Live Online Video: Paris Saint-Germain Vs. Chelsea FC — UEFA Champions League Round Of 16 Begins
UEFA Champions League fans can watch live online video as exciting Round of 16 action gets underway this week starting with a featured matchup between Barclays Premier League leaders Chelsea F.C. and back-to-back French League 1 champions, Paris Saint-Germain, from Parc de Princes in Paris, France.
The Round of 16, for those unfamiliar with the UEFA Champions League format, is the beginning of the tournament’s knockout stage. Group stage play is over, with only the top two teams from each of the eight groups left standing.
Each matchup consists of two legs, with the team scoring the most aggregate goals over the two home and away games advancing to the quarterfinals — and so on until the Champions League Final June 6 at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany.
In case of a tie, the team with more away goals wins — and if the teams are still tied after away goals are counted, the knockout match goes to extra time and a penalty shootout if necessary.
Fans who watch live online video of Chelsea taking on Paris Saint-Germain will see a rematch of one of last season’s most closely contested Champions League ties, with the teams drawing at 3-3 after both legs. But Chelsea advanced by virtue of an away goal.
“We beat them but we lost, we lost in Paris,” said Chelsea Manager Jose Mourinho on Monday, ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League rematch. “The knockout came in the last minute so I can’t say Chelsea was the better team. We won because we scored a goal away and we didn’t concede at home.”
Both squads are known as goal-scoring powerhouses, and Paris Saint-Germain is led by six-foot, five-inch Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, one of the most intimidating offensive players in world football.
Nontheless, Paris Saint-Germain manager Laurent Blanc believes that the two-leg tie will be decided not on the offensive end, but by the defenders on both teams.
“I think defense is not just the key to tomorrow’s game, but for all big matches,” Blanc said Monday. “Last season Chelsea managed to score an away goal when we couldn’t. That’s how they won. Both teams will have a lot of very talented creative players, but the paradox is that it’s the team who performs the best defensively who will have the best chances to win and qualify.”
Live video of Chelsea F.C. vs. Paris Saint-Germain goes online at 2:45 p.m. EST, and will be carried by Fox Sports Go, which can be accessed at this link, and on mobile devices by downloading the Fox Sports Go app.
But the Chelsea vs. Paris Saint-Germain game is not the only UEFA Champions League showdown on the schedule Tuesday. Also at 2:45 p.m., Fox Sports Go will carry live online video of 2013 winners Bayern Munich traveling to Ukraine to take on Shakhtar Donetsk.
That game will be played in Lviv, Ukraine, about 800 miles west of Shakhtar’s home stadium, which now sits in the middle of a war zone near the country’s eastern border with Russia. But fans can catch the live online video via Fox Sports Go from the safety of their own computers.
[Image: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images]
