{"id":11052,"date":"2025-03-05T11:10:58","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T12:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/?p=11052"},"modified":"2025-03-05T14:06:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T14:06:24","slug":"gary-lineker-names-his-underdogs-to-win-the-champions-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/05\/gary-lineker-names-his-underdogs-to-win-the-champions-league\/","title":{"rendered":"Gary Lineker names his \u2018underdogs\u2019 to win the Champions League"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gary Lineker has named his dark horses for the competition (Picture: YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gary Lineker<\/a> has named his dark horses for this season’s Champions League<\/a> but admitted the tournament is wide open at this stage.<\/p>\n

After the first evening of last-16 action, it was Arsenal<\/a> who stole the headlines with their remarkable 7-1 win away from home against PSV Eindhoven.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mikel Arteta’s side have been short of goals in recent weeks <\/a>but showed no shortage of quality in the final third on Tuesday as they all-but secured their place in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

Aston Villa put on a similarly impressive performance away at Club Brugge, with a 3-1 win giving them a huge advantage heading into the second leg.<\/p>\n

Unai Emery’s side have endured mixed fortunes in the Premier League this season but have impressed greatly on the continent and could now reach a Champions League quarter-final for the first time since 1983.<\/p>\n

While Liverpool and Real Madrid remain the favourites with several pundits,<\/a> this year’s tournament remains wide open in the early knockout stages.<\/p>\n

And having been impressed by one of their recent displays in the Budesliga, Lineker reckons Bayer Leverkusen could be a side to watch out for in the coming rounds.<\/p>\n

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Bayer Leverkusen are the defending Bundesliga champions (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘I’ll go Bayer Leverkusen – are they underdogs? Is anyone really underdogs at this stage?’ he said on the Rest Is Football Podcast. <\/a><\/p>\n

‘They’ve got Bayern Munich which is a massive game for them but I saw them play against Bayern a few weeks ago. <\/p>\n

‘It ended up goalless but Bayer Leverkusen outplayed them and if they dominate like that they’ll have a great chance.’<\/p>\n

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Inter Milan have also been earmarked as potential underdogs (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alan Shearer, meanwhile, tipped Atletico Madrid to upset the apple cart, although Diego Simeone’s side will have to overturn a one-goal deficit following their first leg with Real.<\/p>\n

‘Without calling them an underdog, [I fancy] Atletico,’ he said. <\/p>\n

‘I think that’s the toughest draw that Real Madrid could have had at this stage. It’s such a tough ask at this stage of the competition.’<\/p>\n

Micah Richards instead threw his support behind Inter Milan, saying: ‘They were in the final a couple of years ago against City but there’s something aboiut them as a team.<\/p>\n

‘They play that three-at-the-back formation with the rotation in midfield. Martinez and Thuram up front and they have a great coach as well who just knows when to tweak things at the right time.’<\/p>\n

Inter travel to Feyenoord on Wednesday for their first leg and currently sit top of Serie A.<\/p>\n

For more stories like this,\u00a0check our sport page<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gary Lineker has named his dark horses for the competition (Picture: YouTube) Gary Lineker has named his dark horses for this season’s Champions League but admitted the tournament is wide open at this stage. After the first evening of last-16 action, it was Arsenal who stole the headlines with their remarkable 7-1 win away from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11052"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11058,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11052\/revisions\/11058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}