Of the top eight rated teams at the start of the season, just Barcelona (3rd) and Everton (8th) failed to make it to the Quarter Finals as expected. Barcelona lost 1-0 at pre-season tournament favourites Real Madrid in the previous round, while Everton also went out in the third round, 3-2 at new favourites Benfica. Leverkusen (originally rated the 11th best team) and Anderlecht (9th) were the beneficiaries of Barca and Everton’s failures.
Before we get into the events of last night’s Quarter Finals, let’s quickly review how we got here with the results of the knockout rounds 2 and 3 since the group stages were decided.
2nd Round (first knockout round)
Matches played on Saturday 18 November (note: Group winners all got byes into the 3rd round).
* AFET (After Fictional Extra Time)
Of the 2nd round matches, all went to form except for the games at Monchengladbach and Hamburg, while Monaco and Sevilla produced one of the matches of the tournament:
Sevilla went 2 -0 up after 16 minutes before Monaco pulled three goals back to lead 3 -2 after 52 minutes. Sevilla led 4 – 3 after 77 minutes, but their lead lasted less than a minute as Monaco equalised from the restart. The match went to Fictional Extra Time, where the French team’s domination of regular play was rewarded with two more goals, to Sevilla’s one.
3rd Round (second knockout round)
Matches played on Saturday 25 November (Note: all Group winners were reward with home ties).
*AFET
The third round matches saw the return of the big hitters, and they all came through successfully, in the end, although only Leverkusen managed to win by more than the odd goal….
Beddows’ team crashed out of his own tournament and hasn’t been seen at Youth Cup HQ since.
Anderlecht squeezed past Monchengladbach, who were rated 32nd best team at the start of the tournament – a great achievement for Attila Olah and his men.
And a much depleted Real Madrid side dumped disappointing Barcelona out of the competition.
Quarter Finals
Matches played on Saturday 2 December (Note: random draw, one leg only).
*AFET
4th seeded Bayern overcame 5th seeded Valencia slightly more comfortably than the 3-2 scoreline suggests, their overall improvement as the season has progressed proving decisive.
The Real Madrid – Manchester United mind games began even before the draw fro the Quarter Finals, with Madrid boss Roy Keane going off on another of his ill-informed rants:
United boss Greg Owen responded immediately upon hearing that his team were to play Madrid for the 15th time in four days:
Madrid responded by swooping in the transfer market for two of Anderlecht’s highly successful youth team, and it was Alain Saint-Maximin who made the difference with a Man of the Match performance against all the odds.
Previous Youth Cup winners Leverkusen and Juventus produced a five goal thriller, but Juve probably deserved to come out on top, on the balance of play, although Juve may be looking to improve their options in goal before the semi-final.
Finally, Anderlecht’s run came to a halt at home to a frighteningly strong looking Benfica side. The Belgian team’s youngsters pushed their Portuguese counterparts all the way, only to be overrun in FET, conceding three.
Semi Final Draw
The random draw for the two-legged semi-finals will take place at 9pm GMT on Sunday 3 December (tonight).
Ball numbers:
1. Bayern Munich
2. Real Madrid
3. Juventus
4. Benfica
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