Champions League bold prediction: Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr. runs riot against Liverpool; Man City simplify

Week two of the Champions League knockout rounds brings with it a rerun of last season’s final, a matchup between Italy’s runaway leaders and the Europa League holders as well as one of the tournament favorites returning to action (Catch all the action on Paramount+). Here is what to keep an eye out for.

Real Madrid vs. Liverpool: Vinicius Jr. rinses Alexander-Arnold

Ok, so some of these predictions are not always that bold. Real Madrid and Liverpool are familiar foes and so far their meetings in the Champions League have been decided in a familiar fashion. Jurgen Klopp’s side have performed as well, if not better, than their opponents, made one big error at the back and been punished to the maximum. None have been more cruelly exposed than Trent Alexander-Arnold. Every defensive error he makes is mitigated and then some by his contributions in attack; few if any other right backs can find space and play the kind of pass that Liverpool’s did to assist Darwin Nunez in Saturday’s win over Newcastle.

Alexander-Arnold’s defending has not stood out for the wrong reasons quite as frequently this season but that is perhaps because everyone else around him was making simple errrors and showing a total lack of intensity before back-to-back wins last week started to ease some of the pressure. It is fair to also note that the 24-year-old is winning a higher proportion of his tackles than last season, indeed his 57.1 percent is not all that much lower than a player like Fulham’s ball-winning machine Joao Palhinha.

What does not seem to have been convincingly changed is his habit of switching off to so much danger behind him at the back post, something that was most cruelly exposed by Vinicius Junior at the Stade de France in last year’s final. Even neutrals in Paris could not help but feel like they had found themselves in an old-school horror movie an hour in, screaming “HE’S BEHIND YOU” to no avail. Not once did Alexander-Arnold look over his shoulder as Federico Valverde charged down the right wing. When the cross flew in, the Liverpool right back seemed content to let it roll across him. Vinicius pounced.

A year earlier Alexander-Arnold had once more failed to appreciate the danger over his shoulder. Note how flat-footed he is when Luka Modric plays a pass to Vinicius, who has burst from behind his right back to attack the space around the penalty spot. As is so often the case when goals are conceded, it is not just one defender who could have done better. Nat Phillips is pointing at the spot from which Vinicius will score, acutely aware of the danger ahead, but does not attack the space in time to block out the threat.

Unfortunately for Liverpool, Vinicius is on something of a tear at the moment, scoring six in his last nine appearances and weighing in with three assists. It is rather hard to know how much the Reds’ defense has really improved after wins over a passive Everton and the 10 men of Newcastle, who still had plenty of good opportunities when they were two goals and a man down.

Eintracht Frankfurt vs. Napoli: Osimhen shades striker shootout

While most of Europe will be squarely focused on the rerun of last season’s final at Anfield, one suspects that the scouting community may have a closer eye on matters in continental Europe’s financial hub, where plenty of cash could be splashed on one of the two strikers lining up in this round of 16 tie. A host of Europe’s biggest clubs — most notably Chelsea, Manchester United and Bayern Munich — will be in the market for a new center forward this summer. Two players who will figure in their thoughts will be Randal Kolo Muani of Eintracht Frankfurt and Napoli’s Victor Osimhen.

Few need reminding about the qualities of the latter, who has set the Serie A scoring charts alight with 18 goals in 19 appearances this season. When CNN asked last week if Osimhen was the best striker in the world it did not seem like a daft question to pose, even in the age of Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. There may be no greater indication of his quality than that. He can score off either foot, wins aerial duels and while link up play is hardly he is thing, he is more than capable of carrying the ball up the pitch and laying on a few assists.

If anyone matches him for form at the moment it is Kolo Muani, the youngster who was an Emiliano Martinez boot away from winning the World Cup for France. Since returning from Qatar, the Eintracht Frankfurt star has been on a tear, scoring seven in his last seven games. Oliver Glasner has shifted his 24 year old from a right wing berth to the center and been rewarded with outstanding performances.

