The Elite Eight

photo by eschipul	via PhotoRee

Some quick thoughts on last night's events in the Champions League:

• My friend John would like to know who designed Copenhagen's away strip.  The team looked like a Christo art project gone horribly wrong.

• Speaking of uniforms (as we call them here in the States), did it impress anyone else watching the Lyon - Real game last night how very french-looking the Olympique Lyonnais uniforms were?  Very avant-garde, lots of lines going in different directions, tres chic, and so ultimately frenchified.  Rarely have I seen a team's uniform so perfectly encapsulate their culture.  Bravo!

• By the way, I had to laugh at how Fox Soccer Channel chose to abbreviate Copenhagen's name for the box showing the match score in the upper left-hand corner of the screen: "FCK".  The neat part about that acronym is that not only does it mirror the team's official team name -- FC København, after all -- it's probably pretty close to the sentiment their supporters were feeling after their goalless draw with Chelsea last night.

• Torres Watch: Seven games, zero goals.  And counting.  Let's see: that's how many minutes per goal?  I once learned in match class that it's awfully difiicult to divide by zero....  At least you've got to give Carlo credit for benching El Nino last night, but he probably figured he could afford to take a chance up two road goals.

• So the final eight of the Champions League are composed as follows: three English teams, two Spanish teams, one Italian, one German, and a Ukarainian team.  I'd make an argument that the first seven spots roughly mirror the general balance of power among the various European leagues: England with the best, followed by Spain, with Germany and Italy lagging.  It's hard to gauge where the Ukrainians fit into the discussion, in much the same way that it's difficult to determine exactly how strong Shakhtar is: Roma was not exactly premium opposition, but the Ukrainian champs have played some very good football to date in the Champions League.

This is farlieonfootie for March 17; Happy St. Patrick's Day!