Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is an annual holiday celebrated on February 14. Is it really an holiday? That's a debate for another day
For football lovers, February14th is also about love, it's about the return of the most prestigious club football competition that they genuinely love, THE UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE.
The competition started last year with 32 teams, Real Madrid are the Defending Champions, 31 other teams were looking to dethrone Real Madrid, out of the 32 teams, 16 are out of the competition and now the Champions league has reached the knock out stage, the battle is for the fierce, for the strong, for the teams that are mentally prepared.
The round of 16 Fixtures starts with Benfica vs Borussia Dortmund
And PSG vs Barcelona.
Stat alert: Edinson Cavani has been outscoring Barça's feted MSN of late, scoring 14 in his last 12 outings.
Barcelona have lost just one of their last 22 matches in all competitions they will be formidable. Paris are doing okay as well, with ten wins, a draw and 34 goals in their last 11 outings.
It's a clash of the titans
Benfica vs Dortmund Stat alert:
This is the only one of this week's games featuring two former European champions
in 20 previous home meetings with German opposition, Benfica have lost only twice
Dortmund broke the record for goals in a group stage with a free-scoring 21 as they topped a section including holders Real Madrid. That makes them favourites against a Benfica side that limped through with the fewest points (eight) of the 16 teams that survived the group phase.
My predictions: Benfica 1 Borussia Dortmund 2
PSG 1 Barcelona 2
UCL 2016/2017 KEY STATS:
TOP SCORERS:
LIONEL Messi- 10 goals
Edison Cavani- 6 goals
Robert Lewandowski- 5 goals
Most assists:
Neymar- 7
Ousmane Dembele- 4
Eduardo Salvio- 4
C.Ronaldo- 4
While a few romantic couples would be busy in the evening with their red attires and red wines and long walks, over 1 billion football lovers worldwide would be busy checking their teams starting line ups, stats that favours their teams, some would be glued to their television sets, and thousands will throng the stadium to watch the matches, love is in the air, football we love, Champions league we love, watching the UEFA Champions league is my Valentine.
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