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“Ibrahimović’s year-long stint at Barça was widely seen as a failure, and yet he finished his one season at Camp Nou with a haul of 21 goals in 45 games and winner’s medals for La Liga, the FIFA Club World Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the Supercopa de España around his neck. The 30-year-old has been named Serie A’s Best Foreign Player on four occasions and won the award for Best Player on three occasions, and yet the suspicion persists — particularly in England — that he is a myth. A flat-track bully. A big-time Charlie.”

This week’s Pitchside Europe blog, on how Zlatan Ibrahimović is still to leave his mark on the latter stages of the Champions League, can be read here.

I caught up with my friend Dan Levy last week, to talk about France’s chances at Euro 2012 on the France 24 podcast. We discussed France’s friendly victory over Germany, the likely composition of Les Bleus‘ starting line-up at the tournament, and Laurent Blanc’s stand-off with the French Football Federation over their unwillingness to offer him a new contract. You can listen to our conversation here.

NB: The podcast was recorded before news broke that Éric Abidal requires a liver transplant operation, which is likely to compromise his chances of playing at Euro 2012.

The eight remaining teams in this season’s Champions League are drawn from seven different countries and range in experience from quarter-final debutants APOEL to nine-time champions Real Madrid. They are nonetheless united by a number of tactical factors. All eight sides deployed four-man defences in their last-16 ties, while the majority of the teams preferred single-striker formations. Benfica and Milan were the only two teams to play with no wide midfielders.

The diagrams below depict the eight teams’ tactical line-ups from the first legs of their last-16 ties, before there were any leads to be defended or deficits to be overturned.

NB: The diagrams (screenshots from the UEFA website) show average positions from the first 15 minutes of matches only, so as to provide a clear indication of how the teams approached each game in terms of formation.

APOEL: 4-1-4-1

The average positions of APOEL's players in the first 15 minutes of their 1-0 defeat at Lyon in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie; UEFA

In the first leg of their tie at Lyon, APOEL played in a compact 4-1-4-1 formation and placed so much emphasis on defending their penalty area that they did not muster a single shot at goal until Gustavo Manduca tested Hugo Lloris with a rising drive in the 88th minute. Ivan Jovanović’s side were more proactive in the return leg, however. Esteban Solari played up front in support of Aílton, while Manduca was named in the starting line-up and scored the goal that levelled the tie in the ninth minute.

[Squad numbers: 22. Dionisis Chiotis; 7. Savvas Poursaitidis, 3. Paulo Jorge, 4. Kaká, 98. William Boaventura; 26. Nuno Morais; 10. Constantinos Charalambides, 31. Hélder Sousa, 23. Hélio Pinto, 11. Ivan Tričkovski; 8. Aílton]

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“Last season they both scored 53 goals for their respective clubs. Since Ronaldo joined Madrid in 2009, he has scored 126 goals in 127 games. Over the same period, Messi has scored 150 goals in 151 games. The diminishing goals-per-game ratio at the World Cup — an established barometer for long-term football trends — proves that the sport is becoming more defensive, and yet Messi and Ronaldo are scoring at a faster rate by the season. So what’s the secret?”

My latest Pitchside Eurosport blog for Eurosport, on why Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are able to score goals at such a strikingly anachronistic rate, can be read here.

“PARIS — An injury-time winner from substitute Kévin Gameiro earned Paris Saint-Germain a narrow 2-1 victory at third-bottom Dijon on Sunday that preserved their place at the top of the Ligue 1 table.”

My AFP report on how PSG (just) kept their noses in front of Montpellier in the Ligue 1 title race, including a round-up of all the weekend’s main headlines, can be read here.

“The absence of Bastian Schweinsteiger — out since early February with torn ankle ligaments — has been keenly felt, but Bayern’s most pressing problem is a perplexing lack of bite in attack. Having plundered 16 league goals in the run-up to Christmas, Mario Gómez has scored just twice since the winter break, while both Thomas Müller and Arjen Robben are struggling for form.”

This week’s Pitchside Europe column, on how Bayern Munich’s arresting slump in form since the winter break has gifted the initiative in the Bundesliga title race to defending champions Borussia Dortmund, can be read here.

“PARIS — Ligue 1 title favourites Paris Saint-Germain returned to the top of the table after overwhelming third-bottom Ajaccio 4-1 at a rain-soaked Parc des Princes on Sunday.”

My AFP report on PSG’s return to the Ligue 1 summit, including a summary of all the weekend’s major stories in the French top flight, can be read here.

For a team protecting an unbeaten record that now stretches to 543 days, France will approach Wednesday night’s friendly against Germany in Bremen with a surprising degree of uncertainty.