These are two very different forwards who will test opponents in different ways, although their data does come with the caveat that one has logged a lot of minutes in wide areas. Perhaps, though, it is worth noting that it is only the Eintracht Frankfurt forward who you would consider putting in those positions. Even since moving infield, Kolo Muani tends to hit around 35-40 touches per game and hit a couple of progressive passes. Osimhen is more of the 25-30 touches, feed-him-the-ball player. For Premier League viewers, it is a little like comparing Gabriel Jesus and Haaland. One likes to feel the ball at his feet and brings others into play, and the other is a pure scorer who does that job so well that anything else is really not desperately required.

Comparing Osimhen and Kolo Muani

Domestic league games only, all data via fbref

Who will emerge victorious? With two star strikers it may just be that the defenses decide who wins the day and in that regard, both in the Champions League group stages and league play, it is Napoli’s that looks a little more impressive. Frankfurt did not allow a particularly high volume of shots in their fairly manageable group stage before Christmas but gave up one of the competition’s highest non penalty expected goals (npxG) per shot. Napoli were somewhat ahead of them in that regard, but their defense has looked impressive in recent weeks, not giving up more than one xG in any of their last five Serie A games, no wonder when they keep the ball so well. They may ultimately be able to put enough pressure on the home team’s goal that it can be Osimhen that shines.

Inter vs. Porto: Goals at a premium in San Siro

Inter Milan’s steady march to a Champions League spot in Serie A has been built on one thing above all else since the World Cup: A miserly defense that has given up just 21 shots on target in eight games. That number that becomes all the more impressive when you consider that eight of those came in the one defeat in that run, away to Empoli. Four of those games have seen the Inter back line register clean sheets, as they did in cup wins over Atalanta and AC Milan. The xG of their opponents across league matches is 6.1 and precious little of that is from the sort of deep red, high value shots that you can see on occasion below.

It is a little harder to translate Porto’s domestic form to the Champions League stage, but this is a team that has conceded just 12 goals in the Portuguese league and has allowed shots worth 5.5 xG in eight games since the World Cup. Anyway this is Porto; when they hear that familiar anthem at the start of the year they start matches with their backs to the wall, steadily dropping deeper into the bunker like a Homer Simpson GIF. So long as Pepe, who will be 40 by the second leg, is involved you can take it for granted that this will be a grit and grind affair, decided by the finest of margins.

RB Leipzig vs. Man City: Guardiola changes his left back

Surely, the Bernardo Silva experiment can only last so much longer? With Joao Cancelo cast out, Pep Guardiola had to redeploy someone at left back, but the Portuguese playmaker just is not the answer. His manager might point to Fabian Delph and Oleksandr Zinchenko as examples of players who moved from midfield to the flanks, but there is one riposte to that which Bernardo himself offered after his trying time in victory over Arsenal: “When you play those positions you have to have a defender’s mentality.” To at least some degree, Delph and Zinchenko do. Bernardo does not.

Against Nottingham Forest you saw why that might not be an issue. City had 73 percent possession and had tilted the field like a pinball machine. Bernardo was free to roam wherever he wished, exploiting the gravitational force of Erling Haaland in the penalty area to lash home City’s goal. As his heat map shows below, this was not like the Arsenal game where the opposition had so much of the ball that the 28 year old had to play as a true left back. On this occasion he was a midfielder most of the time.

But football is a low scoring sport — at least when Haaland is off form as he was on Saturday — and it only takes one mistake to change a game. Bernardo delivered that in the 84th minute at the City Ground, hurtling out of position and into no man’s land when Morgan Gibbs-White found space around the halfway line. A more experienced defender might have known that the real threat would come from abandoning his position, allowing Brennan Johnson to drag the rest of the City defense across.

Chris Wood sneaks in at the back post and suddenly City have frittered away two-thirds of the advantage they earned in the title race. What is curious is that there is a ready made solution in the squad in Nathan Ake, not a player who is going to add as much in possession but who, on the basis of their wins over Arsenal, gives them a stability at the back that allows them to press with greater aggression. Will Guardiola, a great coach but one who has shown a tendency towards bloody mindedness, blink? One suspects that the threat posed by the likes of Dominik Szoboszlai might mean he does.