An Ode To Walls and What Can We Expect From UCL Semi-Finals

Real Madrid stays Real Madrid and both Atletico and Juve enter familiar territory. Can the newcomer Monaco spoil anyone’s party?

The UEFA Champion’s League Semi-Final Draw takes place tomorrow. It will put three mainstays in the competition (Real Madrid, Juventus and Atletico Madrid) as well as a relative young newcomer with an exciting offensive pedigree, a Golden State Warriors lite if you will, (Monaco) in a 4 way tie for the most prestigious club trophy in European Football. So what does that mean for us and what would be the best and worst match-up for the fans.

The Dual Opposites

This is the one where we get one game that is guaranteed to be just as exciting as that time weird fish-looking aliens leveled half of New York in the first Avengers while only managing to kill something like 100 people (very inefficient invasion if you ask me). It would be a fireworks fest that may finish in double digits. The other game will get is like public television at prime time. There will be one highlight.

Real Madrid vs. Monaco

You can probably simulate this game by putting a scorpion vs. a small spider in a box and throwing jelly-beans at them intermittently. Monaco is the current UCL darling on a run that saw them dislodge Man City and Dortmund en route to this place. They plan very offensive football which involves chocking the light out of your opponent high up the pitch and then breaking Barry Allen style. They also currently are grooming Kylian Mbappe to be the next young striker to be ruined by a big money move to England. They’re fun.

Real Madrid is Real Madrid. Generally a safe bet to reach the Semis or the Finals every year. Putting money on Real being here is like putting money on the Spurs getting 50 wins in a NBA season. You do it when you don’t really want to risk a lot of money but you’re also not going to win a lot because the odds are so good. It’s safe-playing the house basically. Ronaldo can’t stop scoring. Marcelo is the best fullback in the world and he recently annexed Arjen Robben’s knees from his entire body. They’re the scariest offensive team left in the UCL.

The scoreline for both legs would be like if you plugged in numbers between 1–25 into random number generator. Real Madrid has soccer LeBron, a man built for playing the sport he dominates with sculptural precision of Michelangelo. I’m going to tell you right now, there will be goals and you will not be able to look away.

Juventus vs. Atletico Madrid

In no particular order, here is the list of things I would trust to defend some of the most precious things in my life (my camera, my wallet and possibly my poster of Chance the Rapper as Parappa The Rapper):

• 300 Spartans
• An Actual Wall Made out of Adamantium
• Idris Elba playing Heimdall in Thor
• Atletico Madrid
• The Back Three of Chiellini, Barzagli and Bonucci with Buffon at the back.

If that last one was part of the Helms Deep defense, they wouldn’t even need to wait for Gandalf’s punk ass to show up at the last minute to play hero for dramatic effect. Helm’s Deep would have been held, no questions asked.

The cumulative score of this series will be 1–0 and there is no guarantee that we won’t need extra time and/or a penalty shootout to actually settle the final result. Both defenses move with a near symbiotic fluidity like cells fighting a virus in your body where the attacking players are the flu. Whenever someone moves out of position, the gap doesn’t stay open, it shuts like a steel trap around a possible opening. Juventus managed to stifle the best player in the world like that and make Neymar look like an excitable, but overall harmless puppy.

Option 2: The Madrid Derby

The Madrid Derby

The two Madrid teams have a long a storied history worthy of the Godfather novels. Real is the more successful, prettier older brother who is the CEO of his own company and has two kids. Atletico is the brooding artist with a dark streak but ultimately a heart of gold. I am only saying that because the latter is supposed to win out and it hasn’t been so.

While their La Liga encounters are significantly more level and often split, Real has continuously had the upper hand on their Madrid counterpart when it comes to Europe. Five years from now Sergio Ramos will still be a Real Player, only brought on with 10 minutes left to secure the team equalizers and game winners and such is his fate whenever the two Madrid teams meet. This is a grueling game that will directly contrast Zidane’s position-less “let Marcelo cook” approach we saw vs. Munich against the Simeone’s “You leave your position and I’ll cut you” philosophy.

