Chelsea draw Atletico Madrid in Champions League

Chelsea have been drawn against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League semi-final, while Real Madrid face Bayern Munich.

Jose Mourinho’s side, chasing a third final in seven seasons, are away at the Vicente Calderon in the first leg.

Nine-time winners Real are at home to holders Bayern in the first leg, to be played April 22-23.

Well that was certainly an interesting draw the two big dogs and the two underdogs both facing each other, and I have to credit the UEFA bureaucracy for taking a draw with four teams that should take less than a minute and stretching it out for what seemed like an eternity and leaving everyone in the room and watching at home thinking, just start the f**king draw PLEASE!

Before I comment on the draw for the semis I would just like to say that if Barcelona would have bought a centre-back at any point in the last three years and not had a 38 year old Sunday league goalie as back up to Valdes, then they would have gone through and I would’ve got a clean sweep of getting all my predictions for the quarters right, but three out of four aint bad.  

Back to the draw and I’ll deal with Madrid-Bayern first which I think will see Bayern go through, I didn’t watch their games against United but it looks like they won quite comfortably and if you look at Guardiola’s record against Madrid its excellent he just knows how to beat them and I think he’ll do it again. 

Atletico-Chelsea is an interesting one because both teams keep it tight at the back and hit teams on the counter so which one will look to be more aggressive and take control of the tie?

We’ll have to wait and see about that but as it stands now I think Chelsea’s experience will see them through, as they won’t defend as badly as Barca and they have a keeper who doesn’t look like a rabbit caught in the headlights in big games. I also think Atletico are running on empty they barely had the energy to celebrate when they beat Barca and that’s got to catch up with them sooner or later. And as much as I want them to beat Chelsea I just don’t think they will.

So I think it will be Bayern and Chelsea in the final, with Bayern to defend their title.