The first half of our UEFA Champions League (UCL) Fantasy game for Matchday four has more than enough to recap – an evening littered with penalties. As far as our Watchlist goes, we find ourselves happy with those starting and disappointed to find a couple of benchwarmers…
Ailton
The 4.1 striker lived up to his Watchlist billing as he started the FC APOEL ball rolling in another stunning Matchday performance. With just 2 group games left, the Cypriot champions remain on top of Group G thanks to a 2-1 victory over FC Porto in a fixture bursting with flavour until the very last kick. Our cheap striker opened the scoring, converting a first half penalty he himself earned (another handy one point) but the hosts looked to have their hopes quashed when Hulk scored a spot-kick for Porto in the 89th minute. Gustavo Manduca sent the stadium into raptures with a last gasp winner.
Expect to see Michel Platini’s face plastered all over town from hence forth.
Wojciech Szczesny
Arsenal failed to secure automatic promotion with a goalless draw at home to Marseille but Szczesny done us proud with a clean sheet. The Gunners recorded their second clean sheet in a row but the game again saw Robin Van Persie benched until midway through the second half. The Dutchman drew a rare blank, much to the frustration of his Champions League Fantasy owners but his limited game time last night will have been reassuring for his Fantasy Premier League (FPL) owners ahead of this weekend’s game against West Brom.
David Luiz
Installed to the Chelsea starting lineup away to Genk with John Terry an unused substitute, Luiz hardly covered himself in glory yet again. Ramires gave the visitors the lead and Luiz could have made matters a little simpler when he stepped up to take a penalty but the Portuguese centre-half fluffed his lines, with a tame effort allowing Genk keeper Laszlo Koteles to save the spot-kick just before the break. The home side appeared re-invigorated after the interval and our Watchlist candidate Kevin De Bruyne passed up a real chance to level matters before Jelle Vossen grabbed Genk’s first goal of the campaign on the hour mark to square matters up at one apiece.
Leo Messi
Away against the ten men of Viktoria Plzen, Lionel Messi racked up another Barcelona record- the diminutive Argentinian notched his 200th goal in a Barca shirt with the first of his three goals coming from the spot. Much better men struggle to find new ways to describe this living embodiment of football so we’ll leave his hat-trick in the 4-0 victory to stand for itself.
Cesc Fabregas continued his recovery from injury with the other goal, while Eric Abidal did our Watchlist a favour by helping Barcelona to another clean sheet. The sight of summer signing Alexis Sanchez coming off the bench after recovering from a hamstring injury will also have been very pleasing to the Barca fans.
Nicolas Lombaerts
While APOEL, rightly so, steal all the headlines in their group with victory over Porto, the reigning Russian champions of Zenit St. Petersburg kept their knock-out stage hopes alive with a slender victory over their Ukrainian neighbours of Shakhtar Donetsk. Belgian defender Nicolas Lombaerts will be drinking for free in Russia last night as his header from a Konstantin Zyryanov corner helped him a good way towards chalking up an impressive Matchday tally of 14 points for his European Fantasy managers. My colleague Akers chief among them.
Roberto Soldado
Another striker earned his spurs for our Watchlist this week and placed himself in our good books. Our very good books. This absolutely sumptuous backheel to re-instate Valencia’s lead, in what turned out to eventually be 3-1 victory over Bayer Leverkusen, kept the home side in with a chance to qualify for the knockout stages.
It was Jonas who opened the scoring in the game, however, when Bernd Leno mishit a clearance in the first minute and he used the free ball to slot home into the corner. Stefan Kiessling headed in the equaliser for Leverkusen while Adil Rami also used his noggin to cap off the game and make it into double-figure point scoring for the Matchday.
Neven Subotic
After featuring amongst the Ones to Watch in our Scout Report on Borussia Dortmund the Serbian defender more than earned his crust with a magnificent 15 recovered balls (an extra 3 points to his tally) in his side’s one-nil victory over Olympiakos. Mario Gotze, another of our highlighted players, returned a 7 point haul after teeing up Kevin Grosskreutz to score the crucial thunderous goal that kept Dortmund in the race for the last sixteen.
Rennan Bressan
The AC Milan players could be somewhat forgiven for a lacklustre performance given recent worries about their colleague Antonio Cassano’s state of health. The runner up spot, barring a disaster, is the least the Rossoneri should expect from their Champions League group and a second half penalty from Bressan rescued a 1-1 draw for BATE Borisov after Zlatan Ibrahimovic netted for the third game running.
