Tag: UEFA Champions League

PARIS: Bayern Munich got the better of Barcelona as Robert Lewandowski returned to face his former club on Tuesday, while a late Joel Matip goal allowed Liverpool to beat Ajax and get their Champions League campaign up and running.

There was also a surprise defeat for Tottenham Hotspur at Sporting Lisbon, and Atletico Madrid were beaten on their trip to play Bayer Leverkusen.

Both Spanish visitors to Germany came away on the losing side, with Barcelona going down 2-0 at the Allianz Arena in Group C as Lewandowski came back to the club he left in the summer after eight prolific seasons in Bavaria.

The Pole scored a hat-trick on his Champions League debut for Barca as the Catalans beat Viktoria Plzen 5-1 last week.

He was desperately close to opening the scoring in the first half in Munich, but it was Bayern who went in front five minutes into the second half when Lucas Hernandez headed in from a corner.

Leroy Sane burst through four minutes later to make it 2-0 as Julian Nagelsmann’s Bayern made it two wins out of two in the group.

They have now won their last five meetings with Barcelona, including two in last season’s group stage and their 8-2 victory in the 2020 quarter-finals.

“I think for ‘Lewy’ it was really an emotional game to come back — a little bit like coming home, because he was so successful here,” Bayern captain Manuel Neuer told Amazon Prime of his old teammate.

“The luck in the decisive moments wasn’t on his side — and that became our luck.”

Barcelona next face Inter Milan, who got their first points with a 2-0 win away to Plzen in the Czech Republic.

Edin Dzeko and Denzel Dumfries got the goals for Inter while the home side had Pavel Bucha sent off in the second half.

Matip the hero

Liverpool got off to a disastrous start in Group A when they lost 4-1 to Napoli in Italy, but they bounced back from that to beat Ajax 2-1 at Anfield.

Mohamed Salah shook off a poor run of form to put Jurgen Klopp’s side ahead in the 17th minute, only for the Dutch champions to equalise before the half-hour courtesy of an emphatic finish from their thrilling Ghanaian talent Mohammed Kudus.

Liverpool were heading for a third game without a win in all competitions until Matip rose in front of the Kop to head in from a corner in the 89th minute, the ball crossing the line before it could be cleared out.

“I think everybody could see that we understood and that we had to put a completely different shift into the game. The boys did that,” Klopp told BT Sport.

“We played a lot of good stuff against a hard fighting opposition.”

That match was preceded by a minute’s silence to mark the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

The other game in Group A, between Rangers and Napoli, was postponed until Wednesday due to severe limitations on police resources in Scotland as a result of the Queen’s death.

Spurs Shocked

Meanwhile Antonio Conte’s Spurs slumped to a 2-0 defeat against Sporting in Portugal in Group D, with the home side scoring both goals late on at the Jose Alvalade stadium.

It looked like the English side would escape with a point after Hugo Lloris produced a stunning late save to deny Pedro Porro.

But Paulinho headed in from the resulting 90th-minute corner, and Brazilian Arthur Gomes came off the bench to make it 2-0 with a superb solo strike in injury time.

“It was a difficult result. When you lose the game you are not happy,” admitted Conte.

Sporting top the group with six points, while Eintracht Frankfurt joined Spurs on three points thanks to a 1-0 win in Marseille, with Jesper Lindstrom scoring in the first half.

Leverkusen claimed their first points in Group B as they beat Atletico 2-0 with two late goals, Robert Andrich and Moussa Diaby both finding the net.

Belgian champions Club Brugge top the section with six points after a stunning 4-0 win at FC Porto.

Former Barcelona striker Ferran Jutgla opened the scoring with a penalty before Kamal Sowah, Andreas Skov Olsen and Norwegian teenager Antonio Nusa all netted in the second half.

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PARIS: Last season’s beaten finalists Liverpool got their Champions League campaign off to a disastrous start in a 4-1 defeat away to Napoli on Wednesday, while Robert Lewandowski hit a hat-trick in a big win for Barcelona.

Tottenham Hotspur and Bayern Munich also got their campaigns underway with victories, but Rangers were crushed 4-0 by Ajax in the Netherlands on their return to the group phase of Europe’s elite club competition.

Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool have won just two of their first six Premier League games this season and there was to be no improvement on their trip to Italy as Napoli raced into an early lead and never looked back.

Piotr Zielinski converted a fifth-minute penalty, and Victor Osimhen then had a second Napoli spot-kick saved by Alisson Becker.

Yet Napoli — who had defeated Liverpool in their own stadium in the group stage in 2018 and in 2019 — were 3-0 up at the break as Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa’s fine finish was followed by a tap-in from substitute Giovanni Simeone.

Liverpool fell further behind two minutes into the second half as Zielinski followed up to score after his initial effort was saved, but Luis Diaz did pull a goal back.

“We were miles too open. You can’t come to a place like this and not be compact. They were by miles the better team,” Liverpool left-back Andy Robertson told BT Sport.

