My oh my, are we in for a fantastic last few games.

As it stands, with Chelsea beating Swansea 1-0 and Liverpool edging by Manchester City 3-2, Liverpool is up by two points on Chelsea and seven above City, who has two games in hand on both.

Liverpool is the darling of the season. They came out of nowhere to become the best team in the English Premier League. Led by goal scoring machines Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, who have scored 49 goals between them, the Reds are always in full attack mode and only want to outscore you. Their defense has been a little suspect, but even if they let up three goals, their destructive strikers can dig them out of almost any hole.

Chelsea is a team that looks to be almost out of luck. With no definitive top striker, the Blues have had to scrounge up their goals by committee every game. They have gotten great opportunities from rising stars Eden Hazard and Oscar and are great at finding a way to squeak out games.

Their two recent losses to lower tier EPL teams coupled with the fact that their run in the Champions League has yet to end only hurts their chances in the final push for the EPL title.

Preseason favorite Manchester City has looked like the best team in the world at the best of times, and rather like a semi-pro team at the worst of times.

Sunday morning’s loss to Liverpool was a heartbreaker and costly point drop. Now seven points back from Liverpool, their two extra games will not save them and are now no longer are able to control their own destiny. To add insult to injury, their top-flight midfielder Yaya Toure is rumored to be out for the rest of the season after injuring himself early in the Liverpool match.

So what does this all mean?

With Liverpool and Chelsea both only having four games left and just two points to separate them, Chelsea needs Liverpool to falter. Luckily, the Blues possess the ability to stop the Reds’ red-hot streak as they get to face them in Anfield in their third-to-last match of the season.

If Chelsea can beat Liverpool away from home, win their other three games and also have City draw or lose a match in their last six, the Blues can win the EPL title. Chelsea’s manager, Jose Mourinho, was Chelsea’s manager the last time the Blues won the EPL title, and with their “find-a-way-to-win” playing style, anything is possible.

Goals win games, and Liverpool has no problem scoring them at home or away. The Reds are playing with the most confidence of any team in the EPL, maybe even in Europe as a whole. Because they finished outside of the top four last season, Liverpool did not have to worry about Champions League fatigue and were thus able to focus all of their energy and game planning for EPL matches. Suarez, the controversial Uruguayan striker, missed the first nine games of the 2013-14 season after biting Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic last season. The suspension only makes his 29 goals 12 assists, many of them to Sturridge, more impressive.

The final four games for Liverpool and Chelsea are against teams that are in the bottom 12 of the table, excluding their head-to-head matchup. Chelsea has the slightly easier road with multiple matches against the league’s bottom 12.

City can win out and beat out Chelsea for the top spot, but they need Liverpool to falter, which does not seem like a possibility given their recent success on the field. I predict that Liverpool will win the 2013-14 EPL title, but the entire season hinges on the Blues/Reds matchup in Anfield, and Chelsea’s five losses this year have all been away from home.

It really doesn’t matter whether you call it soccer or football.

From England to Germany, Spain to France, the eight teams still alive in the long and brutal Champions League tournament are, arguably, the top eight teams in the world. As the lone soccer fan in the state of Maine, I wanted to preview the upcoming games on Tuesday and Wednesday and show you what to look for if you want to start following the great sport of soccer. Here we go.

Chelsea Football Club vs. Paris Saint Germain

This is the second week of the semifinals for the Champions League, which means desperation for some teams while some teams just have to do enough to win. This has never been more true than for this matchup of teams after Chelsea lost 3-1 in Paris last week.

For PSG, their star striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic injured his knee late in the first matchup on Wednesday and will be out for the second match in London. As big a blow as this is to PSG, they come prepared with one of the top 15 strikers in the world in Edison Cavani. Behind Cavani is Ezequiel Lavezzi, a top-class attacking midfielder who is superb at getting the strikers of Paris the ball while also being able to get great shots off on goal.

