UEFA Champions League, Where No Lead is Safe

The UEFA Champions League is holding the 2nd leg of the quarterfinals of their international tournament today and tomorrow and I must say that while the tournament has already lived up to it's great reputation, what I just witnessed was absolutely fantastic.

The great advantage about major soccer tournaments between club teams, especially in international tournaments like this one, is the variety and beauty of places that a team has to play. You see whenever a tournament final gets through the group stage and is cut down to the final sixteen teams, they are ranked and placed on a bracket where they must play through like any other sports tournament.

The beauty is though that in soccer they play games based on a 2-leg system with teams advancing to the next round on aggregate. In other words the team has to play a home-and-home against their opponent and score more goals across the two games in order to get to the next round.

Bayern's Thiago celebrates after scoring the opening goal during the soccer Champions League quarterfinal second leg match between Bayern Munich and FC Porto at the Allianz Arena in Munich, southern Germany, Tuesday, April 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

That means that even if you squeak by at your home stadium you still have to go on the road and play the team on their home turf and then make sure you keep the lead on aggregate. Thats right everyone, that means that even if you won, you can still lose. And if you lose, you can still win.

Confused yet? Let me give you a real life example to help make things clearer.

Bayern's Robert Lewandowski, center, scores his side's 3rd goal during the soccer Champions League quarterfinal second leg match between Bayern Munich and FC Porto at the Allianz Arena in Munich, southern Germany, Tuesday, April 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Today was the second leg in the series between Porto FC, a team from the Portuguese Primeira Liga, and FC Bayern Munich, a team from the German Bundesliga. In the first leg Porto had held it's own ground and ended up winning the game 3-1 at home. Therefore today during the second leg Bayern Munich would have to not only win on their home field, but win by more than two goals in order to advance.

Let me give you a basic recap of what Bayern ended up doing in today's match.

Bayern ended up winning 6-1 moving on to the semi-finals and it was not even close. And that is the great part about this tournament and others like it. No matter how good you play in one game, it takes consistent excellence to win at this level, and Porto just learned that the hard way.