“We have to wake up and quickly because we can’t perform like that.”

The six-time European Cup winners’ next Group A outing is at home to Ajax, who could have won by more than four at home to Rangers, last season’s Europa League finalists playing in the Champions League group stage for the first time since 2010.

Edson Alvarez headed Ajax in front before a Steven Berghuis shot deflected in and a superb individual strike from Mohammed Kudus made it 3-0 to Ajax by half-time.

Steven Bergwijn pounced on a poor backpass to seal the victory late on in Amsterdam, leaving Rangers manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst to give a bleak assessment of his side’s prospects.

“To compete in the Champions League you spend hundreds of millions, for us to compete it is too much to ask,” insisted the Dutchman.

Lewandowski became the first player to score a Champions League hat-trick for three different clubs as the ex-Borussia Dortmund and Bayern star marked his first appearance in the competition with Barcelona in style.

The Catalans crushed Czech champions Viktoria Plzen 5-1 in Group C, with Franck Kessie heading in the opener before Lewandowski made it 2-0.

Jan Sykora pulled one back only for Lewandowski to score again before half-time and then fire in his third goal midway through the second half.

The Pole now has 89 Champions League goals, three more than Karim Benzema, with only Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi ahead of him.

Ferran Torres scored the fifth for Barca, whose next game will be away to Lewandowski’s old side Bayern.

The Germans claimed an impressive 2-0 win away to Inter Milan on Wednesday, with Leroy Sane rounding Andre Onana for the first-half opener and then forcing Danilo D’Ambrosio into a 66th-minute own goal

Antonio Conte’s Tottenham struggled to break down Marseille in north London until the French side had Chancel Mbemba sent off just after half-time.

Richarlison scored the opener in the 76th minute, heading in Ivan Perisic’s cross, and the Brazilian headed in again soon after to make it 2-0.

“I think we felt a bit of pressure in this competition, but at the end we have to be pleased,” Conte said of the victory.

Also in Group D, Sporting Lisbon scored three second-half goals to win 3-0 at Eintracht Frankfurt, with former Spurs youngster Marcus Edwards, Francisco Trincao and Nuno Santos all on target.

In Group B, Antoine Griezmann headed the winner in the 11th minute of injury time as Atletico Madrid beat Porto 2-1.

In an incredible finish, Porto had Mehdi Taremi sent off late on before Mario Hermoso put Atletico ahead with a deflected 92nd-minute strike.

Hermoso then conceded a penalty for handball, allowing Matheus Uribe to equalise in the 96th minute, only for Griezmann to have the last laugh.

The only other game in Champions League history to feature three goals scored in stoppage time was Porto’s meeting with Atletico in December last year.

In the same group Abakar Sylla’s header was spilled over the line by the goalkeeper to give Club Brugge a 1-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen

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MADRID: Real Madrid overcome a 3-4 deficit in the first leg of the semi-final to stun Manchester City and booked the Champions League final against Liverpool.

In a high-octane clash between the two sides, the first half of the match featured some heavy striking and a lot of drama but yet no team could make the strike with City, still leading the scoreboard in terms of the aggregate.

City, which already had the aggregate in their favour, looked even more favourite to advance into the final when Riyad Mahrez made the first strike for the side in the 73rd and extended the lead to 5-3.

Madrid’s Rodrygo Silva de Goes made a timely 90th-minute strike to force the match into the extra time. The Brazilain footballer then scored his second goal within a minute to level the aggregate score.

In the 95th minute, Benzema rushed to a loose ball in the box but City’s defender Ruben Dias brought him down. He then opted to take the penalty by himself and converted it as the match-winning strike and a ticket to the Champions League final for his side.

Madrid will contest the second major final in the ongoing month as the La Liga 2022 champions will take on Liverpool on May 29 at Stade de France.

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LIVERPOOL: The home side Liverpool inched closer to the Champions League final following a comprehensive 2-0 victory over Villarreal in the first leg of the semi-final at the Anfield Stadium here on Thursday.

Two goals in two minutes undid Villarreal boss Unai Emery’s defensive game plan as Pervis Estupinan deflected Jordan Henderson’s cross into his own net before Sadio Mane slotted in a second.

The Reds remain on course for an unprecedented quadruple of Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup.

And barring a huge upset when the sides meet again in southern Spain in six days’ time, Liverpool’s season will finish with a third Champions League final in five seasons in Paris on May 28.

In stark contrast to the free-flowing thrills of Manchester City’s 4-3 win over Real Madrid in the other semi-final, on Tuesday, Emery’s men followed the same tactic that saw them past Juventus and Bayern Munich by retreating behind the ball.

However, the Yellow Submarine could barely lay a glove on Klopp’s men as Liverpool just had to bide their time to make their dominance count.

The two sides will come face to face again in the second leg of the semi-final on May 5, with Liverpool having the advantage of a better aggregate of 2-0.

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