Soccer Free Picks

Manchester United heads into their Champions League round-of-16 showdown with French club Marseille as the English Premier League leaders. And although they haven’t been playing exceptionally well this season United has only lost one game. They’ll make the short trip over the English Channel to meet Marseille at the Stade Velodrome.

Marseille should be pretty confident facing another English team as they took three points against Chelsea with a 1-0 win during the group stage. Marseille had to settle for second place in Group F behind Chelsea though as they ended the stage with 12 points to the Londoner’s 15. Marseille proved they were for real though as they also thumped Zilina 7-0 away.

The Champions League round- of-16 matchup between Italy’s Inter Milan and Germany’s Bayern Munich is a rematch of last year’s Cup Final which Milan took with relative ease. They’ll also have the edge in the first leg of this tie as the game’s set for San Siro Stadium in Milan on Feb. 23rd.

But the biggest advantage the Italian club has is the fact it got rid of former manager Rafael Benitez a couple of months ago. With Benitez still in charge I’d have to say Inter would be going into this game as underdogs. The club seems to have lost some of its sparkle ever since Jose Mourinho walked away as manager during the summer after leading them to a treble of the Italian League and Cup and the Champions League last season.

Manager Jose Mourinho will march into France on Feb. 22nd with his Real Madrid team to take on Lyon in the round of 16 in the Champions League at the Stade Gerland. Mourinho and his squad might be a little nervous as Lyon has a habit of knocking the Spaniards out of the competition, like they did last year. It’s not likely the French side will be able to do it again, but you never know.

Lyon will have confidence on their side though from their past encounters and this could go a long way during the two-legged tie. Madrid will be favoured though as they’re still one of the top teams in the world and the second best in Spain at the moment. Since Mourinho took over at the start of the season the club has shown it can defend better than in the past. However, you need to score goals to win games and they’ll be hoping Cristiano Ronaldo can lead the way in that department.

Chelsea heads over to Denmark in pretty poor form as they’re set to take on FC Copenhagen in the European Champions League final 16 in home and away leg. The game kicks off at Parken Stadium on Feb. 22nd just three days after Chelsea blew a 1-0 lead to Everton in the last minute of their FA Cup tie and ended up losing 4-3 on penalties. All in all it’s been a pretty dismal season for the reigning English Premier League champions and they’ve slipped down to fifth place in the EPL.

On the other hand, FC Copenhagen might be a little rusty as the Danish league is off on its winter break and doesn’t start up again until next month. At least they won’t be tired from a heavy fixture list as they’ve only been playing the odd friendly here and there. Chelsea might want to take advantage of Copenhagen’s break and put it to them right from the opening kickoff.