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The opening round of Champions League play offered up several surprises, as nearly all of the European elite failed to win, with defending champions Barcelona drawing 2-2 with AC Milan in the Camp Nou, star-studded nouveau-riche Manchester City drawing 1-1 at home to Napoli, last year's finalists Manchester United drawing 1-1 at Benfica, Arsenal claiming a 1-1 draw with German champions Borussia Dortmund and competition heavyweights Inter losing 1-0 in the San Siro to unfancied Turkish side Trabzonspor. Of Europe's top teams, only Bayern Munich, Chelsea and of course, Real Madrid took all three points in this round of play.
However, easily the most astounding thing that happened on Tuesday and Wednesday in the world of football didn't occur on the pitch at all. It was, perhaps surprisingly, former Milan and Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti's debut as a pundit on Italian TV.
Not only did Ancelotti correctly predict the 2-2 final scoreline in the Barcelona-Milan match BEFORE the game, but in the final minute, as Milan set up to take a corner, he said "Here we go - 2-2 here. Thiago Silva will score." Lo and behold, this is exactly what transpired, snatching a point for Milan against all the odds. No one besides Ancelotti would have bet on Milan to take anything at all from the match before kick-off, so this is doubly impressive. Clearly Ancelotti is the new Paul the Octopus ...