This is usually when I trot out my well used phrase of the upcoming weekend league meeting at the Etihad between City and Liverpool, hanging over tonight's games like the Sword of Damocles ( I was both obsessed and fearful of that tale as a young child). I suppose it is true to a degree, as both teams would like to get the hard work of these two legged ties done and dusted this evening, allowing them to fully focus on what could be an EPL title decider, rather than going into it with one eye on the second leg which is being played next midweek. However, whilst I would never expect either club to admit it, I strongly suspect that once again it is all about winning a first ever Champions League for City, something which has become their Holy Grail for many tears and for six time European champions Liverpool, if forced to choose, it would be just a second league title in 32 years, with that 2019/20 success disrupted , some might say blighted by COVID. The two giants of English football will, of course, be trying to win both tournaments and each would be helped to that end by a resounding win this evening, it is just that I feel the two clubs have different priorities. 

 

City are at home, but it feels the more difficult tie and this is Atletico's second trip to Manchester in three weeks and ahead of the first, a trip to United I spoke about how both teams had gone backwards , but the visitors resilience and success they had had on a previous trip to the North West to play Liverpool  ..........

 

 

Atletico won that 1-0 and both subsequent league starts , they remain well off last season's pace ( see above) but look in a much stronger position now to claim another Champions League spot and as such, they are under less pressure and their own weekend game ( a trip to Mallorca) is unlikely to have been on their minds too much in build up to this. Atletico did lose at Anfield in the group stage 2-0 and 3-2 in the home meeting and both legs to Chelsea last season at this same stage of competition and those results and the eight goal conceded will give City more confidence, if it were needed, than worries that the Spanish side were able to squeeze past a very average United .

 

 At the end of the day City are the best team in England and on course for a higher points tally than the 86 with which they won the league last season, also coming up just short in the Champions League final and xP places them 7-9 points above Liverpool and not just one. It is hard not to see the whole of La Liga has having gone backwards over the last two seasons, Real Madrid are top of the table with a healthy lead and in the last eight of this competition, but they toiled through the group stage, were outplayed for three halves by PSG in the last round and the Parisians should have been out of sight by then and it might just be that they are best of a relatively poor bunch. Sevilla were knocked out of the Europa League by the 6th best team in the EPL, Barcelona lost at the CL group stage, failing to score in four games . It is five years since Atletico made it past this stage of the competition and they and Spanish football have regressed subsequently.

 

2021/22				Overall									Home						Away
				P	W	D	L	F	A	Gdf	Pts	Form	P	W	D	L	F	A	P	W	D	L	F	A
	1		FC Porto	28	24	4	0	71	19	+52	76	WWWW	14	12	2	0	37	9	14	12	2	0	34	10
	2		Sporting	28	22	4	2	56	17	+39	70	WWWW	14	12	1	1	26	5	14	10	3	1	30	12
	3		Benfica	28	19	4	5	70	28	+42	61	LWXW	14	9	2	3	33	14	14	10	2	2	37	14

 

Benfica finished third last season in Primeira , 4 points behind Porto and 9 off champions Sporting, they are already a respective 15 and 9 adrift of that duo this time around and it is hard to make a case for them to have improved, aside from a couple of results in this competition, but Ajax must be wondering how they lost to the Eagles over two legs and Bayern beat them by a combined 9-2 in the group stage. They cannot have been too pleased to see Liverpool come out of the hat for the quarter finals , not that anyone else would have been much easier , but English teams have battered the Portuguese in recent CL ties, City beat Sporting 5-0 in Lisbon in the last round and Pool saw off Porto 5-0 on aggregate in 2018, 6-1 in 2019 and 7-1 this season at the group stage ! The two results this season came against stronger teams than Benfica and across all four ties, the real damage was done in Portugal, with a combined 19-2 goal difference in favour of the EPL sides !

 

 

 

Good luck !