All "English" Semifinals

Liverpool 2 - Juventus 1
Chelsea 4 - Bayern Munich 2

The first leg matches of the Champions League quarterfinals have been played. If these results stand, one semifinal will be an all "English" affair, pitting Chelsea against Liverpool in a repeat of the Carling Cup final. I say "English" in inverted commas because neither teams are particularly overflowing with English players, although three of Chelsea's four goals were scored by English players.

I am not be placing my bets yet for this "English" head to head to come to pass. Juventus is such a strong team at home and have a precious away goal. They need only score once, then kick into the "bank vault" style of Italian defending. Liverpool were rampant in the first half yesterday, but lack killer-instinct finishing (Barros is becoming criminally wasteful nowadays; my theory is that he is actually reflexively slower than he needs to be in the English game).

I think Chelsea's place in the semifinals is more secure than Liverpool's, as they are defending a two-goal lead and are defensively more sound. Bayern Munich might not have the firepower to break down this defence, even at home; and their own defence may well be breached again, if evidence from this morning's match is anything to go on.

I am half-hoping, but not really expecting, Liverpool to pull off this audacious upset over an objectively better team. They have had a rather good few days, getting that hard-fought victory over Blackburn over the weekend, closing the gap with Everton to one point. Then, amazingly, Everton lost to relegation threatened WBA. Suddenly, it's all to play for in the Premiership.