Chelsea faced the same problem that has plagued them all season: a lack of stardom at the striker position. For the first 45 minutes of the match, Chelsea started Andre Shurrle, a German attacking midfielder not accustomed to playing up top for a team. Even though he wasn’t a seasoned striker, the London-based team played their best football with him on the pitch creating chances, and scored their only goal of the game off of an Eden Hazard penalty kick. Fernando

Torres, the striker who replaced Shurrle, did not play well and cost Chelsea many chances. Chelsea let in their second goal in the 61st minute as a cross came in from a PSG player and bounced off the lifted leg of Chelsea defender David Luiz for an own goal and then let in a late 93rd-minute goal by PSG’s Javier Pastore to finish the 3-1 defeat.

The only way Chelsea has a chance in this match is to play their always-solid defense, one that has only given up six goals in the past 17 British Premier League matches, and to push the ball up with Hazard and Brazilian midfielder Oscar. If they can do that and stop PSG from scoring goals without Ibrahimovic, all they have to do is win 2-0 and win on a 3-3 aggregate score — Chelsea scored one away goal in Paris to claim the tiebreaker, baring a goal from PSG in London.

Real Madrid vs. Borussia Dortmund

In a game that features arguably the best player in the world in Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo and the defending runner-ups in Dortmund, the result in the first leg of this matchup was not what you’d expect heading in. Dortmund has not been themselves this season in the German Bundesliga nor in the Champions League. Something has been lacking in their squad this year and it showed Wednesday in Madrid.

A quick 3rd-minute snipe by newly acquired Gareth Bale set the tone for a triumphant win. A goal from Isco and Ronaldo each sealed the 3-0 win in a game that all but secured Ronaldo and Madrid’s entrance into the final four teams of the Champions League. Although Dortmund did not score in the first leg, they did not go without chances at goal with German midfielder Marco Reus leading their charge. Starting striker and soon-to-be Bayern Munich player Robert Lewandowski did not play for Dortmund.

Now a three-goal deficit is a difficult mountain to climb, even for a club like Dortmund. Few teams would be able to make up the difference in one game, but don’t count out Manager Jurgen Klopp’s Dortmund side. Goals can come fast and quick for the team in yellow, and with a little luck and calls to go their way, I think they stand a chance. Ronaldo is a hard player to stop though, and at 14 tournament goals, the reigning player of the year has yet to show signs of slowing down.

Manchester United vs. Bayern Munich

This was easily the most-shocking result of the 19th week as Bayern, the reigning champions of Europe and newly-crowned 2013-14 Bundesliga Champions, looked to destroy the struggling Reds. United, who barely escaped the previous Round of 16 with a shocking 3-0 victory over Olympiacos, were the heaviest underdogs of the week, and rightly so.

Manchester opened the scoring of the game in the 58th minute off a header from defender Nemanja Vidic to take the 1-0 lead. It should have been the second goal, but earlier in the game United striker Danny Welbeck wrongly had a goal brought back as the line judge called him offside. Bayern’s Bastian Schweinsteiger equaled the score in the 68th minute and that is how it finished. It was shocking to say the least.

I honestly have no way of seeing Manchester keeping the scoring going in Germany on Wednesday. The offensive firepower of Bayern is some of the best in the world. Their midfielders are maybe the best group in the world and their defense and goalkeeper are the best duo in Europe. I predict Bayern to be led by Neur, their goalkeeper, and to put in a couple goals quick then lay back on defense. However, United feels like they have the moxie of an underdog champion, similar to 2012 Champions Chelsea. If United striker Wayne Rooney cannot play because of his bruised toe, you might as well pencil Manchester out of the tournament.

