Barcelona, Milan, Juventus, Bayern and Arsenal as the five favourites for the trophy. Lyon are the smokey though.

[JK]

This will probably come back to haunt me, but I don't rate Arsenal for the CL trophy, but would replace them with Chelsea .. Will be doing back-flips if the Reds can get up for the 2nd year running, but that would be a pretty big ask!!

[David Votoupal]

In past years I wouldn't either, but they are under the radar at the moment and have also done the job in Europe so far without problems.

[MightyEagles]

Come on you Reds.

[David Votoupal]

As an Everton fan, I will say I really do hope not!

You were extremely lucky to win your Cup last year, and extremely lucky to win your plastic treble a few years back!

[MightyEagles]

An Everton Fan would say that would they. Just because they aren't good enough to get there, doesn't mean you have to pick on Liverpool everytime Everton lose and Liverpool win.

[TigerBoss]

Liverpool are shite without Owen...

[JK]

lol TB you seem to know a bit about Aussie Rules, might wanna stick with that one ... Dave, noone flukes a CL, like the AFL Premiership, you just can't be THAT lucky...

[David Votoupal]

Dave, noone flukes a CL, like the AFL Premiership, you just can't be THAT lucky...

OK, I'll admit you got me in a tricky place in this one!

But here goes... league play is where a true test of a team's quality lies, because you have to be damn good to keep things up. Cup competitions on the other hand where you have knock-out games, are not so much. Some truly great teams have won European trophies (e.g. the dynastic Real Madrid, Benfica, Ajax and Bayern Münich teams) but some pretty mediocre ones have too.

The introduction of the knock-out format after the group stages in the CL as well as the UEFA Cup has given European soccer the closest thing it has to "finals football". But we're talking about a different game and different perspectives here. And the playing field in European competition has never been as level as it is now.

[JK]

Dave, noone flukes a CL, like the AFL Premiership, you just can't be THAT lucky...

And the playing field in European competition has never been as level as it is now.

So you're saying that no matter who won it they would have been lucky?

As much as Im a devout Liverpool fan, in all honesty I wouldn't say we have/had a better team than Chelsea, Barca etc, but you only have to look at the teams we went through in the knockout stages to see just how big an achievement it was!

We had our share of luck on the way through, but 90+ percent of the time whoever wins any tournament, in any sport, can look back to some part of it and realise they had some luck somewhere along the way!

Rafa appears to have them playing some decent football at the moment (granted the recent victories haven't been over the biggest of names), so hopefully we're on our way back to being one of the elite teams going around ...

[brent]

it will come down to Chelsea, Barcelona or Juve to win the CL, although Chelsea did get drawn against Barcelona for the group of 16 so that kinda throws a spanner in the works. having said that i reckon the old lady are a big chance

GO THE BLUES!

Last year i feel we were simply outplayed by barcelona and had it not been for that 3-0 start at stamford bridge we would have been f**ked well before liverpool knocked us out.

and by the way, barca if u think you're getting our frankie in the summer ur havin a laugh...
waste your time on thierry henry

[brent]

doesn't mean you have to pick on Liverpool

dude thats like saying crows supporters aren't meant to give shit to port supporters, its everton and liverpool

[David Votoupal]

doesn't mean you have to pick on Liverpool

dude thats like saying crows supporters aren't meant to give shit to port supporters, its everton and liverpool

Tee hee. Ain't that the truth!