Chelsea FC forward Fernando Torres (9) warms up before an internationals friendly against AS Roma at RFK Stadium. Torres and the Blues will take on Atletico Madrid April 22 in the semifinals of the UEFA Champions League. (Chuck Myers/MCT Campus)

On April 11, the Union of European Football Associations held an early morning draw for the semi-finals of the Champions League. The group consisted of powerhouses Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Chelsea and relative newcomer in Atletico Madrid. Each won their respective quarter-final matches in some sort of drama, from Chelsea’s last-minute goal versus Paris Saint-Germain to Real Madrid barely holding their 3-0 lead against Borussia Dortmund.

There were some concerns that Atletico goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois might be forced to sit out the semi-finals if Atletico was paired up with Chelsea. He is on loan from Chelsea and there was some ambiguity of whether the terms of his loan contract allowed him to play.

Sure enough when the draw occurred, it paired Atletico with Chelsea and Real Madrid with Bayern Munich. Early reports surfaced that Atletico would have to pay Chelsea 6 million euros if they had elected to play the Belgian international. In no time, the UEFA issued a statement that invalidated any clause that would have prevented Courtois from playing in the semi-final. However, Atletico still runs the risk of upsetting Chelsea, which could in turn jeopardize their chances of obtaining Courtois on another loan contract.

Both teams enter the matchup with tremendous amounts of momentum. Atletico is coming off a dramatic win over their Catalonian rivals in Barcelona, while Chelsea came back from two goals down to stun French powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain.

The trouble for Chelsea in this matchup is Atletico’s staunch defense: the squad has allowed the fewest goals in Champions League play. Chelsea is bringing in an anemic attack, which now features wingers playing at the striker position. The big question for the Spanish side is whether goal scorer Diego Costa will come back in time for the first leg after he sustained a serious shin injury in league play April 13. If Atletico has any chances of advancing, they need to score goals at home because scoring at Chelsea’s home field, Stamford Bridge, has been near impossible this year for The Blues’opponents.

In the second matchup, Real Madrid hosts reigning champions Bayern Munich. These two powerhouses met in the 2012 semi-final, in which Bayern Munich won on penalties after center back Sergio Ramos kicked his crucial penalty out of the stadium. And the background doesn’t stop there —Bayern manager Pep Guardiola was nearly unbeatable against Real Madrid during his time with Barcelona, losing only twice in 15 battles.

If that wasn’t enough for Real Madrid, they’ll likely be playing the first leg without the services of superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. He suffered a hamstring injury in the first leg versus Borussia Dortmund and has been absent since. This is extremely crucial for Bayern, as injuries, suspensions and depth issues have made the back of their defense mightily suspect throughout the knockout stages and their recent German league games.

Heading into the clash, it seems that the teams are heading in opposite directions when it comes to momentum. Real Madrid has climbed back into the fray of the Spanish league La Liga after Barcelona lost a shocker against Granada, which put Real Madrid in a first-place tie with Atletico. Meanwhile, the Bayern have only claimed one point in three matches in league play, losing two straight games in the process. To add to the perceived complacency, they labored through an underachieving Manchester United team in the Champions League.

The first legs of the semi-finals begin April 22 with Atletico Madrid hosting Chelsea. Real Madrid will host Bayern Munich April 23.

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Freshman Lea Winkler prepares for a swing versus NJIT. The women’s tennis team won that match, 4-3, on Senior Day, but lost versus University of Delaware this past week, falling to 13-4 on the season. (Andrew Pellegrino)

In a mirrored reflection of last week’s games, the Drexel tennis teams split games April 12 at the University of Delaware. This time it was the men’s side claiming the slim 4-3 victory over the Blue Hens.

The Dragons got off to a great start in the doubles games, as they went on to win two of three matches, including one that saw juniors Badr Ouabdelmoumen and Dan Hansen thrash their opponents 8-2. The other win saw junior Dan Koehler and senior Skyler Davis escape with an 8-7 win.

Already up one point, the Dragons only needed to split the singles matches to pick up the overall win. They got off to a bad start when Ouabdelmoumen was dropped in a straight-set loss 6-4, 6-4. The win was put in further jeopardy when Davis lost 7-5, 0-6, 6-1. But those fears were alleviated when the team ran off three straight victories to get the win, highlighted by Koehler, who won in straight sets 6-3, 7-6.

After the game, head coach Mehdi Rhazali acknowledged just how crucial the doubles point was for the team.