Atletico Madrid vs. Barcelona Football Club

In the other Wednesday matchup, the top two teams in La Liga will square off in an all-or-nothing-match for bragging rights, a trip to the final four and momentum for the final push in the Spanish league. Coming into the year, Barcelona looked like the favorites in La Liga, bringing in Neymar, the Brazilian star who everyone in the world wanted to sign. Neymar combined with Lionel Messi, Barcelona’s star and, on par with Ronaldo, the best player in the world. They looked to be the top duo in Europe. Atletico has been a very pleasant surprise this season as striker Diego Costa has led them to the top spot in Spain. Nothing has been able to stop them, thanks in large part to their goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, who is on-loan from Chelsea this season.

Atletico Madrid started the scoring off in the 56th minute as Diego scored a top-class goal from 30 yards out to beat the Barcelona keeper. With Diego costa out, however, Barcelona was able to stop Atletico’s attacks and tied the game up with Neymar’s strike in the 71st minute. Atletico scored the all-important away goal tiebreaker to put pressure on Barcelona going into Wednesday’s match.

Costa will play a key role, if he plays, in the second leg of this matchup. Courtois will also have to play just as well as he did in the first fixture if Madrid wants to advance past a Barcelona side who is more talented in most areas. I will look for Messi to play like Messi, Neymar to do what he does and for Barcelona to end Atletico’s dream Champions League run.

I expect Barcelona to move on against Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid to advance easily past Dortmund, Chelsea to come back and stun PSG and advance and for Bayern to do enough to beat Manchester United. Because the matchups for each round are chosen at random I cannot speculate on the matchups But how sweet would it be if Chelsea and Bayern got to rematch their 2012 Champions League final, or Barcelona playing against Real Madrid in an El-Clasico final, the biggest rivalry in the world? We can only hope.

I’m ecstatic I’m not a journalist overseas in the resort town of Sochi, Russia, the stomping grounds of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Don’t get me wrong — if I was blessed with the opportunity to travel and cover the games for a news outlet, I would jump at the chance. But with the recent pictures and bits of information coming via Twitter and other social media about the hotel accommodations, the unsafe water and food and the terror threats that have been the talk of the town leading up to the games, I would be at least a little hesitant.

My television will have to be enough over the next couple of weeks as I spend every free minute that I can find watching different events on my computer and on the NBC networks. Events like these don’t happen often, every four years to be exact, and I try to take advantage of every media outlet at my disposal to soak up all the action.

I’ve been excited for these Olympics for quite a while now because they are in Russia, classically known for the strange and curious aura that surrounds them and everything that happens there. With estimates of around $50-60 billion spent on the Olympics this year, you’d think that they’d have everything ready and it would be spotless.

The opposite has happened, however, and hotel rooms have been in shambles for many media personnel who are staying in Sochi.

Pictures of torn curtains, bathrooms with two toilets directly next to each other, water that cannot be consumed or used for washing and door knobs falling off leading people into hotel rooms that already can’t lock are unfortunate happenings that nobody expected entering the week.

Beijing, China was ridiculed for their poor way of living and their worse-than-poor environmental standards and conditions entering the 2008 Summer Olympics, but once their now-famous opening ceremonies took place, it was smooth sailing from there.

Sochi’s opening ceremonies were a good start to what should be an entertaining Olympics to say the least. Of course, what would be an event in Russia if there wasn’t a mishap of some sort?

The first came during the beginning of the opening ceremonies as an extravagant display of five snowflakes were pulled out into the Olympic rings. All of them made the journey from flake to ring except for the top-right flake, which stayed in flake form like a caterpillar that never got to realize its butterfly dream.

Russians watching on TV never saw this happen as the local news stations broadcasting the event switched to rehearsal footage of all five expanding into the complete Olympic symbol, but folks in America were able to see it in all its unedited beauty.

Most events of the Olympics should go off without a hitch as the venues built for the 98 different events are big, beautiful and safe. However, even before the Friday night opening ceremonies, injuries were happening on Thursday’s early rounds of some snowboarding and ski events. Gold medalist snowboarder and American star Shaun White hurt his wrist in a practice run for a new event, men’s snowboarding slopestyle, and pulled himself from the event to focus on defending his gold in the half pipe.

