Why the Champions League has me worried about June 12, 2010

What a week in the UEFA Champions League with sixteen goals scored in four games, two of which were blow-outs, but two of which were back and forth with the final goal sending first Bayern and then Lyon through to the quarterfinal. This was fun, fun viewing and a great advertisement for the beautiful game.

With apologies to Arsenal's hat-trick hero Nicklas Bendtner, the performance of the week came from United's Wayne Rooney who knocked in two sublime goals to continue his destruction of all comers. His tally now stands at 30 goals in all competitions this season and his manager is pushing him to hit 43 and break Ronaldo's total from a few year's back. A lofty goal, not completely unrealistic though.

The scariest part of course is that, barring injury, Rooney will be leading the attack against the USA on June 12th in the red, white, and blue's opening World Cup match against England. Conventional wisdom says the opening group game is the most important and for the USA to get any points against England they will have to figure out how to shut down the in-form forward who seems to be scoring at will with both foot and head.