Since going down 1-0 at home to Belarus in Laurent Blanc’s first competitive game in charge in September 2010, France have qualified for Euro 2012 – without recourse to the play-offs – and enjoyed friendly wins over England, Brazil and the United States (as well as some forgettable draws against Croatia, Chile and Belgium).

Viewed from the outside, and against a backdrop of the self-inflicted humiliation of the 2010 World Cup, Les Bleus are turning things around. Bubbling beneath the statistics, however, are a multitude of concerns about the team’s style of play and a lack of both experience and leadership within the squad, while an ongoing contract dispute between Blanc and French Football Federation president Noël Le Graët suggests Blanc’s employers remain to be convinced by the direction the team is taking.

Blanc pledged to introduced panache and risk-taking to France’s football following his appointment in the aftermath of the infamous Knysna training ground mutiny, but although France have become solid and difficult to beat, their play has not captured the imagination since the first game of their current 17-match unbeaten run – a 2-0 victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo that came four days after the setback against Belarus.

Then, a team anchored by a midfield pairing of Yann M’Vila and Alou Diarra, driven forward by the lolloping raids of Abou Diaby and centred around the new-found efficacy of Karim Benzema had hinted at a glorious future for Blanc’s France. Now, although Benzema has gone from strength to strength at Real Madrid, the team has lost its way.

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“Incensed by the decision to rule out Muntari’s goal, Milan chief executive Adriano Galliani reportedly stormed down to the tunnel at half-time and became involved in an angry exchange with Conte. There was aggravation on the pitch as well, with Arturo Vidal sent off for an ugly tackle from behind on Mark van Bommel and Philippe Mexes guilty of a sly dig to the ribs of his former Roma team-mate Marco Borriello that has seen him banned for three games. Approached by French television channel Canal+ in the mixed zone, Mexes swept past, explaining: “They’ve told me not to talk.”"

This week’s Pitchside Europe column for the Eurosport website, on Saturday night’s stormy 1-1 draw between Milan and Juventus in Serie A, can be read here.

“PARIS — A last-minute goal by Mevlüt Erding earned Rennes a 1-1 draw at home to Lille on Sunday that prevented the French champions from galvanising their grip on third place and closing the gap on leaders Montpellier.”

My AFP round-up of the weekend’s Ligue 1 action, including setbacks for Lille and Marseille and an extraordinary 4-4 draw between Lyon and Paris Saint-Germain that allowed Montpellier to go top, can be found here.

“MARSEILLE, France — A dramatic 93rd-minute header from André Ayew gave Marseille a 1-0 victory over luckless Internazionale in the first leg of their Champions League last 16 tie here on Wednesday.”

André Ayew’s injury-time goal prompted a hasty re-write of my AFP match report on Marseille’s game with Internazionale on Wednesday evening. You can read it here.

“To suggest that Celtic could carry on regardless without their old rivals is like claiming that Othello would be the same play if Iago or Othello were abruptly scratched from the script. Both teams define themselves by their opposition to the other. It can, on occasion, spill over into repellent sectarianism, but the great rivalries — be it Ali and Frazier, Prost and Senna or Nadal and Federer — are what enable sport to transcend the perfunctory accumulation of points, wins and trophies that it might otherwise be. John McEnroe and Björn Borg played out one of tennis’ great rivalries but after three years of fierce contests, the Swede retired in 1981 and McEnroe admitted that his career was never the same again.”

My latest Pitchside Europe column for Eurosport, which contemplates how Rangers’ sudden descent into administration could affect their hated rivals Celtic, can be read here.

“PARIS — Montpellier proved their Ligue 1 title credentials by holding league leaders Paris Saint-Germain to a 2-2 draw in the top-of-the-table clash at Parc des Princes on Sunday.”

My AFP match report on Montpellier’s impressive draw at PSG, which contains a round-up of all the Ligue 1 headlines from the weekend, can be read here.

“LYON, France — Lyon secured a slender advantage in their Champions League last 16 tie with APOEL FC by beating the Cypriot underdogs 1-0 in the first leg at Stade Gerland on Tuesday.”

My AFP match report on Lyon’s 1-0 victory over APOEL on Tuesday can be read here.

“On Thursday, Ajax announced that their five-man supervisory board would step down after club icon Johan Cruyff succeeded in a legal battle to prevent the four other members of the board — of which he is a member — from appointing former coach Louis van Gaal as chief executive. Van Gaal’s nomination had been announced in November, prompting Cruyff to proclaim that his fellow board members had “gone mad” after they convened to finalise van Gaal’s appointment while Cruyff was away in Barcelona.”

This week’s Pitchside Europe blog for Eurosport, on the back-stage turmoil at Ajax that has plunged Manchester United’s Europa League opponents into civil war, can be read here.