UEFA Champions League: Round of Away Wins

There is no other way to describe this year’s UEFA Champions League Round of 16 than ‘Round of Away Wins.’ The kind of results that were churned out in the second leg of the UCL were really surprising with some of the tournament’s favourites crashing.

In the first leg, two away wins were recorded with Manchester City defeating Sporting Lisbon by 5-0 while the second away win was recorded by Liverpool after beating Inter Milan by 2-0 in Milan, Italy.

Out of the eight matches, there were two away wins, four draws and two home wins recorded by PSG over Real Madrid and Chelsea 2-0 win over Lille of France.

The second round of game was a different kettle of fish entirely as five away wins were recorded. Two home wins were gotten, Bayern Munich 7-1 win over Salzburg while Real Madrid defeated PSG 3-1. The only draw that was recorded, surprisingly was between Manchester City and Sporting Lisbon which ended goalless in England.

The away wins were recorded by Inter Milan, 1-0 over Liverpool; while Man Utd lost by 0-1 to Atletico; Ajax 0 Benfica 1; Juventus 0 Villareal 3 and Lille 1 Chelsea 2.

Meanwhile, the surprising aspect of the competition is the shocking elimination of some top clubs. After playing so well in their first leg matches, Manchester United and Juventus crashed at home in England and Italy respectively while Ajax also failed to scale through despite their superlative performance over Benfica in the second match especially in the first half.

Former champion, Manchester United disappointed all their fans by losing to a struggling side, Atletico Madrid at home by 1-0 after getting a 1-1 draw in Spain.

Many actually gave it to Manchester United to get to the quarter-final ahead of Atletico because of their superb performance over the weekend against local rivals, Tottenham Hotspurs who they defeated by 3-1 courtesy of Cristano Ronaldo’s hattrick but they failed.

However, some of the clubs that qualified for the Quarter-Final stage are potential winners considering their past performances and achievements with four of them being former champions – Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Real Madrid and Chelsea (defending champions).

Apart from Manchester City, the remaining three clubs, Atletico Madrid, Benfica and Villareal, are unpredictable and can shock the world.

However, only three English teams (Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea are left at the quarter-final stage while Germany has only Bayern Munich; Portugal has Benfica while Spain also has three teams left with Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Villareal).

The draws for the quarter-final will take place tomorrow, Friday.

1^st Round of 16

PSG 1 Real Madrid 0

Sporting 0 Man City 5

RB Salzburg 1 Bayern 1

Inter 0 Liverpool 2

Chelsea 2 Lille 0

Villareal 1 Juventus 1

Atletico Madrid 1 Man Utd 1

Benfica 2 Ajax 2

2^nd Round of 16

Bayern 7 Salzburg 1

Liverpool 0 Inter 1

Man City 0 Sporting 0

Madrid 3 PSG 1

Man Utd 0 Atletico 1

Ajax 0 Benfica 1

Juventus 0 Villareal 3

Lille 1 Chelsea 2

Quarter-finalists

Liverpool of England

Bayern Munich of Germany

Manchester City of England

Real Madrid of Spain

Atletico Madrid of Spain

Benfica of Portugal

Villareal of Spain

Chelsea of England