The Champions League is now in its final eight teams and this week the quarter-final first legs will begin. Pep Guardiola and Thomas Tuchel, who have faced each other from their time at Bayern Munich, Mainz, Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City and Chelsea, will be competing to see who can win the competition. Will Chelsea or Manchester City make it to the end? Maybe a surprise team could take out the title!
Sports News Center wants to know if you can remember the names of all the teams that made it to the quarter-finals of the Champions League!
“Reunited
Man City lost 1-0 against Chelsea. Thomas Tuchel, who recently took over the job from Julian Nagelsmann at Chelse, met his rival Guardiola for the first time since 2016 when the latter left Bayern Munich and moved to Man City. The two had previously faced each other back in 2018-19, so it was an interesting meeting to see.
The two managers have faced each other a total of 10 times over the last 10 years. Guardiola won 6 games while Tuchel managed to win 3 in a span of six weeks between April and May this year. In that time, Chelsea beat City in both an FA Cup semi-final and the Champions League final. During that final, Guardiola took a risk by not playing a defensive midfield which unfortunately did not work out for him.
City beat Chelsea twice in the Premier League last season while Guardiola had four wins and a draw when he was in Germany – including their win at the 2016 DFB-Pokal final.
When Guardiola has faced his old clubs Barcelona since leaving them, it didn’t end as expected. He won two matches but lost two with big margins of 3-0 and 4-0.
Can Lampard Repeat History with Chelsea In Champions League?
This year, Chelsea changed their manager 4 times. Frank Lampard was first in charge at the beginning of the season and Thomas Tuchel took over after him. Then later Graham Potter was replaced by Bruno Saltor for a short time. Now, Lampard is back with the hope of bringing them Champions League glory!
He wants to continue the tradition of winning a European trophy in his first season as manager at the club, although this is not his first time in charge. It’s really surprising that for the past five times Chelsea have won a European trophy, each time it was with a manager who is new that same season. 3 out of them even took charge after Christmas!
Potter wanted to be in charge of a club, but he got fired last week. Bruno also had the chance to work there, but only until the end of this season. In 2022, Tuchel stepped up as the boss and won the Champions League that same year. Then Sarri came along and he was successful too; he won the 2019 Europa League during his time as Chelsea manager.
Rafael Benitez was the manager of Liverpool for some time and he later went to Chelsea. In 2013, he led them to a Europa League victory. The season before this, Roberto di Matteo took over as the interim boss and guided them to win the Champions League. Back in 2008, Gianluca Vialli became the player-manager and led Chelsea to eventually take home the European Cup Winners’ Cup trophy that year.
Dave Sexton is the only Chelsea manager who ever won a European trophy more than one year after taking over. Can Frank Lampard, who played for Chelsea and won the Champions League in 2011-12 add his name to that list? In their way to making that happen are Real Madrid, but Chelsea has done pretty well against them – only losing once in seven games so far.
When playing Real Madrid, no other team has lost less than fourteen percent of the time.
Kvaratskhelia
This season in Serie A, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Napoli have beaten AC Milan and also lost to them. Nine months ago, not many people knew about Kvaratskhelia’s football career because he was only playing in leagues from Georgia and Russia plus two Europa Conference League games.
The Georgian winger has become a big name in the sports world as he is one of the best players on the Italian soccer team Napoli who are currently at the top of their league.
In Serie A, Kvaratskhelia has scored 12 goals – second only to four other players – and has made 10 assists, more than any other player in Europe’s top 5 leagues.
Apart from him, only Lionel Messi and Neymar from Paris St-Germain, Randal Kolo Muani of Eintracht Frankfurt, and Bukayo Saka of Arsenal have accomplished 10+ goals and assists combined in those five leagues.
Kvaratskhelia is the best in Champions League since he made 4 assists. Napoli and Kvaratskhelia hope that they will get a good chance in the quarter-finals against AC Milan—even though AC Milan is behind them by 22 points on the standings; yet, AC Milan had already defeated them 4-0 this month.
Benfica’s Unbeatable Team Seeks European Cup Final Return
Benfica’s two forwards, Joao Mario and Goncalo Ramos, are the top scorers in the Portuguese league this season. Even though Benfica sold a lot of its players this season totaling more than £200 million, their team led by manager Roger Schmidt looks almost unbeatable. This includes selling star striker Darwin Nunez to Liverpool for between £64m and £85m, as well as Enzo Fernandez to Chelsea for £107m. In total, over 30 players have left the club this season.
Since the summer, their team has only lost twice in 46 games across different competitions. Unfortunately, one of those losses was last Friday against Porto.
They showed their strength by finishing first in a Champions League group with PSG and Juventus and got 13 more points than Juventus. This great result caused Club Bruges’ coach to lose his job.
Their team is now 7 points ahead of Porto at the top of the Portuguese league table and they are close to winning their first trophy since 2019.
Two Italian teams are blocking the way to a European Cup Final, something not seen since 1990. The winner of the match between Inter and another team would go on to play either AC Milan or Napoli in the semi-finals. If you’re using the SportNewsCenter News app then don’t forget to vote!