We’re up and running already in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16. After a bit of a lengthy vacation from Europe’s top flight, sixteen teams from all walks of the world’s equatorial continent privileged to have made it through the preliminaries contested in what served as the first leg of the competition’s last 16.
You can view all second round previews here!
Eintracht Frankfurt vs SSC Napoli
Where Things Stand
It was of course eventful in every way. RB Leipzig held Manchester City to a 1-1 draw at home ground in Germany, Inter Milan secured a 1-0 home victory over Portuguese FC Porto, Bayern Munich came out on top against Paris Saint German in arguably the ‘biggest, colossal tie of the season’, Chelsea fell to a 1-0 loss at the hands of Borussia Dortmund.
Is Erling Haaland the best player in the world?
Yes
No
Club Brugge conceded a 2-0 loss to Benfica, Milan were victorious over Tottenham Hotspur, their Italian counterparts and Serie A leaders, Napoli posted a 2-0 away win over Eintracht Frankfurt. And last but not the least, in fact the greatest, Real Madrid pulled big rabbits out of their hats to defeat Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool 5-2 at the Anfield Stadium.
All sixteen teams have a short break to take. Some have to get their backs into grinding hard for a spectacular result if progression into the quarter-finals of the competition is anything to go by. Some, speaking of clubs like Madrid, simply have to defend a stellar first-leg result, play out a decent game. But phase-two would be upon us in less than a week’s time. Liverpool make the return trip to the magical, spell binding Santiago Bernabeu. Messi, Mbappe and the rest of the PSG pack touch down in Munich as they look to write their home errors wrong and keep their Champions League hopes alive.
We’re trusting this to be more scintillating, intriguing and exhilarating than it was in the first. And so, we delve into, half hastily, half detailedly, the match-ups slated for the next two weeks and how exactly we see them pan out.
BIG DISCLAIMER: The predictions are not to be taken score for score, verbatim. They’re just meant to give a picture of the final outcome we expect in the match-ups.
Porto vs Inter Milan
This is one match-up which happens to be relatively open. Simeone Inzaghi’s Internazionale could have killed the game off at the San Siro but a 1-0 win would mean that FC Porto approach the second leg with their energy levels just a little lower than what the Italian outfit exudes. Porto’s experience built in the past couple of seasons may stand to decide the match, may be a little tricky for Inter on the night and in the tie.
Just in 2021, the Portuguese club held off a small advantage against Cristiano Ronaldo’s Juventus in the first leg of their Round of 16 tie. With a measly 2-1 win over Andrea Pirlo’s men, you were definitely expecting the Italians to get the job done in Turin. But Porto pulled off an upset away from home. Scoring a pair of away goals was something the Biaconeri couldn’t recover from despite Federico Chiesa’s brace and Adrien Rabiot’s effort. Even though Porto lost the match, they got the most important job.
And they can get that done here again. They’re behind by just a goal, really, and it shouldn’t be too much of a task to come away with a home win.
Prediction: Porto 2-1 Inter Milan
Players to watch:
FC Porto: Medhi Taremi
Inter Milan: Romelu Lukaku, Lautaro Martinez, Edin Dzeko
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