FanShot

OT: Soccer alert

7

Barça plays Shakhtar Donetsk in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals at 9 PM tonight, which I assume is 2 PM Central time. It's on free TV here, so it ought to be on one of your many sports channels. Barça will be playing with all its top stars, except Puyol, who is still injured but will be back in a couple of weeks. Messi will play even though he's still not at 100%. Donetsk is a good team. They have a tough defense and a whole bunch of 2-3 WAR-equivalent Brazilians. Barça would really like to put the quarterfinal in the bag the way Real Madrid did against Spurs. 4-0, Crouch red-carded. I saw the game. Madrid is good. Schalke whomped Inter, 2-5,.putting that one in the bag, too. Raúl ain't done yet. Manchester United plays against Chelsea in the other quarterfinal. That'll be well worth watching, too. We will now return to our normal Royals programming.