League of Champions

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The Champions league fourth round of group matches this week offered a number of spectacular results.

You can’t look beyond Serbian Champions, Red Star Belgrade’s 2-0 win over Liverpool as the performance of the round. Crvena Zvezda have a remarkably intimidating home support at the Marakana stadium but Liverpool weren’t at the races from the start of the game.

A timid display was exactly what they needed to avoid in this one but we were served a similar display to Liverpool’s last European away game, a 1-0 loss at Napoli.

The Red star players rose admirably to the occasion as Milan Pavkov put Liverpool to the sword with two goals on the night, leaving Liverpool’s Round of 16 qualification under threat.

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Manchester United thrilled with yet another comeback win at Juventus last night.

Juventus had large spells of domination in the first half and United came alive -as was the case in five of their last six games- after going one down in the second period to Cristiano Ronaldo’s spectacular goal, who further rattled his former supporters with an emphatic goal celebration.

United rallied within 3 late second half minutes to turn the game on its head and score two goals. Ashley Young creating space in the Juve defensive wall for Juan Mata’s delightful free kick equalizer made the goal all the more pleasing on the eye.

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José Mourinho ended up hilariously taunting the Juve Fans at fulltime and what a time he’s having, Shutting up each and every one of his critics with comeback win upon comeback.
  

I am delighted at United’s recent change to fluid attacking options in Martial, Rashford, Lingard, Mata and Alexis. They offer mobility and more incisive movements on the counter with Pogba expressing himself further up the pitch.

I must also acknowledge sending Pogba to the pre-match press conference a masterstroke, whoever’s idea or decision it was. Manchester United as a club were able to restore calm after all the talk of a rift between the player and his manager as well as set supporters looking forward to a crucial part of the campaign. I thought it was about getting a positive result on Wednesday to fully restore the calm on and off the pitch and so it turned out.

It all seems to be coming together nicely ahead of the derby this weekend and the next step for United is maintaining the second half performances over 90 minutes so as to have a better shot at winning games but the fans wouldn’t mind another come from behind win over their noisy neighbours Manchester City.  

ES Tunis vs Al Ahly (Backpage pix)

The CAF Champions League final second leg comes up Friday in Tunisia.

Al Ahly hold a 3-1 advantage over Esperance after a first leg which was marred by VAR controversy on its debut in CAF competitions

Walid Azaro (GETTY IMAGES)

Al Ahly were awarded two penalties by VAR in the first leg at the Borg El Arab stadium last week whilst Al Ahly’s leading striker Walid Azaro has been suspended for two games by CAF after being caught on camera ripping his own shirt and trying to convince the referee that he had been grabbed during the first leg.

Esperance would seek vengeance in front of a home crowd at the Rades stadium in Tunis and Al Ahly should look forward to a tense reception from the home fans.

A win for Al Ahly would improve their highest ever tally of eight. Can Esperance stop these record chasing legends-in-waiting? Friday couldn't come soon enough