The game will be an exciting seesaw all the way up until the end give the series pedigree and I really hope Atleti can pull out a miracle if it happens.

Sorry Monaco

Here’s a stat, Juventus only conceded 2 goals in this year’s competition. Here’s another stat, they played Barcelona a total of 180 minutes in that stretch and conceded 0.

Little known fact about Juve is that in their spare time when not playing football, Georgio Chiellin, Andrea Barzagli, Leonardo Bonucci and Gigi Buffon actually form Voltron and head out into outer space to protect the universe. How successful are they? The universe hasn’t been attacked once and the front three of Messi, Suarez and Neymar scored a total of 0 goals over 180 minutes. I’d say moderately well.

Monaco is an exciting young team that is prone to defensive lapses that they have so far managed to cover up with the hybrid nature of their attack. Unfortunately, they would run head first into a wall against Juventus. The French team’s success so far is due to their ability to apply the high press and then break at speed at a disorganized defense. Unfortunately for them “disorganized defense” and “Juventus” are words that do not exist on the same plane of reality.

You may look at the shot numbers Barca had against Juve and think they got lucky, but that is only until you look at actual shots. What reads like a full frontal assault by the numbers is actually just three guys sitting behind cover and blind-firing into a blurry target in the distance. Barring a cataclysmic event Monaco will fail to score against Juve the form they are in.

The Finals Came Early

Juventus vs. Real Madrid

At the beginning of the knockout stage, many pundits classified only three “elite” clubs left in the competition (classification of clubs into tiers being one of the top pundit past times): Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Barcelona. Everyone else was a tier below.

Fast-forward to today after Juventus put Barcelona into the torture chamber for 90 minutes just to release them into a tank swarming with boa constrictors and octopuses for another 90 (don’t ask me how the logistics would work please) and I think we have another elite club on the horizon. Juve was never flashy in a traditional sense of soccer watching, but there is something simply orgasmic about watching their defense shift in and out of position like group of synchronized swimmers, covering space with efficiency and making even world class offensive players look like they’re playing in quick sand.

Their biggest challenge will be Real Madrid which abandons Barcelona’s tactical build up in lieu of having half player half locomotive Garreth Bale rampage down a side before cutting in for maximum chaos. Oh, they also have the soccer Vitruivan Man Cristiano Ronaldo. Stopping Real at full speed is different from doing it to Barcelona because of how direct Real tends to play. Their number one goal is “get the ball to the guys with cannons for legs and see what happens.” Once in open gallop, they do not stop until they smash against either a good defense or the back of the net (usually the latter).

This is the most exciting match-up possible that is best saved to the finals. Real Madrid is the unstoppable force. Juventus is the immovable object. One is the trail from that movie with Denzel and Chris Pine. Juventus is the actual Great Wall of China.

Monaco’s Most Gracious Exit

On one of our latest podcasts, me and Cameron Climie discussed what would be the most gracious exit for Leicester City from the UCL and both happened to agree that it would be facing Atletico Madrid.

We were right as the Diego Simeone commitment to his tactics is bordering on cult-like devotion. Even against Leicester he chose to sit back, absorb pressure and ping them on the counter. Boasting one of the best defensive units after the above-discussed Juventus, Atleti are built to sucker you into the trap before springing Griezmann and Carrasco to counter you with a close punch to the plexus. It’s what they did against Leicester it’s what they’ll do against Monaco. Except this almost backfired.

Ironically enough, Monaco’s best shot at a gracious exit is also their best shot at the finals. While decidedly a better team, the Atleti found themselves pinned down in their own half for most of the 2nd half of the 2nd game agianst Leicester as the Foxes tried to break the time and earn an extra advantage. The point is, there are more holes to be found in the Atleti defense than there are in Juventus one… And Kylian Mbappe only needs one.