The Battle at the Dragon's Home

Today's blog will provide a brief preview on the upcoming Champion's League encounter between The Gunners (English Premier League) and FC Porto(Portuguese Liga). This match is played at the round of 16 level in the Champions League. On paper the Portuguese team looks stronger with all the advantage in this leg. They play at Estádio do Dragão (The Dragon Stadium with a capacity of around 50000) present at Porto which provides the hosts with vociferous support during crunch games.

The main players in Porto's line up who might pose problems to The Gunners are

1. Fernando Belluschi - A wiry Argentinian attacking midfielder who can also act as a  winger. His pace will be a major problem for our fullbacks and we need to mark him carefully.
2.  Freddy Guarín - A versatile Colombian footballer, comfortable in the center or right side of midfield and is very highly rated in Colombia. He can cause us problem with his pace and versatility.
3. Radamel Falcao - Falcao is a dynamic striker noted for his ability to finish with both feet, a strong burst of pace, and his intensity of play.He is given the nickname "El Tigre"(The Tiger).
4. Hulk - Yes it is a nickname but a really apt one. This striker is known for his speed, acceleration, stocky build and a powerful shot. He is very dangerous and can pose problems to our shaky defense.
5. Bruno Alves - A 6ft 3" defender who has the strength,positioning, build,anticipation(in short all characteristics of a model defender) who will trouble Arsenal's make shift front-line.
   

Coming to the Gunners, we are really hurt by an avalanche of injuries to our key performers. Arshavin (The Owl), Alexander Song(Song), William Gallas(Billy), Eduardo(Dudu) and Manuel Alumunia(Manu) have not flown to Portugal. Denilson in for Song and Theo in for Eduardo are definitely weak replacements on current form. Sol might be the only replacement which looks a little reassuring and don't even get me started on Theo for Dudu. We need Cesc to lead the team mentally and others need to put in an extra shift to get a good result at the Dragon-dome. We have what it takes to get a result but Porto are massively underrated in this competition and can really provide a shock if we don't perform well.

A scoring draw will be a really decent result in this leg. A 2-1 loss is also not the end of the world in lieu of the away goals rule. 

The match will be telecast in India via Ten Sports/Zee Sports. Irrespective of the result the sheer joy of watching the best teams in Europe battling out is a joy alone in its own right.

My take a 1-1 draw.