Serie A and La Liga notes

I don't have one specific topic to discuss, but I wanted to document what I've garnered from the past week of football.

I'll first go over the Champions League, in terms of how the teams in said leagues are doing as the final matchday approaches. 11 teams are into the round of 16 already, with the following still in the mix. Atalanta and Villarreal fight for a spot, as do Barcelona and Benfica. One of Atleti, Milan, Porto will go through as a second place team. Finally, two of Sevilla, Salzburg, Wolfsburg and Lille will advance. Basically, most of these teams will simply advance with a win. For Barcelona, they have to win or rely on Benfica not winning. Atalanta have to win, while Villarreal can draw. Atleti advance with a win and Milan not winning (unless the Spanish side hold the H2H tiebreaker, since they won 2-1 in Milan while Milan won 1-0 in Madrid...), while Milan advance with a win and Porto not winning. Sevilla can technically finish anywhere from 1st to 4th, and obviously they have to win to advance. Inter, Juventus, and Madrid have already advanced, just to mention them in passing.

My prediction, as futile as it may be, is that Barcelona WILL NOT beat Bayern. That means if Benfica don't crap themselves they'll advance with a win at home against Kiev. My hope is Atalanta will win and keep it going, but realistically I think they screwed themselves by throwing away leads against United and letting a poor Young Boys side score 3 times. Villarreal are incredibly wasteful and frankly not that good, but they only need to a draw. The Sevilla group is a bit mad. Salzburg have the tools to destroy them on the break, plus it's in Austria, but Sevilla have the better personnel. Lille have the H2H over Sevilla, so a point will see them finish top (if Sevilla win). Finally, we have the three-way in the Liverpool group. I think it'll come down to what mindset Liverpool have. They have no reason other than pride to win, and it would be funny to throw the game to spite Atleti, since nobody likes them. Milan could easily win, but Liverpool have by far the better XI, if they do play (at least some of) the starters. Honestly, I can see two draws. Porto are ahead of the other two by a point, so it's on Atleti to bring it at the Dragão. I just don't see it. Atleti are so poor defensively compared to the Luis-Godin-Josema-Juanfran days. Even Oblak looks mediocre this season. The attack is hit or miss as well. They're 5th in xG in the league, but 2nd in actual goals with 26.

In terms of the leagues, I'll start with La Liga since there's only really one game week to cover. Madrid are starting to separate at the top, which isn't much of a surprise to me. The difference between this season and last is Zidane was stricter and Carlo is letting them play, at the expense of defensive solidity. It's what IMO Simeone has never mastered; aside from maybe the first half of last season it's always been about suffering. Madrid's squad is better than everyone other than maybe Atleti, so why not go heads up when winning gets you 3 points and a draw is only 1? I just watched them get outplayed in the second half by Athletic, but guess what? Courtois is the best in the league, and Benzema + Vini is the best duo right now in the league. That's not even mentioning the quality in midfield and a couple top class defenders they have. They'll easily win the league at this rate. I'm curious to see how they'll do against the four CL contenders if the happen to draw them. Outside of that, the league's still quite interesting because the teams are all flawed. Getafe are nearly out of the relegation zone, while Levante are still within reach despite being winless. I'd say the "surprise" teams of the season are Rayo in a good way and Villarreal in a bad one, for obvious reasons when looking at the table.

Over to Italy now. I'm pleasantly surprised as to what's happened of late. Juve continue to struggle, which is great. Milan and Napoli have both dropped points in two of the last three league games, meaning Inter are just 2 points off top (Atalanta are 5). Sassuolo took care of two of those four results, beating Milan at the weekend and nearly beating Napoli today after coming back from 2-0. Neither result was a fluke, either, as xG would indicate (and watching them, lol). Atalanta finally beat Juve in Turin for the first time this century in a pivotal game, 1-0 the scoreline, and then swept Venezia aside 4-0. Thanks to Roma's loss to Bologna earlier, there's a 6 point gap between 4th and 5th. Likewise, we're seeing a bit of separation between the lower mid table and relegation spots, although it's still super early. Going with the same formula as La Liga, I'll do a couple teams I can see sliding and a couple more that could rise. Funnily enough, both of the Turin sides could easily be doing much better than they are. Juric is slowly doing his thing and getting guys back from injury, so you'd expect results to improve. Likewise, at some point Allegri will either get sacked again or have to modernize his "style". As in, laying of the catenaccio BS when you have one of the top two or three squads in the league. On the other hand, Empoli is the obvious pick to struggle, as their underlying numbers are quite bad. Another weird one in terms of numbers is Lazio, as they appear to be a midtable side, though they're a win from a European spot. Sarri, like Allegri, doesn't seem to have IT anymore, and that team isn't equipped to play whatever brand of football he's supposed to be known for. Milan also have poor underlying numbers, though I can kinda excuse that with the keeper going down and the constant injury crisis over the past year.

To reiterate my thoughts on the Champions League, they're similar for both of these competitions. Money isn't there, and talent is being poached, so obviously the top teams aren't at the level of Bayern or the PL three. I'd even lump Ajax in with PSG and whoever decides to make a run from Italy and Spain as the clear "second tier" of teams. Madrid is obviously the most likely from Spain, due to current level and history, while I guess it's a toss-up between Inter and Juve, depending on who they're drawn with of course. I'm also curious to see what happens with next summer, regarding whether there's a resurgence in the market or if the top PL teams keep grabbing everyone.