Some athletes have complained that the snowboarding slopestyle course, along with a couple others, were unsafe for competition and have pulled themselves out of competition, some luckier than others by pulling before injury. Some people, including some of White’s competition, have accused White of dropping because he knew he wouldn’t win while others agree with White in that it is an unsafe course.

Some other events that are highly anticipated for me are the men’s hockey games, curling and most of the snowboard events. I enjoy the international hockey games because the fury and anger of the NHL translates well to the Olympics with every single player playing hard and proud for their countries. The competition level is tremendous from start to finish, and if the gold-medal game this year resembles even a sliver of 2010’s instant classic between the U.S. and Canada, fans will be in for quite the treat.

Curling is always interesting as the sport has risen steeply in popularity over the past couple of winter games. I find the sport funny looking, but most countries outside of the United States take it just as, if not more, seriously as many other winter sports. Look for the Norwegian curling team and their not-made-for-TV outfits that have already turned many heads on the Internet.

Hopefully Sochi is safe during the 16 days of international competition. Security has been of the utmost importance for Russia for some time now in preparing for the games. One attempted hijacking of a plane in Ukraine has already been caught and stopped, but it creates a higher sense of terror in the minds of the visitors in Sochi this week.

All in all, Russia should be able to take care of business in their own unique way, to say the least, and I am excited for what Sochi, Putin and the country of Russia have in store.

Richard Sherman said it best in his newest Beats by Dre commercial when asked about being a “thug”: “Not everyone from Compton is a gang member.”

Many words and names were thrown around with reckless abandon on the Internet after the Seattle Seahawks All-Pro cornerback made what many argue to be the top play of the 2013-14 NFL season, tipping a pass away from San Francisco 49er wide receiver Michael Crabtree to his Seattle teammate Malcolm Smith in the final minute to secure a trip to the Super Bowl during the NFC Championship game two Sundays ago.

Twitter was the main source of vulgar and racist comments being plastered to Sherman’s timeline following his post-game interview with Fox sideline reporter Erin Andrews.

Andrews asked Sherman to take her through the final play of the game when the eruption occurred from Sherman.

“Well I’m the best corner in the game,” Sherman said. “When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that’s the result [you’re going to] get. Don’t you ever talk about me.”

Andrews then asked the riled-up corner who was talking about him and Sherman answered loudly, “Crabtree. Don’t you open your mouth about the best, or [I’m going to] shut it for you real quick.”

In the interview, Sherman appeared angry and excited at the same time, but every word in his now famous outburst had a motive behind it. According to Sherman’s older brother, Branton, Sherman saw Crabtree at Larry Fitzgerald’s charity event this past summer and tried to shake his hand but was rejected and then almost got into a fight that Crabtree attempted to start. That day, Sherman vowed to “make a play and embarrass him.”

You may think, why do people care what he said? He just made the play of the year and sent his team to the Super Bowl, he has a lot of adrenaline pumping, let him be excited. That is definitely what I thought as I watched Sherman explain how he was the best corner in the game, something he has proclaimed many times prior to Sunday’s contest. While the interview was going on, nothing in my mind was connecting the dots to his race or where he came from, and that is still how it is for me.

However, it seems that many people have taken his rant that direction. Some have gone as far as to log onto their Twitter accounts to spew hateful names and phrases in the direction of Richard Sherman, a native of Compton, Calif. Words like the “n-word,” “thug,” “monkey” and more have been labeled next to Sherman’s name online and throughout the media over the past week following the incident. The day before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, some people proved that not much has changed in America regarding race.

Sherman’s choke sign with his hands after the play, his loud voice and long dreads give him the stereotypical “thug” look and sound that not many people are totally comfortable with.

