The play-in games start tomorrow in both the NCAA tournament and our world club tournament - our 68-team homage to college basketball’s annual extravaganza. True, only one of those tournaments is real, but we plan to have fun with each of them.
Soccer Bracketology: Picking The Games, Asia Region Edition
Earlier today, we went through three of the regionals: Europe, North America, and South America. The final quadrant sees the No. 2 overall seed, Manchester United try to come out of the Asia section to book a place at Wembley.
With the regional scheduled to take place in Yokohama, here is our outlook on the region, with the winner slated to take on Real Madrid in London.
“First Four” Round
Let’s just get through these. Looking at these matches, we might of taken this exercise a little bit too far.
Pachuca over Al-Hilal. Winner gets Manchester United. Let’s go with Pachuca’s CONCACAF pedigree and skill on the ball. More than anything, let’s move on.
Hapoel Tel Aviv over Fulham. Neither of these teams should be here. Somehow, they both ridiculously got at-large bids. If ties were allowed, we'd pick Fulham, but they're not. Hapoel and let's get to things we care about.
First Round
No. 1 Manchester United over No. 16 Pachuca. I could see Manchester United looking beatable for anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. That’s just how United rolls.
No. 12 Dynamo Kiev over No. 5 PSV Eindhoven. Dynamo showed their metal last week against Manchester City. This will be a close match, but one were PSV will be undone by a club that’s better than a No. 12.
No. 4 Milan over No. 13 Hapoel Tel Aviv. Again, Hapoel should not be in this tournament.
No. 6 Bayer Leverkusen over No. 11 Celtic. If you look at their roster, Bayer has the quality of a lower seed. If you look at their results, they seem vulnerable to an upset. We’re picking them to go through.
No. 3 Lyon over No. 11 Cruz Azul. Of all the first round matches in this region, this one in Buenos Aires is the one we’d like to see most. Could Cruz Azul, a Mexican team, possibly have the home crowd’s support?
No. 7 Liverpool over No. 10 Bursaspor. A year of Liverpool's results makes them a seven. They're better than that.
No. 2 Porto over No. 15 TP Mazembe. This will be much closer than a No. 2 versus No. 15 portends. If Mazembe won, I wouldn’t be shocked. Too bad the match isn’t real.
Second Round
No. 1 Manchester United over No. 9 Sevilla. Sevilla’s talent makes them apt to steal matches from clubs that overlook them as underachievers. United don’t be one of those clubs. The Red Devils win this handily.
No. 4 Milan over No. 12 Dynamo Kiev. As much as I want to pick Dynamo, this could end up being a favorable atmosphere for Milan. Regardless, this one would be close.
No. 3 Lyon over No. 6 Bayer Leverkusen. A toss-up, but Lyon has a team that’s battle tested in UEFA Champions League, having shown themselves capable of getting results (against Real Madrid and Bordeaux, last year).
No. 7 Liverpool over No. 2 Porto. Another close match, but Liverpool has been rising to their toughest challenges of late. Incredibly unfortunate for Porto that they get a club of No. 4 quality as their Round of 32 opponent.
Regional Semifinal
No. 1 Manchester United over No. 4 Milan. We’ve seen this recently. Milan hasn’t closed the gap.
No. 3 Lyon over No. 7 Liverpool. The Reds get caught looking ahead to a match-up with United and get beat by attackers who can take-on their strong defenders in one-on-one match-ups. Lisandro López is due for a big goal.
Regional Final
No. 1 Manchester United over No. 3 Lyon. Because one of these teams is amongst the top two or three in the world with the versatility to deploy a team that can match-up against any opponent. And the other is Lyon.
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