Julien Laurens breaks down the position he would like to see Lionel Messi play and explains why he has yet to score in Ligue 1. (1:18)
There's the journey, and there's the destination. For a sport dominated by haves and have-nots -- so, most sports -- we generally understand that the winner of a league or tournament is going to come from a select minority of teams. But in instances in which the destination is predictable, or even a bit boring, the journey can entertain us all the same.
A good Champions League group stage probably isn't going to change the destination all that much, and the current iteration of the tournament certainly hasn't: At the beginning of the tournament, the top four favorites per FiveThirtyEight were Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Liverpool, respectively, and two months later, it's Bayern, City and Liverpool, with Chelsea having plummeted all the way to ... fifth.
But the journey has been fun. Sheriff Tiraspol, of tiny Moldova (or really, the even tinier Transnistria), eked out a qualification win over former champion Crvena Zvezda on the way to the group stage and immediately won against both Shakhtar Donetsk at home and mighty Real Madrid on the road. Manchester United have won two matches and lost one via clutch, late goals. Liverpool has won a pair of 3-2 classics. The Benfica vs. PSV Eindhoven playoff battle was epic, too.
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