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The Champions League is back on Paramount+ and now it’s time for the drama to really kick off. Here are three storylines that I’ll be keeping an eye on during the coming weeks:
Juventus make a deep run
It is the great cliche of the Champions League knockout draw that ties cast in one light in December can look remarkably different a few months later. That is not quite true of Juventus’ clash with Villarreal, which seemed likely to be a tight battle in late 2021 and is equally fiddly to predict a few months later. What has changed is how the winner of that round of 16 match would be viewed by those around them.
It was fair to question whether El Submarino Amarillo might enter these games with a new manager, even after Unai Emery had turned down Newcastle, such were his side’s struggles. Now they have just held Real Madrid goalless and are firmly in the mix for a top four berth in La Liga.
Meanwhile, Juventus are firmly in the mix for Champions League qualification next season, something that seemed an extremely unlikely scenario late last year, at least without them actually winning the tournament outright. Massimiliano Allegri’s men have lost just one game — the Super Cup to Inter Milan — since the one-two punch inflicted on them by Chelsea and Atalanta in late November and have risen steadily up the Serie A standings. They look a remarkably different team to the one that was laboring against Sassuolo and Venezia, probably not good enough to win the biggest prize in Europe but certainly dangerous enough to be taken seriously.
At the heart of their revival has been a defense that looks far more Juventus than the chaotic rearguard that started out the campaign. Whether partnered with Giorgio Chiellini or Leonardo Bonucci, Matthijs de Ligt looks like the young defensive superstar that was wanted by all of Europe before he chose Turin. Behind the Dutch international Wojciech Szczesny…
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Source : cbssports
