The Champions League draw on Thursday threw up a few interesting clashes in the round of 16, none more intriguing than Cristiano Ronaldo’s return to Old Trafford to take on Manchester United.This will be the marquee matchup of the round and it will come down to United’s ability to not leak goals, something they aren’t known for but are doing at the present moment.Santiago Bernabeu will be the venue for the first leg and the first game is always the most important, and if United can go to Spain and hold down the fort than anything can happen after that in the second leg.Nemanja Vidic is back and should help them but they will have to find a way to also score enough goals to counteract anything Real Madrid do.The fact that Ronaldo came out and said he won’t celebrate any goal he scores against his former club shows his character and respect he has for United because they took him from a 17-year-old boy and helped mould him into who he is now.He did this previously when he was at United and scored in both legs against his boyhood club, Sporting Lisbon, and it is fitting to remember where you come from and who has helped you get to where you are.Another good matchup will see Barcelona playing AC Milan again and between them they have won five of the last ten Champions Leagues, so this has pedigree written all over it.For me, however, it will be a bit too much for Milan to beat the Catalan side, although anything can happen at any point.When you have the total package, and have won 15 of 16 league games, you have to be on some sort of form and that is what they are right now, on form.One intriguing stat is that four Spanish sides, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Valencia, and Malaga, and three German sides in Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, and Schalke are all still in it while only two English sides are left.People must understand that the style of play on the continent is much different from England, they look to hold the ball, slow the ball down and look to control the ball more, whereas in England it is fast paced.The tide changes every so often, English teams have dominated the latter stages in terms of the amount of teams left in the least eight and so forth, and this year the pendulum has swung a bit.When you look at Belgium, their national team is starting to come back into its own so it is all about focusing on the task at hand and knowing what you are capable of.My highlight of 2012 is Celtic getting into the last 16 and Chelsea winning the Champions League, but things like that seemed unfathomable when you would have asked me before a ball was kicked.Chelsea had a bad year having won the title and then being knocked out, the best advice they can take is to have a manager that is settled and knows he can work without having an owner over his shoulder.Roberto Di Matteo won them what they wanted most and they still fired him, so it is up to Roman Abramovich to sort it out.Lionel Messi’s record is any amazing one and people really need to start looking at him as a real star among the greatest. You can never say it will be broken because when Pele done it they said it won’t happen again and then it did and has so again this year, but the record has a uniqueness about it and it comes around every era.Messi is the person of this era, but one must also look at the conditions as to which the players play on now compared to what they were 30 years ago.The balls, the pitches, all of these things are different and you need to take this into consideration.Pele was playing in a time when teams were playing with four, five, maybe even six defenders because they didn’t want to let in any goals. Nowadays is the age of playing three down the back, wingbacks and all of these things.I would like to congratulate Messi nonetheless and everyone has to take these players for their generation because not many of them come around that often.There was a dispute about the record as an African claimed to score 106 goals, but you have to look at the league players play in and gauge it from there.Messi playing for Barcelona and Pele playing for Santos far exceed any side in Africa and the feats have to be weighted, not to take anything away from African football.In closing, I would like to wish Bermuda a wonderful Christmas holiday, hopefully everyone realises that Bermuda is a wonderful place and we need to make it a beautiful place for everybody.Too many times we complain about petty things, but we have the world at our feet and we need to be thankful for what we have thia time of year.Merry Christmas to all, and God bless.