Tuesday April 5th: Wednesday 13th April:
Real Madrid v Tottenham Hotspur Schalke ’04 v Inter Milan
Inter Milan v Schalke ’04 Tottenham v Real Madrid
Wednesday April 6th: Tuesday 12th April:
Chelsea v Manchester United Manchester United v Chelsea
Barcelona v Shakhtar Donetsk Shakhtar Donetsk v Barcelona
The winners of Barca/Shakhtar will play Real Madrid or Tottenham potentially setting up a tantalising semi-final between the two Spanish giants and seeing them face each other 4 times in 10 days with a league game and Copa Del Rey final in the diary around that time too. Talks have been started and the league and Copa games are temporarily suspended until further notice it seems if the teams both progress. However, people may be underestimating the difficulty of going to Ukraine and facing that formidable Shakhtar Donetsk atmosphere, especially going there in the second leg.
This means that there is no chance of an all-Spanish final but we could still have an all-English final if Tottenham can overcome Madrid then either Barcelona or Shakhtar.
There is always a tasty story of revenge and payback in the Champions League and none more so than the revenge Chelsea will be looking to take out on Manchester United for the 2008 final when John Terry agonizingly missed his spot kick, handing the trophy to Man United there and then.
Rafael Van der Vaart has expressed his excitement at the prospect of returning to the Bernabeu via his Twitter. Not wishing to patronise Spurs but this is definitely a glamour tie for the North London club; the most experienced team and nine time winners, Real Madrid, up against the new boys: Spurs. That’s what the competition is all about, and lest we forget – anything can happen!
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