The gods conspire against me. I've been waiting for months to watch Barca-Chelsea, and it turns out (a) I had to travel to Michigan from Wednesday to Friday and (b) the UEFA.com streaming version of the match was plagued with technical difficulties that so far have prevented me from watching. Hey UEFA -- it's 2006, not 1996. Whatsay you deploy some decent streams for your loyal customers?

In any event, I haven't seen Chelsea's win, nor any of the Oct 17-18 matches. I'm going to try UEFA.com again tomorrow to see if it will give me a watchable version of Barca-Chelsea (as well as Arsenal's Russian loss).

A college buddy of FF says I didn't miss much: "For all the star power, a total let-down. I was impressed with Essien, Drogba (fantastic goal), and Messi. Totally absent: Lampard, Shevchenko, Ronaldinho." Not surprised at all with that take. That's been true almost all season. I'll post my thoughts tomorrow, I hope.

Liverpool v. Man U on Sunday...

FF