UEFA Champions League
HARSH LESSON FOR CHELSEA IN 3-0 CHAMPIONS LEAGUE HOME DEFEAT
Frank Lampard admitted Chelsea had undergone a serious reality check after two second-half goals in less than three minutes from Serge Gnabry and another from prolific Pole Robert Lewandowski earned Bayern Munich a thumping 3-0 victory at Chelsea in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie on Tuesday (Feb 25).
The German champions, clearly a class apart from their hosts, piled on the pressure from the start of the match and bossed Stamford Bridge with flair and 63 per cent possession.
“It was a really good result for us,” Bayern coach Hansi Flick said. “The team performed exactly how we planned and we were very focused how we played.”
It was a bad night for Chelsea, whose home form under Lampard has been suspect all season, and their misery was complete in the 83rd minute when wing back Marcos Alonso was sent off for violent conduct after he caught Lewandowski in the face with his arm.
For former Arsenal forward Gnabry, they were the fifth and sixth goals in London in the Champions League this season after he scored four in Bayern’s 7-2 demolition of Tottenham Hotspur in the group stage.
The first against Chelsea in the 51st minute involved a one-two between Gnabry and Lewandowski, who cut back from the edge of the area when Chelsea’s retreating defence expected him to shoot, leaving Gnabry with an easy finish from less than 10 metres.
Chelsea, run ragged most of the evening, had barely got their breath back when Lewandowski and Gnabry exchanged passes halfway down the pitch before Gnabry raced away to score.
A smiling Flick said he was very happy Gnabry was now plying his trade in Germany rather than England.
“I saw how he played at Arsenal and I followed his career intently,” Flick said. “You could tell what he could do for the first Champions League match I saw him… he really impressed me and with Bayern Munich he’s really developing well. So I’m very happy that he’s playing with us.”
Lewandowski, clearly also enjoying himself, got among the scorers in the 76th minute after a stirring run from Canadian fullback Alphonso Davies.
The Germans had also wasted a series of chances in the first half.
Thomas Mueller, one of three players who figured in Chelsea’s 2012 Champions League final victory over Bayern in Munich, went closest in the 35th minute when he thumped the bar with a header from another Lewandowski cross.
Tuesday’s win proved a measure of revenge for that unlikely Chelsea victory when Lampard captained the team in Munich and the English coach singled out Mueller as one of the players who had made the difference with his experience of the Champions League.
Mueller also had chances in the first minute and just before the half hour when his shot from 20 metres flew just wide.
Kingsley Coman looked dangerous down the right wing in a Bayern side that appeared to be always a metre ahead of Chelsea in speed and anticipation.
The home team had 38-year-old Argentine goalkeeper Willy Caballero to thank in the first half for keeping out Lewandowski, who has scored 11 goals in the competition so far this season, saving first with his face, then with his foot.
Lampard, who throughout his career relished Champions League football and played in two finals, said the result was sobering for his young team.
“That’s football at this level – the level of Bayern Munich. Unless we were getting everything bang on and right, we were not going to get a result and we didn’t get everything bang on,” he said. “It was a harsh lesson in the realities of Champions League football.”
Lampard, clearly disappointed in the performance of some of his side, said each member of the team had to look at how he could improve in the second leg in Munich on March 18.
“We have to go and play with pride and not consider the scoreline,” he said. “We have to show character.”
-Reuters
Spain’s LaLiga will be represented by at least five teams in the Champions League next season after Italy’s Lazio were eliminated from the Europa League on Thursday while Athletic Bilbao progressed to the semi-finals.
LaLiga earned the second of two European Performance Spots handed out by UEFA, which go to associations “with the best collective performance by their clubs” in UEFA competitions.
England’s Premier League was the first to secure an extra berth in Europe’s top competition, on top of the four granted to the top four teams in the domestic table.
Villarreal are fifth in the LaLiga standings, with 51 points from 30 matches.
They are three points ahead of sixth-placed Real Betis and eight in front of Celta Vigo and Mallorca, with all three clubs having played one more game than Villarreal.