Some say racism is leaving the country quicker and quicker with passing time, but one quick search on Twitter will show you that that we may not be as far along as we think. Sherman was not deaf to the criticism he received, either.

“It was really mind-boggling, the way the world reacted,” Sherman said in his CNN interview with Rachel Nichols. “I can’t say the world — I don’t want to generalize people like that because there are a lot of great people who didn’t react that way. But for the people who did react that way and throw the racial slurs and things like that out there, it was really sad.”

Many people don’t know that the loud-mouth Seattle corner went to Stanford University, that he had an almost perfect 3.9 GPA and got his degree there. Many people don’t know that he got to Stanford after growing up in the rough city of Compton, a place that Sherman knows well.

“I know some real thugs,” Sherman said. “And they know I’m the furthest thing from a thug.”

None of that matters to a lot of people. It doesn’t seem to matter that Sherman is a smart and well-spoken athlete who has gotten himself out of a city where not much is expected of a person and has elevated himself to the top of the game in just his third year in the NFL.

“Why can’t he just be quiet and celebrate quieter like the rest of his team? I didn’t see Peyton Manning yelling and proclaiming himself the best while calling an opposing player ‘mediocre’ or ‘sorry.’”

Rarely are the motives looked at when these incidents arise. Confidence is sometimes crossed into cockiness, but normally people jump to the person being the latter.

His 4.0 GPA in high school and 3.9 at Stanford show that Sherman was an above-average student. He uses that intelligence to study gametape almost religiously every free moment he gets. He can explain a play as well as anyone in the league and can tell you what happened on almost any play you can think of. The loss to the Atlanta Falcons last year in the playoffs haunted his teammates and him for the whole offseason. The loss was used as motivator to get better and learn the tendencies of quarterbacks, receivers and coaches that were upcoming on the Seahawks’ schedule in order to be ready for the season.

The work paid off as Sherman led the “Legion of Boom,” as the Seattle secondary is called, to the top of the defensive rankings. During the NFC championship game, Sherman was on Crabtree the entire game. He was thrown at twice, once in the first quarter where Crabtree was able to get Sherman called on a holding call, and the second at the end of the game where Sherman tipped the fade-route from quarterback Colin Kaepernick to seal the win for Seattle.

Sherman has a case for being the top defensive corner in the game. Over his three-year career in the NFL, Sherman has already accumulated 20 interceptions and become proficient at shutting down the opposing team’s top receiver. Add his reputation with his valid motivation stemming from his beef with Crabtree, and nothing in his post-game interview was over the top, or for that matter, wrong.

Sherman is not the first black athlete to be criticized for his actions and loud words. Athletes like Deion Sanders and Muhammad Ali were both loud and flamboyant black athletes who would talk the talk but also walk the walk. Some were treated better than others; Ali was the top athlete in the world for years in the 1960s while Sanders was the one of the top NFL players in the 1990s. Both were great self-promoters, as is Sherman, while both also received much criticism.

Sherman is not the first black athlete to receive negative press about his actions, nor will he be the last, but if Sherman continues to perform on the field he will be remembered for his play just as much, if not more, than his words. He has apologized for being a distraction to his teammates and that he took away from the team win. Sherman also has called his attack on Crabtree “immature.”

“You know, I don’t mean to attack him,” Sherman said. “And that was immature and I probably shouldn’t have done that. I regret doing that.”

Say what you will about Sherman and his interview, or about his trash talking during games or his race, but one thing you cannot dispute is his skill level. He may personify typical stereotypes for black athletes being “loud” or “arrogant” at times, but the difference with Sherman and many others is that he performs on the field and is right about what he says about his play.

I agree with what Forbes writer Tommy Tomlinson wrote in his article, “22 Brief Thoughts About That Richard Sherman Interview,” when he wrote: “If you stick a microphone in a football player’s face seconds after he made a huge play to send his team to the Super Bowl, you shouldn’t be surprised if he’s a little amped up.”