Champions League: Group Stage Awards

In response to: Roma, Arsenal, Shakhtar progress in Champions (The Canadian Press)

Today concluded the end of the group stage in the Champions League. WIth the results all in, here are some team/individual awards I'd like to give out:

Most Impressive Team:

Real Madrid - 5 wins, only 1 draw, 15 goals for, only 2 against. The numbers speak for themselves - especially with top clubs like AC Milan and Ajax in their group.

Runner up:

Barcelona

Most Disappointing Team:

Werder Bremen - Utterly disappointing results here for the German side. With the likes of Claudio Pizarro and Marko Marin - who will be the next big thing in German football - they only managed to put up a pathetic 6 goals in 6 matches.

Runner up:

Panathinaikos

Most Surprising Team:

FC København - The Danish side shocked everyone by outplaying group counterparts Panathinaikos and Rubin Kazan. I'm not so sure they'll fair well in the knockout stage but an underdog to cheer for nevertheless.

Runner up:

Valencia

Best Forward:

Samuel Eto'o - No real surprise here. Eto'o was an integral cog in Inter's Championship run last year and he continues to put the ball in the back of the net; leading all of the Champions League in goals with 7.

Runner up:

Lionel Messi

Best Midfielder:

Cristiano Ronaldo - As much we love to hate him, the Portuguese star was integral in Real's near perfect results. He has shown maturity in his game and is steadily becoming more and more comfortable with his new midfield mates - Uzil and Khedira.

Runner up:

Andres Iniesta

Best Defender:

Nemanja Vidic - Considered by many to be the player of the year in the EPL last year, Vidic was yet again an imposing figure for the Red Devils making Edwin Van de Saar's life very easy.

Runner up:

Lucio

Best Goalkeeper:

Iker Casillas - The world's top goalkeeper continued his fantastic play by backstopping the Galacticos to the best record in the group stage.

Runner up:

Lukasz Fabianski

Most Surprising Player:

Mario Gomez - "Super Mario" seems to have his rekindled his scoring touch from a few seasons ago and, for Bayern fans, it couldn't have come at a better time.

Runner up:

Roberto Soldado

Blog – 1 year, 5 months ago by mattzilla to Soccer. 833 views, 2 likes, 2 comments.