Okay, it’s time for more of my fearless Euorpa League predictions. Why fearless? Because, really, what are you going to do to me if I’m wrong. And I’m wrong about half the time in this tournament. Still, that doesn’t stop me. This tournament, much, much more so than the Champions League, is just an exhibition allowing clubs that weren’t good enough to advance in the Champions League an opportunity to make more money for UEFA. So, take all of my predictions with a few grains of salt. They all are based solely on the current World Club Rankings. If you had access to clubs beyond the Top 25 or 35, you wouldn’t even need me. But you don’t, so you do, so here we go.
GO AHEAD AND DECLARE A CHAMPION NOW GROUP
I’ve mentioned before that in the last two seasons of the UEFA Cup, I missed Zenit St. Petersburg and Shakhtar Donetsk completely. How did I miss them? I refused to pick clubs in the Russian or Ukranian leagues, so I picked against those clubs in every single round. That’s right; for the clubs that ultimately won the cup, I was 0-10 in picking their matchups. There’s only one league left in the Round of Sixteen that I won’t pick to advance and that’s Belgium’s Jupiler (Is that right? It’s something like that.) Here’s another opportunity for a smaller, less accomplished league to put me to shame.
(29) Hamburger SV (Ger) over RSC Anderlecht (Bel)
(15) Panathinaikos (Gre) over Standard Liege (Bel)
PICK OF THE ROUND
In the last round, I went 1-5 in the category that I called the close calls. (Or something like that. I forget exactly what I called it.) But that meant that I was 70% on all of the others. Not too bad. In the category with the biggest difference in rankings between the clubs, there is only one matchup, so I’m making that my pick of the week.
(23) Rubin Kazan (Rus) over (110) VfL Wolfsburg
MODERATE CONFIDENCE
These are picks that I’m not as comfortable with, but still make with some confidence. First is the matchup between Atletico Madrid and Sporting CP. Atletico is my favorite Spanish club but has been very disappointing this season. Sporting has also been disappointing, but has shown up in the big matches like a recent drubbing of Porto. I’m going with the Portuguese club in this one.
(50) Sporting CP (Por) over (81) Atletico Madrid (Esp)
In the other matchup of this round, I’m going with a club I picked against in the last round against a club I picked to win in the last round. I thought Juventus had a much tougher matchup in the last round, but it got by Ajax and got some of my respect in the process. Fulham is English and doesn’t have a lot more going in favor of it this season. I’m going Juve.
(44) Juventus (Ita) over (70) Fulham (Eng)
Finally, is the matchup between Valencia and Werder Bremen. Bremen is my favorite German club, but I’m going against them, as well. Valencia is just too strong this season, definitely heading for a spot in next season’s Champions League, and if they motivate themselves at all for this round, they should advance fairly easily.
(12) Valencia (Esp) over (42) Werder Bremen (Ger)
CLOSE CALLS
This is the category that got me in trouble last time around. These could go in any direction. In the last round, five of the six went in the direction I said they wouldn’t. Law of averages is on my side in this round, then, right? Right? Whatever. These all should be great matchups and I am going strictly by the rankings in my picks. In both cases, I’m picking the French club to narrowly lose. Here are the picks:
(17) Benfica (Por) over (24) Marseille (Fra)
(39) Liverpool (Eng) over (46) Lille (Fra)
There you go. Who knows if they’ll be right? Who cares? It’s all in fun, just like the Europa League. Enjoy!!!
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