Defined the semifinal pairs of the Champions League; Liverpool vs Villarreal and Real Madrid against City, many of whom I am in, are betting that there is a high chance of seeing an English final.
But that’s part of the speculation and while it might as well happen, the four teams in contention have quality factors worth considering and highlighting.
The Liverpool-Villarreal key appears as the most uneven on paper. The powerful one against the much smaller budget team. The great candidate, who has been showing again the scrolls that led him to win everything, with a Klopp that manages to reinvent its players and also gives him the plus of adding some pieces that are coupling in a good way, the cases of Konaté and Díaz. With a Salah that has masterfully resumed all its quality of collective and individual play, always accompanied by the talented and industrious Sadio Mane.
But in front of Villarreal, he bets on his great factor. The collective sense, the unity of the group and with the baton of a technician who already knows of achievements and successes in Europe such as Unai Emery. It is a key where the Spaniards have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The favourites by far is the Anfield team, who will have to sustain the pressure of being fighting in the Premier League and the valid option of being the monarchs of the continent again.
The other key is very complex and we can all say almost like an anticipated final. The anxious City that desperately seeks from the hand of Guardiola to raise the orejona, against the team of greater tradition copera. That inveterate desire of the English to get the Champions League, which they have been too close and that at this point in the process Guardiola is an obsession, against a Real Madrid, which in the last twelve editions has reached the semifinals 10 times.
A real train wreck, because at all levels it is a key of the highest quality. The exhibition of football that two of its pillars have been showing, Benzema and Modric; who demonstrate in each important instance all their arsenal of quality and shaft.
City with a coach who can always surprise with some tactical innovation, with an ace up his sleeve and when unleashed on the pitch can hurt anyone. But of course, now he has a giant mountain to climb and bet he will, it’s a huge risk.
For these reasons and many more that anyone can apply, the quality of the game and show is totally guaranteed. Two keys of infarction and high tension, which at the end of April, will have two teams thinking about the grand final in Paris.
