Another great knock from Lionel Messi saves the day for Barcelona as they storm into the quarterfinals of the ongoing Champions League. Nou Camp saw an entertaining feat by Barcelona over AC Milan.

Once on the back foot from first leg itself, Messi was right at the center of target. Christian Abbiati did his best to save the home side from forceful pounce of Messi for majority of time. However, the superstar snatched out a moment to double Barca?s lead, just few minutes before it was going to be half time.

David Villa even stunned the spectators with a much needed third before the injury time for Jordi Alba helped to settle a tie.

AC Milan tried hard to push Barcelona?s attack and tactics, but failed to convert many chances that were going on their favor. Barcelona was on their way to recuperate their deficit within five minutes and prove their superiority on the field. An intricate pass by Xavi found Messi in the lead, whose unstoppable curls found a score for Barcelona through the top corner. Abbiati had no chance to defend that. It marked the 52nd goal for Lionel Messi.

The home side was practically cornered and Abbiati played a great role to save certain moments for Milan.

The visitors survived at innumerable phases of the match and thereby regained their momentum slowly. Their attack increased gradually and tactics played a great role to carve out favorable chances for themselves. Milan saw the aggressiveness of Barcelona and it was Messi again who came with a hard blow to score another crucial goal for his team. However, Pedro was penalized for a foul involving Ignazio Abate.

The second half saw Barcelona?s challenge just in line of the initial half. It was after fifty-five minutes that a pin-point pass by Xavi eluded Cristian Zapata?s sliding and finally found Villa who converted the chance into their favor.

In order to fuel their options to attack, Sulley Muntary and Robinho were introduced in places of Niang and Ambrosini.

The home side was saved from another catastrophe when Robinho was denied a simple chance through an intervention by Jordi Alba.

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While most armchair football fans are busy contemplating what round their team will reach in the various European competitions, few realise that the process in selecting a venue for various major finals is a long, drawn out one. Unsurprisingly, countries and stadium owners are desperate for their venues to receive the exposure of a major sporting event and this means that the choice always revolves around some of the best venues in the world.

Taking this into account, this article will focus on the biggest three European competitions that are set to be played this term. The Champions League, Europa League and Super Cup are some of the most prestigious competitions for Europe’s elite and bearing this in mind, I’ll now take a look at the three stadiums which are going to host said events.

Champions League - Wembley

The fact that Wembley only hosted the Champions League final back in 2011 shows just how high its reputation is within the game. When it hosts the fixture on 25th May, it will become the first ever stadium to have hosted a CL Final twice in three years.

Of course, everybody knows Wembley’s reputation as one of the premier stadiums in world football. Since the decision to redevelop it several years ago, it has been home to many events both on a sporting and general entertainment scale. The fact that it has a huge capacity of 90,000 for football fixtures obviously gives it an additional advantage over rival venues, while its emphasis on corporate visitors will also provide it with a boost. Furthermore, and this is a point that might make the final slightly more competitive, there will no home advantage this time around with all of the English sides out of the competition.

Europa League - Amsterdam ArenA

Another historic venue that is being used by the European authorities is the Amsterdam ArenA. Having been opened in 1996, this is seen as one of the premier stadiums of the continent and has a history of holding major events, having hosted the Champions League final back in 1998. In comparison to Wembley it boasts a much more unorthodox design, with the rainbow of seat colours being one of the most striking options when the stadium is empty. The likelihood of there being empty seats appears very slim though, with the venue having a capacity of 53,052 for sporting events. This of course makes it much smaller than Wembley, but for a competition such as the Europa League this should be more than sufficient.

Super Cup - Eden Arena

While the Super Cup is the tournament which features the winner of the Champions League pitted against the winner of the Europa League, it is still a fixture that gets limited exposure. Taking this into account, many won’t be surprised to see that the stadium hosting the event is a very small arena - with the 21,000-seat Eden Arena in Prague being the selected the venue.

The home of SK Slavia Prague, it is at least classed as the most modern venue in the Czech Republic. Nevertheless, many have questioned just why UEFA have selected a venue so small, with very few supporters able to attend the final. The authorities generally take several thousand tickets for corporate reasons, meaning that both teams involved in this fixture are only likely to take around 8,000 of their own fans.

Author Biography
This article was written by Liam; a keen football writer who is a regular contributor to sports blogs. He also runs his own sports betting website, which is found at bonusbetting.org.uk.

With Arsenal one of the English teams to have made it into the last sixteen of this year?s Champions League, the speculation has already started about whether they can go on and achieve victory in this year?s competition. Of course before they can even begin to think about that, there is the small matter of a tie versus Bayern Munich in the next round, and at the moment, most of the sports betting sites do not have Arsenal as the favourites for this tie ? with Bayern rated 11/10 to progress, compared with the Gunners at 11 or 12/5 at many sites. This is not particularly surprising, as Bayern Munich are one of the best teams in Europe ? and one of the favourites for the competition as a whole ? whereas Arsenal are going through a difficult time in the Premier League.

When it comes to the odds for Arsenal to go all the way in the competition, they currently have odds of either 33 or 40 to win it, which puts them some considerable distance from those sides ranked amongst the favourites. As mentioned before, their opponents in the next round, Bayern Munich are one of the favourites, alongside the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona. Realistically, it is unlikely that an Arsenal side which is struggling to even stay in the qualifying positions in the Premier League this season will win the Champions League ? there simply isn?t enough quality throughout the team. Making it past Bayern would represent an achievement for this Arsenal side.

Of course last season Chelsea surprised everyone, but their success was built on solid defence, which is beyond Arsenal. Although Gunners fans may feel an emotional desire to bet on them, they would be better using their money to play games at one of the online casinos like http://www.luckynuggetcasino.com/au/online-pokies/ as this will give them a chance to play football themed games like Soccer Safari. That way they can combine the enjoyment of football and betting in a way that is more likely to pay off, and avoid the pain of having to bet on a side with a more realistic chance of success.