Great Success...Not So Much For Europe's Big Boys

Eh?!

Barcelona 1 Rubin Kazan 2

Liverpool 1 Lyon 2

Rangers 1 Unirea Urziceni 4

What's going on with the world?!

It is quite simply the beauty of the modern game.

The first result clearly shows how far Eastern European football has come on over the past few years with CSKA Moscow, Zenit St Petersburg and more recently Shakhtar Donetsk winning the then UEFA Cup in recent years.

Next we have Liverpool who have proved to be in turmoil at the moment. It's sad to see their total reliance on Gerrard and Torres as Man Utd did last year with Ronaldo but the absence of Alonso has also proved decisive and with Aquilani yet to appear this could be a very tough European campaign for the Reds.

Memories of United's failure to make it through the group stage in 2005 spring to mind.

And Rangers' loss just sums up Scottish football (for me anyway). I watched Rangers play Arsenal in pre-season and despite the apparent lack of match fitness that everyone places blame on if they lose, Rangers' first team were torn apart by 17 year-old Jack Wilshere. This was an Arsenal reserve team (if one exists nowadays).

It is the turn of Chelsea and Man Utd tonight to see if they can beat Atletico Madrid and CSKA Moscow respectively.

My predictions:

Chelsea 2 Atletico 0

CSKA 1 Man Utd 1

And the radio show? It went down a treat considering I'd never seen a desk or any of the software before so despite some pre-show panic myself and my co-host came through nicely. This Sunday's show should be ace now I've learnt from the mistakes of last week.

Remember, www.frequencyradio.co.uk, Sunday - 8pm.