“Top of the League” Update: Peril for England, Success for Europe in the Champions League

With exactly 50 entrants in our “Top of the League Tourney” prediction contest, the competition for the Grand Prize (A World Cup Jersey, courtesy of SoccerPro) is truly intense. Thanks to everyone who took a minute and participated. The predictions are in, and now we just have to wait and see what will happen!

Most of you guys picked hot favourites Chelsea to win the Premier League, although there was decent representation by Manchester United and Arsenal hopefuls. As for La Liga predictions, well that was split right down the middle between Real Madrid and Barcelona. A lot of you predicted that Real will clinch La Liga, but Barcelona will go on to win the Champions League. Although two brave souls predicted AC Milan to clinch the Serie A Scudetto, and fifteen of you thought Roma will be the champions of Italia, the common pick was that Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan will again be victorious.

But things got interesting as we progressed to the tie-breaker, Champions League predictions. Eleven of you put faith in England as six people picked United to win it all and five people predicted that Arsenal would defeat Barcelona and go on to win their first Champions League trophy. Obviously neither of those two events occurred. The overwhelming majority put faith in Pep Guardiola’s brilliant Barcelona two win a second successive Champions League trophy, although six of you predicted that Jose Mourinho will bring Europe’s crown jewel back to Milan. Two predictions have Lyon winning it all, and another two have Bayern Munich winning it all. So for once we have four countries represented in the Champions League semifinals, and England is not one of them. Will Barça repeat or will Inter, Lyon, or Bayern take down the hefty favourites?