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UCL Duopoly Continuation?

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        UCL Duopoly Continuation? The last 16 teams remaining in the knock out stages of the UCL. The UEFA Champions League competition has been heavily dominated by the English and Spanish teams in recent years. In fact, only Bayern Munich have successfully broken the dominance of winning the Champions League between the Spanish and English clubs in the last nine seasons back in 2013, when the Bavarians became victorious at the expense of their local rivals from Germany, Borussia Dortmund. During those nine previous seasons in the UCL, the most prestigious trophy in world's club football was oscillating only between the Spanish and English clubs, revolving around Manchester United, FC Barcelona, Chelsea FC, Real Madrid, and Liverpool respectively. Now, the final 16 teams have qualified to the knock out stages with all the four representatives each from both the English and Spanish football clubs fully represented, as they all qualified to the round of ...

UCL Favorite

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The UCL showdown    Liverpool FC and Tottenham Hotspur created history as they became the first English teams to reach the Champions League final for the first time, after Chelsea and Manchester United in the 2008 edition of the prestigious UEFA competition.  The bookmakers all around the globe have already started doing permutations to predict which team will emerge winners at Wanda Metropolitano in Madrid, come the 1st of June.  Liverpool may seem the clear favorite on paper, but the tactical, physical, and technical prowess of the Londoners cannot be underestimated.  Though, it takes a little bit more than just technique to win in such a big occasion, there is need for character, physical and mental awareness throughout the game. Luck and most especially "destiny" to go on one's favor. I remember vividly, in 2011/12 season, when Chelsea squared up against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena. Everybody except Chelsea fans was rooting fo...
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                 The "unbelievable" Liverpool        After the first leg of the UEFA Champions League at the Camp Nou, a lot of people never gave Liverpool chance of progressing ahead of FC Barcelona. When reports came out that prolific players like Muhammad Salah, Roberto Firmino, and Naby Keita will not be available for Liverpool in the second leg at Anfield, it became a unanimous scepticism that Liverpool were never going to come back in the competition. Against all odds, Liverpool had the faith and kept faith that they could come back and defeat Barcelona of all people to qualify for the final of the Champions League. From the outset of the game, Liverpool were quite focus on their tactics against Barcelona, which is to quickly unsettle Barcelona and get the early goals, which will spur them and devastate Barcelona. Jurgen Klopp showed a masterclass of confidence when he gambled in terms of substituting a d...
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What's next for Christiano Ronaldo?  Massimiliano Allegri, the Bianconeri boss recently backs the Juventus player to finish the season as Serie A's top goalscorer after watching Lionel Messi's latest performances, which makes him equal Christiano Ronaldo on 600 career goals in all competition. Although, the former Real Madrid and Manchester United player is no more in contention to win this year's UEFA Champions League, but he still has a lot to achieve before the season ends. The five-time ballon d'or winner may be 34, but he has stated and showed he has what it takes to continue to play at the highest level until he's at least 40 years of age. There was a lot of disappointment from the Juventus fans and the lovers of the talented player when Juventus exited the Champions League in a dramatic fashion, as they failed to dump the exciting young talents of Ajax out of the competition. Ronaldo remains the undisputed goal machine with his overwhelming ...
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    Hazard still sceptical about his Chelsea future         There's no doubt that the 28 year-old player has been the bright light of Chelsea Football Club this season, which has been making Chelsea fans and some Sports-loving people to ponder how Chelsea would navigate through next season, should Hazard finally decides to leave at the end of the season. The prolific attacker has overtly showed his admiration, respect and desire to play under the stewardship of Real Madrid head coach, Zinedine Zidane on numerous occasions. While the three-time consecutive UEFA Champions League winner has also been showing interest in wooing Hazard over to the Spanish Capital club recently. It looks like the dream of Hazard to play at the Santiago Bernabeu as a Real Madrid player is becoming realistic, as the mutual interest which exists between the coach and the player grows on daily basis. Chelsea on the other hand are on a cross-road situation about Hazard's c...
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        Messi on cusp to win the sixth Ballon d'or      Some widely regard him as the best player ever to dwell on planet earth, and think the likes of Pele of Brazil and Diego Maradona of Argentina cannot be compared to the Barcelona's football king, hence they call him "the GOAT". Lionel Andres Messi has been a top player, who has consecutively been keeping his critics quiet for the past decade. He effortlessly contribute immensely to the successful outings of FC Barcelona every single time. Before Wednesday's crunchy tie against Liverpool, a lot of talks had been going round the social media platforms with the sports fans around the world, on how Liverpool's defensive prowess, with the likes of Joe Gomez, Van Dijk, Matip and Robertson intended to subdue and confine Messi's movements with the ball on his home ground. At the first 45 Minutes, it looked slightly like things were going according to plans for Liverpool as Messi had little or no c...
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   Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk as PFA Player of the  Year The defensive maestro became only the fourth defender since 1973/74 to be crowned the Frofessional Footballers' Association's Player of the year. Van Dijk at the PFA award ceremony  The talented centre-back has been effortlessly helping Liverpool to contest for the club's greatest title challenge in the English Premier League era, winning the individual and prestigious award by defeating one of his strongest challengers, in Manchester City's Raheem Sterling, who won the Young Player of the Year gong to compensate for his prolific and outstanding season this term. Since the commencement of the Frofessional Footballers' Association award, there have been 41 different winners who have emerged as winners, which many people consider as the most prestigious individual accolade in the English game. Only four centre-defenders have won the special individual award, with attacking players winning on severa...