“The doubles point was very important and we won that point, which helped us a lot,” Rhazali said. “Being ahead by one point took away the pressure, and we just had to stay focused and fight for every point in every court.”

With the win, the men pushed their record over .500 to 9-8.

The women’s side suffered its first loss in five matches, losing 5-2 to the Blue Hens.
The Dragons were swept in the doubles games, with two of the three ending in one-point losses. Sophomore Erin Bowsher and junior Nicole Pivonka lost 8-7, and the same result followed for freshman duo Fiorella Coria and Lea Winkler.

Senior Zeynep Mafa lost in three sets to kick off the singles games 7-5, 1-6, 6-2, and senior Marcela Rosales lost the second match in straight sets 6-2, 6-2.

Already down two points in the singles matches, Pivonka tried to ignite an improbable Drexel comeback when she won an exhausting three-set match, including a second set that saw the score reach a full count at 6-7.

However, Delaware stopped the comeback cold, as Bowsher lost in straight sets 6-2, 6-2. The loss only puts a small dent in the women’s impressive 13-4 regular-season record.

Both teams head to Virginia April 18 for the Colonial Athletic Association Championships, and Rhazali had positive messages for the teams heading into the championships.

“I basically tell them that we came this far and we need to finish strong,” the head coach said. “We have been having some good wins and some tough losses, but we learned from them and we are learning more as we go.

“The women are 13-4. This record doesn’t happen by luck; we worked hard to get this far, and we just have to stay focused and believe.

He continued, “The CAA Championships doesn’t happen every week; it’s once a year, and it’s a special tournament, and we are looking forward to playing great tennis there.”
The men’s team will take on James Madison University April 18 at noon. The Dragons lost the lone regular-season matchup 4-3. Meanwhile, the women will play the hosts, The College of William & Mary. This will be the first encounter against William & Mary for the women.

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A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. struck down the Open Internet Order, more popularly known as net neutrality, Jan. 14. Net neutrality basically stated that Internet service providers could not discriminate against web traffic whether it is slowing down certain sites or speeding them up. The court found that since the Federal Communications Commission had ISPs classified as an “information service,” a classification that comes with less regulatory power, they had overstepped their statutory power with the open Internet order. In a sense, they struck it down based on a technicality. If they wanted to, the FCC could in theory reclassify Internet service providers as utilities and then could enforce net neutrality rules.

At face value, this decision looks like the Internet will be doomed. Companies like Verizon and Comcast can now slow down services such as YouTube and Netflix and speed up their own video streaming services. They could implement fast lane Internet highway systems where companies that pay more would get their content delivered faster to their customers.

Sounds gloomy, doesn’t it? Well not when you actually look more in depth at the issue. If we were to accept the notion that ISPs should be regulated like utilities, we should also accept similar pricing models. Most pricing schemes for water, electricity and gas are metered. You pay for how much you use. If I were to leave the water running in all my bathrooms for 24 hours a day, should I pay the same flat rate as someone who only has the water running for a total of two hours a day? Of course not: I should be paying a heck of a lot more because I’m using more.

Similarly, when using broadband Internet, if my neighbors are slowing down the network by watching Netflix 18 hours a day and I’m just watching one episode of “Law & Order,” they should be charged more for eating up more bandwidth. This is not a violation of a free and open Internet; it’s simple economics.

If we implement the stronger net neutrality rules that advocates say we should, you would be out of luck if your speeds are being slowed down because half the neighborhood is watching YouTube at 1080p. All of a sudden, we’d have people up in arms over how they can’t browse simple web pages thanks to slower-than-advertised speeds. We don’t complain about metered water or electricity, so why should we complain about metered broadband service?

Now I know people worry, what if the motivation to slow down Netflix is to push their content sites? For example, let’s say Verizon wanted to slow down speeds for Netflix so their customers are forced to switch to Redbox (which they co-own). Unfortunately, there would be a massive consumer backlash that would soon be a public relations nightmare for Verizon. Case in point, we look what happened to AT&T when they didn’t extend Apple’s FaceTime service for their customers that still had unlimited data plans. It wasn’t the FCC that elbowed AT&T into changing their policy. Public pressure pushed AT&T into allowing customers with unlimited data to use FaceTime over their cellular network.

