The greatest club tournament is back!!

This past week has brought us many exciting moments that have made this first week of school after Easter vacation a little bit better and more tolerable. The first and most important thing is, of course, the return of the UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE! It's not only the league were true players are born, but it also exhibits some of the greatest soccer matches in the world. 

Reaching the final stages of the tournament, the best eight teams in the tournament collided on April 2nd and 3rd to play the first leg of the quarter finals. The first matchup was the anticipated game between the great Barcelona (Spain) against PSG (France). Even though these two teams are at the top of their respective leagues, the favourite was Barcelona. After a gruelling match, the final score remained at 2-2. Barcelona fans were disappointed, fully knowing that their team was the favourite to come out on top. They over came the fact that the great Messi (Barcelona) was injured during the first half and had to leave the game. They must know wait for the second leg, which they will play at home, to beat PSG and secure a ticket to the semifinals. The second game was also an anticipated match. On the pitch, the soccer giants, Juventus (Italy) and Bayern Munich (Germany) fought tooth and nail to prevail and get a head start in this first leg. Although its was expected to be a very evenly matched game, Juventus slacked off and allowed the German machine to score twice and have a controlling grasp on the series. They must now wait until next week to go back home and try to make a comeback, although highly unlikely since they are facing one of the tournament favourites. The third game was between Real Madrid (Spain) and Galatasaray (Turkey). It's was one of the best and most exciting matches if the week.......... NOT!!!! Apart from being a Turkish team that rode the train of luck to reach this far into the tournament, Galatasaray also had to face the Portuguese machine: Ronaldo. After powering through the 90 minutes, the Spanish "merengues" cruised to a deserving 3-0 win and crushed all hopes that the Turkish team had. Even though the Turks will have home field advantage this week, the results of this match up will most likely stay the same. The talent of the spaniards is too good to be beaten by a lower class team. Played back to back with the previously mentioned match up, was the game between Málaga (Spain) and Borussia Dortmund (Germany). The expected result was a convincing win for the German squad, but to everyone's surprise the Spanish team brought their skills to the pitch. Málaga stepped up their level and forced a tie in this last match of the week. They survived the first leg but its clear if they can handle Borussia a second week in a row. It's clear that next week will bring us very interesting matches and that anything is possible. These ups and downs are all just part of the fun and the thrilling excitement that make up the UEFA Champions League. 

In other news, the Colombia soccer tournament was under way this week. This Saturday displayed some anticipated match ups between intracity rivals. First, "el clásico" was played between league leaders Santafé and Millionarios. As usual, the score is always unpredictable and resulted in a big 3-1 win for the "azules" (Millos) of Bogota. The match was pretty one sided and did not reflect an interesting match. The other match up this Saturday was between Nacional and DIM. These two tournament contenders from Medellin disputed their match on home turf. After a evenly matched game, the score ended 0-0. The public did not get to see any scoring action but the match was enjoyable. Better result were expected but ,what can you do? It's soccer!

 Be sure to tune in to next weeks games. They will not disappoint and it will not be odd if something amazing happens. After all, it's THE CHAMPIONNNSSS!!!!!

A.C.P