To borrow a line from New York sports talk radio host Mike Francesa, the Round of 16 pairings for the UEFA Champions League are good, not great. The most noteworthy nugget to come out of the draw is that unlike years past, the four English teams -- Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea -- didn't get any favors and each have fairly difficult pairings. Based on all the matchups a repeat of an all-English final and three out of the final four from the Premier League seems increasingly unlikely.At the top of this list is defending competition champion Manchester United playing Serie A leaders Inter Milan. Naturally, in the run up to this match we'll get literally hundreds of stories about Inter boss Jose Mourinho coming back to England. Mourinho is a master of mind games, but it's doubtful they'll work against another master of manipulation, Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson.
Last' year's runner-up Chelsea gets a pairing with Italy's Juventus, managed by former Blues boss Claudio Ranieri. Arsenal, meanwhile, get AS Roma, with the Italian captial club likely grateful they've avoided Manchester United.
The other massively intriguing affair pits Liverpool against Real Madrid. Again, the talk here will swirl around the managers, as Liverpool's Rafa Benetiz had been mentioned in the Spanish media as a possible candidate to take over Real Madrid. As for Madrid, which has sputtered in La Liga, it'll be fun to see if new boss Juande Ramos can achieve cup greatness as he did at Sevilla, winning back-to-back UEFA Cups.
The remaining matches are pretty good, too. Barcelona and Lyon pair off in a meeting of the league leaders in Spain and France. (Bookmakers have Barcelona as tournament favorites.) There's also a good Iberian peninsula battle when Atletico Madrid plays Porto.
Rounding out the competition Sporting plays Bayern Munich and Villarreal faces Panathinaikos.
Matches don't begin until February 24 and 25, with the return legs two weeks later. After that, though, it's a pretty mad dash to the finish line. It's a shame we have to wait this long until they kick it off. If you have 'FIFA' or 'PES' you can always sim these games and comer up with some virtual results.