This goes the same if, say, Comcast tried to censor news articles. If there was a report that found that Comcast was throttling the speeds of customers trying to read anti-Comcast news articles, they would be met with tremendous pushback. And that’s the key into forcing ISPs to stay neutral whether it is content delivery speeds or censorship. If the public causes enough of an uproar, it can combat any threat of shady practices by ISPs. Remember, we are the same group of people who threw a huge fit over Instagram’s perceived intrusive privacy policy. This outrage was over a privacy policy change from a service that we use free of charge. It’s not going out on a limb to say we would be outraged against censorship over a service for which we shell out money, such as in the case for Internet service.

I believe that ISPs should stay neutral when it comes to content whether it is the speed of YouTube or allowing articles being critical of their business to flow without disruption. However, I am skeptical of the push for expanded regulatory power of the FCC, especially when the government has had a poor track record when it comes to the Internet (the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act). Not to mention we put ourselves in this predicament when local municipalities grant monopoly rights to Internet providers in exchange for them to absorb the infrastructure cost. These monopolies didn’t come out of nowhere. We created and enabled them.

FCC commissioner Thomas Wheeler seems poised to only look at net neutrality infractions at a case-by-case basis, which he should. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to net neutrality policy.

Nebi Mema is an accounting major at Drexel University. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.

Najee Goode of the Philadelphia Eagles celebrates sacking Robert Griffin III of the Washington Redskins in the first quarter on Nov. 17 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia Eagles are in the midst of a bye week, riding a three-game winning streak that has them tied for first place in the NFC East. After starting out 3-5 in the first half of the season and allowing over 24 points per game on defense, the Eagles have won three straight since, giving up just over 16 points per game in the process. The huge swing in the defense is a testament to how well defensive coordinator Billy Davis has progressed with his players.

A catalyst in this defense has been linebacker Connor Barwin and his league-leading seven batted-down passes at the line of scrimmage. He told Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, “When I don’t get to the quarterback, I just put my hands up. It was stressed in Houston where I came from, obviously. And I think with my basketball background, [Texans defensive coordinator] Wade Phillips always taught us to rush and see the quarterback.”

Now tied with the Dallas Cowboys for the division lead, the Eagles still have a few things they can iron out before going back out on the field Dec. 1 against the Arizona Cardinals. For two consecutive weeks we have seen questionable tactics from head coach Chip Kelly when it came to throwing out the challenge flags. There were at least two instances Nov. 17 against the Washington Redskins where Kelly would have won a challenge but opted not to throw the flag.

Kelly needs to iron out whatever technical difficulties or otherwise have been happening between him and his replay booth upstairs. But freshman political science student Shefit Koboci saw how it was the opposite when Andy Reid was in town. “Reid would challenge so many plays that left you frustrated because they were very bad challenges. Chip Kelly challenges no plays, [but] that leaves the same feeling.”

The Eagles also need to figure out their play calling. As crazy as it sounds with their torrential offensive pace, this needs to be addressed. In their win over Washington, the Eagles were shut out after putting up 24 points in the first 35 minutes. This is actually the second time this season that this has happened against Washington, the first being in week 1. They got lucky last week with a horrific backpedaling pass from Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III that landed in the hands of cornerback Brandon Boykin for a game-ending interception, but that luck might run out against teams with elite-level quarterbacks.

Whether it’s avoiding running up the score or the cautious approach to calling plays that would mitigate injury risk, Kelly needs to recognize that in his high-octane offense, he needs to run up the score. Koboci summarized that “Kelly just needs to imagine that he’s back in college and that hanging up a 60-spot on the other team every week means more BCS points.”

There’s also an issue of running back LeSean McCoy “dancing” in the backfield in hopes of avoiding tackles. While Eagles fans everywhere love it when McCoy jukes away from defenders and turns a five-yard loss into a four-yard gain, it still has a tendency to backfire and produce a massive loss. Average or bad defenses can be tricked by McCoy with his jukes in the backfield. But come playoff time, elite defenses like those of the Carolina Panthers or Seattle Seahawks will quickly snuff out his attempts to outmaneuver them.

Although the Eagles are on a high wave right now, they have real tests in the coming weeks against the Cardinals, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears and Cowboys. Most of the team’s wins this season have come against sub-.500 teams, with the one exception being the Aaron Rodgers-less Packers. Their only remaining opponent with a losing record is the Minnesota Vikings. So while we can celebrate the unexpected first-year success under Kelly, there is still work cut out for the Eagles, and this bye week provides an excellent opportunity for them to address some of the issues.

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