Monday, February 13, 2023 – 7:38 PM
From / Ahmed Zahran ..
ABU DHABI, 13 February / WAM / After 15 weeks of hiatus, the UEFA Champions League will resume its activities tomorrow, Tuesday, with two equal matches in the first leg of the round of 16; Where French Paris Saint-Germain meets Bayern Munich, and Tottenham, England, is a guest of Milan, Italy.
The match scheduled for the “Parc de Princes” or “Princes’ Park” stadium in the French capital, Paris, is of great interest, as it brings together two teams, which had strong nominations to win the title before the start of the tournament this season.
Saint-Germain and Bayern lead the domestic league table in their country, but the last period witnessed different circumstances for each of them in their domestic career, which doubled the volume of excitement expected before the upcoming confrontation between them over the qualification card for the European quarter-finals.
While Saint-Germain maintained its lead in the French League, by 5 points against second-placed Marseille, the team suffered more than one defeat since the resumption of the current season’s activities last January after a pause due to the World Cup.
The last of these defeats was against Monaco in the league yesterday, Saturday, and the team exited a few days before that from the French Cup round of 16, defeating Marseille.
And after the two matches against Marseille and Monaco were scheduled to become a good test for the team for moral, physical and technical preparation before facing Bayern, the team received two successive shocks before facing the German champion.
And the magnitude of the shock was compounded by the fact that the team did not perform the expected performance against the two teams, especially with the absence of its dangerous striker Kylian Mbappe due to injury, and his Argentine colleague Lionel Messi missed the team match against Monaco, and Neymar failed to compensate for the absence of his two colleagues.
Despite this, Saint-Germain received a good morale boost today with the return of Messi and Mbappe together to the team’s training, but their participation in tomorrow’s match seems to depend on the final position of their recovery process on the one hand and the vision of the technical staff on the other hand.
On the other hand, the resumption of the football season in Germany, after a long hiatus due to the 2022 World Cup and the winter break, was controversial for Bayern Munich, as the team tied in 3 consecutive matches in the German League, with one result.
These draws narrowed the difference with Union Berlin, second in the competition table, to one point and with Borussia Dortmund to 3 points, after Union Berlin and Dortmund achieved 5 consecutive victories against Bayern’s victory in the last two matches they played in the competition during the next few days.
Bayern regained its balance in time before facing Saint-Germain, but it still lacks very important elements in its ranks before the upcoming confrontation tomorrow, which represents a challenge between the ambition of Saint-Germain, who had not won the Champions League title before, and the experience of Bayern, who won the title 6 previous times. .
The absent elements from Bayern in this match are Senegalese striker Sadio Mane, veteran goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, and defenders Naseer Mazraoui and Lucas Hernandez.
Mazraoui and Hernandez represent two very important elements, but the team succeeded in making up for their absence by signing Joao Cancelo on loan from Manchester City before the winter transfer window closed last January.
Tomorrow’s match represents an important test for both teams at this difficult time of the season.
In the other match tomorrow, Milan and its guest Tottenham are looking forward to a strong new start in European competition after a lackluster season at the level of local championships.
Milan was crowned the Italian League title last season, but in the current season it has become a ghost of what it was when it won the title, as the team presented a very modest season, and the difference separating it from leaders Napoli in the Italian League widened to 18 points after 22 matches each.
The team also bid farewell to the Italian Cup early and lost to its neighbor and traditional rival Inter Milan by three in the Italian Super Cup, and its coach, Stefano Pioli, admitted that his team must focus strongly in the Champions League after the dream of defending the title in the Italian League was lost.
On the other hand, Tottenham moved significantly away from the competition for the English Premier League title, although the team is still competing in the FA Cup competition.
Like Milan, Tottenham seeks to reach the farthest possible point in the Champions League in order to achieve any gains this season.
Reda Abdel Nour / Ahmed Zahran