Men of Madrid await day of doom

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Tonight's Champions League games: APOEL v Porto , ATLETICO MADRIDvChelsea ,Bayern Munich v Bordeaux , Besiktas v VfL Wolfsburg , Maccabi Haifa v Juventus , Manchester United v CSKA Moskva , MilanvREAL MADRID ,Olympique Marseille v Zürich

If there's one thing that will surely unite the bickering fans of MadridâÂÂs Big Two on Wednesday morning, itâÂÂs the fact that they are all going to be big, fat Champions League losers. Oh yes.

Everyone will be mentally wearing the letter âÂÂLâ on their foreheads.

Or rather, considering they're Spanish, the letter âÂÂPâ for 'perdedor' (that's what Beck sings in the chorus of Loser, music and fact fans).

Although âÂÂPâ could also stand for a number of other nouns.

Pathetico Atlético, for starters, have only managed to beat Zaragoza and Marbella in the season's 13 matches so far, and are on the brink of facing Chelsea at the Vicente Calderón.

That's Frank Lampard and Michael Essien up against Paulo ruddy Assunçao and Cleber blooming Santana.

And thatâÂÂs not even mentioning the returning Didier Drogba smashing his way through AtléticoâÂÂs backpedalling back four.

But instead of Carlo Ancelotti threatening to carve out the oppositionâÂÂs hearts out with spoons, Sheriff of Nottingham-style, the Italian manager set phasers to bore with his pre-match declaration on his counterpart: âÂÂQuique is a good manager, who is going to do a good job, has good players but who are not in a good run of form.âÂÂ

Quique Sánchez Flores - to use his full title - is still in the sunny spell where not even AtléticoâÂÂs lunatic leaders would consider firing him, so he was able to chirp that despite the impending possibility of a 11-0 drubbing, the Champions League clash âÂÂcan give us a lot but take very little away from us.âÂÂ

But then again, that headed off to the airport with bags in hand a few seconds after MallorcaâÂÂs last-gasp equaliser at the Calderón 10 days ago.

AS are attempting to give the thumbs-up to Atleti by saying that there has already been a revolution in the Rojiblanco ranks â not that La Liga Loca was able to witness any evidence of this against Athletic on Saturday.

And to celebrate this great event, Marca have brought together Paolo Maldini and Kaká for TuesdayâÂÂs edition.

The result was chaos and controversy in its purest form with the iconic Italian predicting that âÂÂwe are going to see a great gameâ while his Brazilian former team-mate spectacularly contradicted The Dishy One by opining that the encounter will be âÂÂa special game.âÂÂ

La Liga Loca was going to write that Milan will be looking to hold their place at the top of the group C table, but it is not sure if thatâÂÂs entirely correct.

ThatâÂÂs because in MarcaâÂÂs alternate version of the ranking, it's Madrid who are perched in the No.1 spot.

But unfortunately, La Liga Loca wonâÂÂt be able to see a minute of the defeat.

After all, it will be a busy as a beaver in the Vicente Calderón twittering away from 20.30 CET, and finding out whether the very, very grown-up Chelsea fan in full Chelsea kit (including shorts and socks) - but wearing a Real Madrid baseball cap - that La Liga Loca saw on Sunday will be going back to England a happy, clappy man-child.

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