The 2019/2020 edition of the UEFA Champions League resumes on Friday, after a 149-day suspension, with two of the four-round of 16 still to be concluded: Juventus-Lyon and Manchester City-Real Madrid. Barcelona-Naples and Bayern Munich-Chelsea are scheduled for Saturday, while from Wednesday next week all the remaining teams will move to Portugal to play the last matches of the tournament in two stadiums in Lisbon. As there are already four teams qualified for the quarter-finals, the first two games of the next round are known: Atalanta-PSG and Leipzig-Atletico Madrid.
As happened for the national championships, the Champions League will be concluded
quickly, to be precise in seventeen days. The format will be completely
different from that of the tournament we are used to, with knockout rounds
played in a single match, and not between home and away. Despite this, the
results will have the same value and in less than three weeks there will be a
new European champion team.
There could be several surprises because so much has changed
in 149 days and the teams come from different situations. The three Italian
teams, for example, were the last to finish the championship six days ago,
after having played twelve games each (thirteen for Atalanta) over forty days.
The Spanish teams instead finished playing on July 19 while the Bundesliga
ended on June 27. Then there is the case of Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon,
opponents of Atalanta and Juventus, who have never restarted the championship
and in recent weeks have had to play friendlies, as well as two cup finals, to
be ready.
The leagues and the first UEFA Europa League matches played in recent days have shown us how
teams with smaller and less strong squads in a less homogeneous way (such as
Lazio, Leicester, and Getafe) have a harder time facing so many close matches.
However, the relationship between different physical conditions remains to be
understood. Inter and Roma, for example, played in the Europa League against
two Spanish teams, Getafe and Sevilla, who had not played an official match
since 19 July. Both Inter and Roma struggled a lot from an athletic point of
view: Inter managed to resist, while Roma was outclassed in every respect.
In the Champions
League, the three Italians present themselves well overall. The greatest
expectations are on Juventus. It is the strongest Italian team of the last
decade but it is also the one that has not won the Champions League in the
longest, 24 years, and the five finals lost since then have fueled a sort of
obsession. The current technical project started a year ago with the signing of
Maurizio Sarri has as its main objective the return to victory in Europe, but
also in this edition, he finds himself chasing his opponents. Lyon won 1-0 in
the first leg in what was one of the most disappointing matches played by
Juventus before the suspension. However, a comeback is well within reach,
considering the long inactivity of Lyon and the fact that in the meantime two
of their owners have changed teams.
Unlike Juventus, Gennaro Gattuso's Napoli played one of their
best matches against Barcelona in the first leg of the Round of 16 but came out
with a 1-1 draw which does not represent any advantage because of the return
leg. In the last few days of the championship, Napoli maintained a fluctuating
trend, perhaps due to the victory of the Italian Cup at the end of June which
lowered the concentration of the team: in the restart of the season, however,
they proved to be highly competitive. Barcelona, on the other hand, lost the
league due to a crisis in the game that also alarmed Captain Lionel Messi, who
publicly admitted the weakness of his team at certain times. He will also have
two heavy absences in midfield, with Arturo Vidal and Sergio Busquets
disqualified.
Finally, Atalanta, whose climb to the top of Italian and
European football is thrilling many fans. After finishing Serie A in third
place for the second consecutive season and thus already guaranteed a place in
the next Champions League, he is facing a great opportunity. Paris
Saint-Germain is superior in many aspects - the depth of the squad, technical
level, experience - but it comes to the quarter-finals with the unknown factor
of long inactivity, without Edinson Cavani and Thomas Meunier, no longer in the
team, without the suspended Angel Di Maria and probably without the owners
Kylian Mbappé and Marco Verratti, injured and still in doubt. Gasperini's team
ended Serie A with a defeat but was among the best in the second half. It will
also have only one absence, that Josip Ilicic, who finished the season early
for personal reasons.
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