Reuters Soccer Blog

UPDATE – Christmas has come early: Midweek prediction special

Thursday Update: I have very little to shout about personally after my confident predictions of Liverpool scoring nine and Chelsea 10 proved to be a little wide of the mark.

Still, looking on the bright side, I still got a couple of points for those 2-1 wins and the way I’ve been plummeting lately I’ll take what I can get.

Just a brief update today as we’ll be back with more tomorrow morning. Phew. Breathless pace these days in the Premier League, what?

How about a winter break?

In the mean time, I’ve updated the table:

Reuters Soccer blog panel: Patrick Johnston 169, Paul Radford 146, Mitch Phillips 143, Neil Maidment 124, Simon Evans 114, Mike Collett 117, Mark Meadows 117, Kevin Fylan 113, Julien Pretot 112, Miles Evans 99, Martyn Herman 91, Asia Sports Desk 90, Sonia Oxley 46, Justin Palmer 41,

A Champions League final with no fear of failure… It could be a classic

Major finals featuring the best teams and the best players, the ones we talk up in advance as being for the connoisseur, often turn out to be the most disappointing, don’t they? Maybe it’s stage fright, too much respect for the opposition or the stakes being just too high, but great teams often seem to save their worst football for finals.

There are exceptions, of course. The 2005 Champions League final between AC Milan and Liverpool produced exquisite football in the first half from the Italians, and drama that will live long in the minds of anyone who watched it as Liverpool came back.

But when you look back on other Champions League and World Cup finals, how many can you remember for the quality of the football more than the result itself?

There was little on show in last year’s game between Manchester United and Chelsea so why are so many people expecting this year’s contest between United and Barcelona to be so different?

I think there is a reason, and I hope I’m proved right by the events on Wednesday in Rome.

A football match can be ruined by almost anything but the surest route to a damp squib is fear of failure.

Neither side on Wednesday has any need to fear the consequences of a defeat. They’re both at the top of the tree domestically, and both have had recent experience of winning the Champions League. It goes without saying they’ll be desperate to win, but no one’s job will be on the line, no project will stand or fall by this one result. Both teams will expect to be back in another Champions League final soon enough.