Welcome to world football's Champions League Hangover, in which we round up the key stories and important points from the latest matchday in Europe's premier club competition.
Repetition the Path to Perfection?
If there was a certain sense of familiarity to this week's Champions League fixtures, then there perhaps should have been little accompanying surprise.
Two of the four fixtures played this week were repeats of knockout ties last season, as Schalke hosted Real Madrid (an exact replica of a last-16 tie from last season) and Chelsea visited Paris Saint-Germain (a quarter-final 12 months previously).
Next week promises another taste of deja vu, as Manchester City host Barcelona in a third facsimile of last season's knockout stages.
Hollywood has always loved a sequel, but more recently, that predilection has been pushed to its natural conclusion; stories have been expanded shamelessly to trilogies and tetralogies and onward and onward for as long as the financial returns are there (there is perhaps nothing more satisfying than a dreadful film that deliberately leaves an open ending, anticipating a sequel it is doomed to never have because of its own awfulness).
The Champions League is every bit as lucrative as a major blockbuster these days, and perhaps we should quickly get used to seeing the same teams thrown together year after year (Arsenal, for one, are relieved to have avoided Bayern Munich this time around).
Combine the presence of the same teams in the competition each season and the rule that clubs from the same nations cannot face each other until the quarter-finals, and the odds of the same knockout ties being pulled out of the hat annually are far from small.
UEFA must hope that familiarity does not really breed contempt; if it does, fans might soon tire of the competition in its current format.
On the pitch, neither repeat fixture was as exciting this time around. Real Madrid, 6-1 winners in the Veltins-Arena last season, were just 2-0 victors this time around, with Marcelo's swinging late finish adding an extra gloss to proceedings. The end result is perhaps the same, however; there appears no real way Real will throw away their acquired advantage at the Santiago Bernabeu (even if a repeat of the 9-2 aggregate triumph is perhaps off the table).
"Cristiano [Ronaldo] is back," said Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti of his star (per the BBC), who broke the deadlock. "Today we needed a game like that, with this attitude. Everything went well."
Chelsea's visit to Paris was also more The Hangover Part II than The Godfather Part II, with the dramatic, late, 3-1 PSG victory of 2014 followed up by a 1-1 draw that saw a subdued Chelsea try to take the sting out of things as much as possible.
Jose Mourinho's men actually took the lead thanks to Branislav Ivanovic (a goal that was the result of three Blues defenders combining) before Edinson Cavani got Laurent Blanc's side back on level terms. A brilliant display from Thibaut Courtois perhaps prevented history from fully repeating itself, as Chelsea showed some alarming signs of weariness over the final part of the game.
“Paris were stronger than us and we didn’t create or control the game as we did in the first half,” Mourinho said (per Sky Sports). He continued:
In the first half we didn’t create a lot but we had the ball and moved the ball well. In the second half we lost control against a fantastic team with fantastic players.
I give them credit and refuse to say my players were not good. Paris pressed us a lot in the second half, they played very direct and they have a monster [in Ibrahimovic] who has qualities.
Bayern Munich would perhaps nevertheless swap Chelsea's 1-1 for the 0-0 they got against Shakhtar Donetsk, a game that actually took place closer to the away side's base than the nominal home team; Shakhtar's stadium suffered bomb damage last year, so the game took place in Lviv—750 miles from Donetsk but only 560 or so from Munich.
The lack of an away goal will surely be a disappointment to Pep Guardiola, meaning as it does that Bayern can scarcely afford to concede at the Allianz Arena in the return leg. Nevertheless, the German champions will surely be fully confident of beating a side that currently has no domestic commitments, even if their indiscipline in the first leg (Xabi Alonso earned a red card) perhaps hinted at a certain anxiety about the expectations on them in the competition this season.
Still Guardiola remains confident, saying (per ESPNFC):
We had more chances to score. Shakhtar Donetsk had none, zero.
We were a man down for a long time, and that obviously makes it very difficult. We controlled the play, but we created very few scoring chances.
We have to win the return now, and we'll do it with our fans behind us.
That leaves Basel against Porto, the Die Hard 4.0 of this week's Champions League games. No one seriously expects either side to cause any real damage in this competition, with the victor in the tie immediately going to the top of every other side's list of hoped-for quarter-final opponents.
Porto would appear to have the edge thanks to Danilo's late penalty in a 1-1 draw.
It was a game few will have watched, especially with Real Madrid playing at the same time, but it was a rare combination of teams for this stage of the competition, however; in a few years' time, as we prepare for the fifth PSG-Chelsea meeting in a row, we might look back fondly on such a pairing.
Champions League Last-16: First-Leg Results
Tuesday
PSG 1-1 Chelsea (Cavani; Ivanovic)
Shakhtar Donetsk 0-0 Bayern Munich
Wednesday
Basel 1-1 Porto (Gonzalez; Danilo)
Schalke 0-2 Real Madrid (Ronaldo, Marcelo)
Next matchday: Manchester City vs. Barcelona, Juventus vs. Borussia Dortmund (Tuesday, February 24); Arsenal vs. Monaco, Bayer Leverkusen vs. Atletico Madrid (Wednesday, February 25).
