UEFA Champions League Draw 2012: The Best Draw For The Continuation Of APOEL’s Cinderella Story

With their penalty shootout victory against Olympique Lyonnais, APOEL Nicosia became the first team from Cyprus to progress to the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League. Considering that they needed to win three playoff rounds to get into the group stages, then get through a group with Shakhtar Donetsk, Zenit St. Petersburg and FC Porto, then defeat Lyon, this can’t be called luck. APOEL are a really good team, and it’s one of the coolest things going on in football right now.

Basically, everyone who isn’t Greek or a fan of whatever team they draw probably wants to see the Cypriots progress. Some people just want to see good football matches. Here are the best three draws for APOEL, depending on what you want to see.

APOEL were favorites to finish bottom of their group, but no one totally wrote them off. Against Barcelona, they will be completely written off, and for good reason. I’m no Madridista, but I want to see APOEL take down the Cules. It would be the coolest thing in the history of ever.

For about 130 minutes, Bayern Munich struggled against FC Basel, a well-organized, counter-attacking team with a fairly rigid tactical setup. APOEL and Basel aren’t exactly the same and the Cypriots don’t have anyone as good as Xherdan Shaqiri, but we’ve already seen that a team like this can frustrate Bayern, and it would make for good viewing. Basel only got crushed because they lost their fight once Thomas Müller’s goal went in. They were a good matchup for Bayern, and APOEL will be as well.

Marseille needed a stoppage time goal by a striker they loaned out to Brazil last year to beat an Inter Milan team that are in the toilet. They play a formation and style of football that is similar to Lyon, and they’re not in terrific form. Independent of all this, they’re probably the least talented team left in the competition not called APOEL Nicosia. A draw against OM gives APOEL their best chance to progress, by far.