58 years of European Cup history to be broken this week? It is not just two of the highest-quality teams in Europe (Bayern & Barcelona) that Manchester City and Arsenal must overcome. There is THAT bit of history looming large over them. Considering that in all those years only 6 (yes SIX!) teams have been able to win a European tie after losing the first leg at home, then one sees how daunting a task this is. This is truly a remarkably small number and the trend thus seems to be bulletproof especially if results of this round are taken into account. Of the Eight ties to be completed this round, already Six of those see the side initially away taking the lead. Apparently the last 16 of the competition has never produced such ratios. (I checked!) The average is around 2.3 away wins for that stage, and there have never been more than four since the competition’s restructuring in 2003. No need to panic though, majority of sides seem buoyant enough to go pull off major upsets, though one wonders -- is that enough-- to do it. The real question here should thus be… ’Is this the year we see this daunting record come tumbling down though?’ Crazy things have happened in football before like the 1999 come back, those six minutes of madness… the English sides CAN hope still. I have my doubts, its time perhaps we had a final with not-so-rich teams tussle it out. Perhaps, perhaps…
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 09:03:17 +0000
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