Bleacher Report - Man U Champions League prospects
2007-12-17

The following article was written for The Bleacher Report, an online sports website. After reading a few of their columns, I'm not sure they'll enjoy the dumb foreigner Man U fan, most of their articles are objective and serious. Oh well, we'll see, I'll post a link to it here if they go for it.

Enjoy

EDIT:--Turns out they did like it, Here it is

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Like any good Reds fan, I’m flaky, I’m foreign and I won’t be happy with anything less than complete and total perfection.

Especially when you consider the effortless dominance United displayed in the group stage, tossing aside each team while hardly breaking a sweat. There are absolutely no excuses this year as we won’t see an “AC”, a “Real” or a Ronaldinho until the Quarterfinals. In fact, the teams we could face in the next round barely have the right to put “FC” beside their names, let alone “AC”.

Fenerbache?! How do you even say that? It looks like a bad 1980s Italian jeans manufacturer, one that makes jeans with rivets every couple inches for no reason and that ride somewhere up around your shoulder blades. Shalke? Olympiakos? Which teams did they beat to get to the knockout stage? Did UEFA allow Lithuanian teams into the League this year?

Most people I have spoken to are worried most about Lyon, but Celtic are the team I am most afraid of. Celtic have a bad habit of beating United at inopportune times and the football fever Alex McLeish whipped up in Scotland with the National side still lingers even if he doesn’t. I would not bet against a Scottish team at the moment, unless of course they are unfortunate enough to draw United in the next round.

Lyon needed to win their final game with Rangers just to qualify. They’ve looked shaky at times, but you can’t ignore the fact that they have qualified for the Quarterfinals with great regularity over the past few years. Having said that, this is a French team we’re talking about. No team who plays in a league against teams called “Nice” and “Nancy” is going to take the European Cup, especially a French team sans a Zidane, an Henry or a Desailly.

The next round is going to be a cakewalk if United draw one of the joker teams, but we may have a match on our hands if we find ourselves at the Stade Gerland or Parkhead.

Hell, if we end up playing Celtic, I might even watch it.