By Tim Stannard

Action City in the Wanda as Atletico Madrid comes close to ending Cristiano Ronaldo's Champions League dreams

And that's why millions don't hang on the words of Sports Burst every day. 

The column predicted a typical goalless stalemate of epic proportions between Atletico Madrid and Juventus in the Champions League on Wednesday and was rewarded by one of the matches of the season in terms of rampant controversy and nonsense, if not for style. 

So much to unpack. 

Cristiano Ronaldo responding to friendly, welcoming noises from the home Atletico crowd by reminding them en masse of how many Champions League titles he had won compared to the Rojiblancos. 5 to 0. 

Diego Simeone did the most Diego Simeone thing imaginable with quite the nether-region themed goal celebration which could once again see the Atletico boss watching a game glumly behind a wall of glass serving a suspension. "Not a nice gesture, I'll admit," agreed Simeone after the match. 

Diego Costa got himself suspended for the second leg for picking up a yellow card for doing something dumb, just minutes into the start of the game.

But most importantly of all, Diego Godin, all 57 years of him, scored a second goal for Atletico in a 2-0 win that could see an abrupt end to Juve's Champions League-Cristiano Ronaldo themed project should Atleti prevail in the second leg. 

Sports Burst's live show is going to have a blast unravelling all these sporting threads. Just go to our beIN SPORTS USA Facebook page at 12PM ET / 9AM PT. 

Fighting talk for Sarri ahead of must-win Malmo match

That's the spirit! 

There was fighting talk on Wednesday from Maurizio Sarri ahead of Chelsea's Europa League Last 640, second-leg clash against Malmo today. 

The Italian is very much under pressure on the Stamford Bridge bench - something that is a fairly natural state at that club - but the sire of Sarri-ball is not thinking about the rumors that have the manager ending his tenure the same way as predecessors like Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho and Jose Mourinho. And that's departing prematurely and being replaced with Guus Hiddink. 

"I have to think that I will be manager of Chelsea for a long time, otherwise I cannot work," said Sarri ahead of the visit of the Swedish side. 

The former Napoli man also noted that he will need to win a good three games in a row to steady the ship. The easy part is Malmo with Chelsea holding a 2-1 lead. The other two games are Manchester City in the League Cup final on Sunday (that didn't end well for Chelsea, the last two times the teams met) and then Tottenham in the Premier League. 

Should all go badly, then Sarri at least has a possible fallback plan with Italian paper, La Reppublica saying that he could be lined up for the Roma job next season. 

Wanda-ful reponse over Mauro Icardi's knacked knee 

Elsewhere in the Europa League, Lazio have already been eliminated having lost 3-0 on aggregate to Sevilla in a game played on Wednesday. Arsenal is in danger of going the same way, starting a clash in the Emirates against BATE with a 1-0 deficit.

Inter has a 1-0 advantage over visiting Austria Wien but will once again be without Mauro Icardi. The striker has complained of a knee injury, a blight that suddenly appeared when the footballer lost the captaincy of the club last week. Inter has released a statement noting that the Argentinean's knee looks just fine to them. 

Icardi's agent and wife, Wanda Nara, took to the medium of Instagram to comment on the "rubbish" that her husband's sudden injury and no longer being captain are no coincidence. 

Liverpool in must-win match-up live on beIN SPORTS 

Exciting! Liverpool is on beIN SPORTS today! Take that NBC!

Well. Another version of Liverpool technically speaking. 

This one is from Uruguay, playing in the Copa Sudamericana today and is currently 1-0 up in a two-legged affair against Brazilian outfit, Bahia. The match is also on beIN SPORTS at 5:05PM ET / 2:05PM PT and leads the way in another heady night of South American football coverage on the network. 

Wednesday saw the sad departure of the tremendously-named Defensa y Justicia - an Argentinean side making waves in the Superliga - from the Copa Sudamericana. 

In the Copa Libertadores, Atletico Mineiro went 2-0 up in a double header in the final qualification stages against Defensor Sporting, whilst Talleres and Palestino drew 2-2. 

The final match of the week is today and is live on beIN SPORTS as the Colombian giants of Atletico Nacional at Libertad at 7:20PM ET / 4:20PM PT.