The Cham­pi­ons League quar­ter­fi­nals are com­ing up short­ly but the big ques­tion is - Did the new for­mat re­al­ly work?

The an­swer is un­equiv­o­cal­ly: No!

One side of the draw does not ap­pear to make sense with all of the top teams as was seen with Liv­er­pool, Man­ches­ter City, Re­al Madrid, Paris St Ger­main, Ar­se­nal and As­ton Vil­la on one side and the oth­er half, in­clud­ing Barcelona, In­ter Mi­lan and Bay­ern Mu­nich.

It ap­pears al­so to be rather puz­zling how the first-leg home match­es were de­cid­ed be­cause the high­er-seed­ed teams should not be play­ing the first of two match­es, which is ac­tu­al­ly hap­pen­ing, so that is very con­fus­ing and sug­gests ei­ther poor plan­ning or dare I say it, favouritism.

How­ev­er, let us have a look at the match ups.

On Tues­day (April 8), we have two match­es.

Bay­ern Mu­nich vs In­ter Mi­lan

And while on pa­per, In­ter Mi­lan is the high­er-ranked team fin­ish­ing fourth, giv­en their dour foot­ball and the resur­gence of Bay­ern Mu­nich af­ter los­ing ear­ly in the first round to Barcelona, I am not sur­prised that Bay­ern Mu­nich are the odds-on favourite to win.

How­ev­er, if Bay­ern Mu­nich miss its chances and Har­ry Kane is out of touch, then In­ter Mi­lan can up­set par­tic­u­lar­ly if their cap­tain and lead­ing Ar­gen­tine, Lau­taro Martínez is fit again. But I ex­pect Bay­ern Mu­nich to find a way to win the first leg, 2-1, and hold on for a draw in the sec­ond leg 1-1 and Bay­ern to progress to the semi­fi­nals.

Ar­se­nal vs Re­al Madrid

This is prob­a­bly the tie, that most neu­trals will be look­ing for­ward to. Ar­se­nal will right­ful­ly be­lieve they have been mis­treat­ed be­cause as the third seed, they just have been play­ing the sec­ond match at home but in­stead, it is the re­verse.

Some may say it is the luck of the Span­ish and Re­al Madrid, in par­tic­u­lar, and giv­en the for­tunes they re­ceived against Atleti­co Madrid, many can be for­giv­en for think­ing such.

This match may hinge on which team shows up over the two legs. Re­al Madrid has the pedi­gree and the class to win this and their squad sug­gest great tal­ent but they have been mis­fir­ing in La Liga but as his­to­ry shows in the Cham­pi­ons League, they are a dif­fer­ent propo­si­tion.

I be­lieve the bat­tle will cen­tre on how Gabriel Ma­g­a­l­haes (Brazil­ian) deals with his coun­try­man Vini­cius Jr and sim­i­lar­ly how Ar­se­nal’s William Sal­i­ba deals with his French coun­ter­part Kylian Mbappe.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, if Ar­se­nal can play with the re­turn­ing force of Bukayo Sa­ka it may help them if De­clan Rice can nul­li­fy Jude Belling­ham but while my heart wants Ar­se­nal, and they will be at good odds, to win, I be­lieve Re­al Madrid’s “jumbie” might see them through but I ex­pect it to be clos­er than most ex­pect, maybe even penal­ty kicks.

On Wednes­day (April 9), we have the re­main­ing two match­es.

Barcelona vs Dort­mund

Barcelona fin­ished as sec­ond seed but will play the first match at home and this may be the on­ly ad­van­tage. Last sea­son’s los­ing fi­nal­ist Borus­sia Dort­mund may have as I ex­pect them to be run over by Barcelona in both legs, 3-0 and 2-1, and ad­vance to the semi­fi­nals.

PSG vs As­ton Vil­la

This is an in­ter­est­ing en­counter be­tween two teams with man­agers who will prob­a­bly dom­i­nate the head­lines more than the play­ers.

Luis En­rique has Paris Saint-Ger­main (PSG) play­ing some of their best and most at­trac­tive foot­ball in a while as a team and not as in­di­vid­u­als. Their com­pelling vic­to­ry over Liv­er­pool on penal­ties is tes­ti­mo­ny to a new spir­it af­ter dom­i­nat­ing their home match and los­ing 1-0 but fight­ing back at An­field to send the game to the spot.

As­ton Vil­la, on the oth­er hand, in Un­ai Emery, has a tour­na­ment spe­cial­ist where he has won sev­er­al Eu­ropa League ti­tles and his re­cent ac­qui­si­tion of at­tack­ing pair, Mar­cus Rash­ford and Mar­co Asen­sio has lift­ed the club to new heights but I ex­pect PSG to progress.

It promis­es to be an ex­cit­ing pe­ri­od of foot­ball which will cap­ti­vate all of T&T and let us hope we get qual­i­ty foot­ball and fair ref­er­ee­ing at all times.

Sports is the best thing and brings joy like noth­ing else.