Champions League Quarterfinals Preview--Part 1

The first legs of the Champions League quarterfinal round are right around the corner. We'll see two games on Tuesday and the other two on Wednesday, and if you're a fan of the Premiership, you have to be happy with the situation right now. Four teams out of the eight remaining hail from England and of those four, three could very well advance to the semifinals.

Today, we'll take a look at the ties scheduled to open on Tuesday. My pick to progress is highlighted in bold.

1. AS Roma vs. Manchester United: This is one of the "dream ties" I wanted to see and a rematch of last year's quarterfinal, won on aggregate 8-3 by United. These two teams are well acquainted with one another as they also were in the same group this season, a group won handily by United.

It's really rather simple for Roma. If Francesco Totti doesn't play, and he is a "major doubt" for Tuesday's game, the Italian side has very little chance at advancing. Totti isn't just the straw that stirs Roma's drink, he is the drink. This is a guy who is one of the two or three best players in Europe right now (behind Cristiano Ronaldo and possibly Fernando Torres) and without him, I'm not sure if Roma has the firepower to overcome a United side that is working on all cylinders at the moment. If Totti is healthy, it's a different ballgame altogether and Roma would have a puncher's chance.

Roma need to win at the Stadio Olimpico, where they are 12-2-1 in Serie A, on Tuesday because they're not going to win in Manchester. It's also important to not concede an away goal to United, who have scored 27 of those in the Premiership, good for the second-highest total in the league.

Prediction: Roma won't be able to keep United off the scoreboard at home, and will get tonked at Old Trafford. Totti at 80-90% is good enough to beat a lot of teams, but United isn't one of them. 1-1 in Rome, 3-1 in Manchester -- 4-2 aggregate

2. Schalke 04 vs. Barcelona: With no disrespect meant to Schalke, Barcelona got the easiest possible draw in this round. Schalke are in a dogfight just to finish in a Champions League spot in the Bundesliga and scoring goals is a problem for them.

Barcelona will be without the services of Lionel Messi, but I honestly don't think it'll matter too much in this tie. The Spanish giants score for fun (60 goals in 30 league games) and while their road form is a bit of a concern, they more than make up for that at the Camp Nou.

Kevin Kuranyi needs to come up with two all-world performances for Schalke to have much of a chance, and by that I mean 3 or 4 goals in these two games. The problem? In Schalke's last five Champions League games, they've scored a combined four goals. Ouch.

Prediction: Schalke will get something at home but won't be able to stop Barca from scoring. The return leg, however, won't be pretty for the German club. 1-1, 3-0 -- 4-1 aggregate

Check back tomorrow for a brief look at the ties set to commence on Wednesday, Arsenal-Liverpool and Fenerbahçe-Chelsea.

Update (Monday afternoon): Roma's talisman, Francesco Totti, has been officially ruled out of tomorrow's first leg against Manchester United due to injury. Mirko Vucinic will take his place.

Champions League Quarterfinal + Semifinal Draw--Live

No time for intros, I'm doing homework at the moment and have class at 9 this morning, so I'm just going to list what's been drawn so far. The quarterfinal ties are scheduled to be played April 1/2 and 8/9, and the semifinal ties are scheduled to be played April 22/23 and 29/30. More analysis later.

Quarterfinal round; first leg home team listed first; Premiership teams highlighted in bold:

Arsenal vs. Liverpool
AS Roma vs. Manchester United
Schalke 04 vs. Barcelona
Fenerbahçe vs. Chelsea

Semifinal round; same things as before apply:

Arsenal/Liverpool vs. Fenerbahçe/Chelsea
Schalke 04/Barcelona vs. AS Roma/Manchester United

My Dream Champions League Quarterfinals Draw--Part 1

The real Champions League draw for the quarterfinals, semifinals, and final will take place tomorrow in Nyon, Switzerland, and for the first time in the competition, teams from the same group or country can be paired against each other. It's likely that we'll get a few duds and also a few exciting ties; that's just how it usually turns out. UEFA says that these draws are random, which I'm not necessarily questioning, but it seems like the same teams are always drawn against each other and things have appeared a little fishy at times...

For now though, he's my dream draw for the next round of the Champions League:

1. Arsenal-Fenerbahçe: Both teams play an attacking style and are capable of scoring multiple goals in any given game, something that can't be said about every team left at this stage in the competition. I'd be interested to see how Arsenal handles the raucous crowd in Istanbul, which is a different beast altogether than than the one they encountered at the San Siro last week. I don't doubt that the Gunners would go through in this tie, but Fenerbahçe would certainly give them a good game in Turkey and both legs would have goals in them. The winner of this tie would go on to face the winner of...

2. Manchester United-Roma: A rematch of last year's quarterfinal which Manchester United won 8-3 on aggregate, using a 7-1 thrashing at Old Trafford to overcome a 2-1 deficit from the first leg. This is a different Roma team though, and their leader, Francesco Totti, is playing out of his mind right now, and Manchester United looked pretty shaky at times against Lyon in both legs of their Round of 16 encounter. Would Roma have the firepower to overcome United? I'm not sure, and a lot would depend on how Totti performs.

Check back later for my other two dream pairings.