Goal of the Week
In what is hardly a packed field, Marcelo's strike wins somewhat comfortably.
Goal of the Week: Runner-Up Edition
Special inclusion for young Felix Platte, who nearly scored a goal for the ages on his European debut for Schalke. His strike came just moments before Marcelo made it 2-0—never has the difference between the very top sides been so cruelly illustrated.
Random Asides
PSG clearly had a tactic to deal with Eden Hazard: kick him. The Belgian may have had a physically challenging night, but he rose to the task commendably and will doubtless have taken the memory of the many agricultural challenges to use as fuel for the second leg. PSG may yet regret riling the youngster.
Jose Mourinho had at least one selection decision to make on Tuesday, and he ended up going for Thibaut Courtois ahead of Petr Cech. It was a decision that paid off—Courtois was excellent—although Mourinho brushed it off afterwards. “They are both phenomenal goalkeepers,” he told Sky Sports. "I try to read the situation and try to predict the profile of the game and the needs of the team, but the reality is it is easy. If football was nine players and two goalkeepers we would be on the moon.”
Were Bayern Munich nervous? They were clearly not helped by a card-happy referee, but the German side seemed uncharacteristically on edge throughout the game. Is the pressure of being expected to go far in this competition (and make amends for last season's semi-final disaster) already getting to them? The second leg at the Allianz could be illuminating, especially if Shakhtar come somehow steal an early lead.
It was a typical Shakhtar team we saw on Tuesday, consisting of a defensive unit featuring four Ukrainians and the ever-dependable Darijo Srna (a Croatian) and six Brazilians in midfield and attack. The club may have been displaced this season, but their identity remains very much what we are used to.
With his goal, Ronaldo drew level with Lionel Messi and Raul on 76 goals in all European competitions. Messi has the chance to respond next week, but this looks certain to be a record that is broken countless times by each man over the coming seasons.
Schalke had a 19-year-old in goal on Wednesday and were forced to throw on a 19-year-old in attack after Klaas-Jan Huntelaar went down injured. Neither man had played for the senior team two weeks ago, yet both Timon Wellenreuther and Felix Platte acquitted themselves well. In that light, a 2-0 defeat was no disgrace for Roberto Di Matteo's men.
Apropos of nothing: Not one Portuguese player started for Porto on Wednesday, while only two Englishman started for Chelsea. Additionally, only four of the eight teams in action in the Champions League were actually reigning champions of their domestic leagues.
Good Week, Bad Week
Good Week
Timon Wellenreuther: The 19-year-old held his own in goal against Real Madrid. Bravo.
Mark Clattenburg and Co.: Got the decision to rule out a Porto goal spot on.
Cristiano Ronaldo: Back to goalscoring ways.
David Luiz: Made something of a point against his former side, as Laurent Blanc's tactical switch paid off.
Shakhtar Donetsk: Would certainly have taken a 0-0 home draw with Bayern Munich before kick-off.
Bad Week
Xabi Alonso: His sending off leaves Bayern without a valuable controlling presence for what will now be a tighter second leg.
Gareth Bale: Recent criticism seemed to have had an effect.
A section of Chelsea fans: Racist chants? Hopefully suitable and significant punishment is meted out to those responsible.
Diego Costa: As Mourinho feared pre-match, he looked rusty and off the pace after his three-match ban.
Alberto Undiano Mallenco: The Spanish referee had a poor game in Lviv; Alonso's dismissal was one of a number of dubious calls.
Other Points of Note
An Age to Wait for the Final Act
All these ties will be completed in three weeks' time, when all eight sides could be in completely different veins of form with different injury lists and other issues to contend with.
Perhaps such a delay is fairer, perhaps it is not, but for many of the closer ties, it is impossible to predict final outcomes with any real confidence when so much can still happen (and so much can still go wrong) in the time before the second legs come around.
Muller Too Light for Bayern Attack?
Pep Guardiola made one notable selection decision in Lviv, opting to leave Robert Lewandowski out of the starting lineup in favour of Thomas Muller. The decision perhaps made sense—Muller works harder defensively, while his idiosyncratic movement and style of play might have better unsettled a Shakhtar defence lacking match practice—but it did not pan out, with Bayern looking toothless even before they went down to 10 men.
It will be interesting if Guardiola leaves Lewandowski out in a big game again or decides a traditional attacking focal point is needed in such games.
Life Imitating Art
Jose Mourinho might have invented the pejorative phrase "park the bus" to describe a defensive-minded performance (ironic, considering his proclivity for such a tactic in big games), but Chelsea's own bus driver took things to new heights on Tuesday—he got the team bus stuck on the way to the stadium.
Quite literally parked.