Champions League Previews: Group C
Spanish giants Real Madrid who were in a relative crisis at the open season seem to recapture their best form. With Zidane, Figo and Raul in excellent condition they haven't much problems in the latest games both in Champions League and Spanish championship.
Spanish giants Real Madrid who were in a relative crisis at the open season seem to recapture their best form. With Zidane, Figo and Raul in excellent condition they haven't much problems in the latest games both in Champions League and Spanish championship.
They are currently fifth in the domestic competition but only two points behind the leaders Alaves and Betis. It is likely that the club will be leading the table just after two or three rounds, thus all the talks about Real's deep crisis and downfall that could be observed in the Spanish mass media about two month ago appear to be useless.
Madrid machine crash down their opponents using minimum possible efforts and the scores like 2-1, 3-2 must not lead into fallacy; Real usually completely control the game dominating in the course of the match. The final result of forthcoming fixture against Greek Panathinaikos is easy to predict.
Real will try to get the victory over their Greek rivals in order to solve their qualification problems. Securing maximum points
in two starting days of the Champions League second group stages means Spanish giants are nearly in quarterfinal especially taking into consideration the fact they are still to play two matches at Santiago Bernabeu.
The things for Panathinaikos are much more complicated. They failed to secure three points in the first home match against their main rival Porto and now the Greeks are desperately in need of points. But taking into account the current form of their Spanish opponents that is unlikely to happen in Madrid.
As to Porto, the Portuguese may stay three points clear of Panathinaikos if manage to beat Sparta Prague. But it seems that will not easy to do as the club from Czech Republic proved to be the tough rival while playing away. In the Champions League first phase they managed to avoid away defeats in spite of the fact one of their opponents was defending champions Bayern Munich.
So, Porto must do their utmost to achieve positive results against well-organized Sparta who according to the first game against Real are possible to create sensations.