-Reuters
Real Madrid’s record-breaking manager Carlo Ancelotti had no complaints after his side’s Champions League reign was ended in emphatic fashion by Arsenal in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Italian Ancelotti won a record-extending fifth Champions League trophy last season as Real beat Borussia Dortmund at Wembley, but his side went down 2-1 at home to Arsenal for a crushing 5-1 aggregate defeat.
“There are two sides to football, the happy part that has happened to us many times and the sad part we have to handle in the same way. It has happened to us fewer times than to other teams, but we have to manage it because it allows us to be better in the next games.”
When Real keeper Thibaut Courtois saved Bukayo Saka’s early penalty and minutes later Real were awarded a spot kick for a push by Declan Rice on Kylian Mbappe, it seemed that the great escape might still be a possibility.
But Real’s penalty was overturned after a lengthy VAR check, and in truth, they never looked remotely threatening as their bid for a 16th European Cup crown ended in feeble fashion.
“To change the dynamic, we needed something positive, like the penalty he whistled and then took off. We needed something to have more confidence, but we were not able to change the dynamic of the first leg,” Ancelotti said.
Despite the defeat, Ancelotti said Real’s season still has plenty of possibilities, not least trying to bridge a four-point gap to La Liga leaders Barcelona.
“Now we are in the fight for La Liga. We have a disadvantage, but we have the Barcelona game, we have the Copa del Rey final, the Club World Cup, and we have to manage this part, which is another part of football that we are not used to,” he said.
“It’s time to hold our heads high and learn from our mistakes. It’s sad today, but I have absolutely no worries about how my players will respond. We’ll fight on, we’ll learn from the experience, and we’ll try to be better for the next match.”
-Reuters
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Arsenal snuffed out any chance of a famous Real Madrid comeback to reach the Champions League semi-finals after a 2-1 victory in the Bernabeu Stadium completed a 5-1 aggregate win on Wednesday.
Holders and 15-time winners Real never looked like clawing back a 3-0 deficit from last week’s quarter-final first leg, and when Bukayo Saka scored for the visitors in the 65th minute, their fate was effectively sealed.
Vinicius Junior seized on a rare defensive slip a couple of minutes later to rouse the home crowd, but it proved too little too late as Carlo Ancelotti’s side exited feebly.
Arsenal’s superiority over the two legs was underlined in stoppage time as Gabriel Martinelli burst through to score.
They will face Paris St Germain in their first Champions League semi-final since 2009.
“I think it’s such a special night for this club, it’s a historic night for this club,” said Arsenal’s Declan Rice, whose two sublime free kicks put his side in control last week.
“There was a lot of talk coming in about them coming back from the dead, they’ve done it so many times before. But we had so much belief and confidence from that first leg that we had enough to come here and win the game.”
A cacophony of noise greeted kickoff with the home fans fuelled by the hope of witnessing what would have been one of the greatest Champions League comebacks.
But Real’s knack of extricating themselves from difficult positions in a competition they won six times in the previous 11 seasons deserted them as they were comprehensively outplayed.
“Did we fall short of what we wanted in pure football terms? Perhaps,” Real captain Lucas Vazquez said. “They really are terrifically organised defensively.”
PENALTY MISS
Real needed a storming start, and Mbappe had the ball in the Arsenal net in the opening minutes but was offside when chesting in a Vinicius cross.
Arsenal were in no mood to simply sit and protect their lead, though, and Saka forced a great save from Courtois. They were handed the chance to kill off the tie when Raul Asencio needlessly hauled down Mikel Merino from a corner, and referee Francois Letexier eventually awarded a penalty after checking a pitch-side VAR monitor.
Saka opted for a Panenka-style chipped penalty, and Courtois clawed away the ball.
It looked like a potentially pivotal moment, and when Letexier pointed to the penalty spot at the other end after Kylian Mbappe tumbled under minimal contact from Rice, Arsenal’s night looked like taking a turn for the worse.
After five painstaking minutes, however, Letexier was again invited by VAR to view the monitor and to a chorus of whistles from the home fans, overturned his original decision.
That scare aside, Arsenal coped easily with Real Madrid’s famed frontline who were given little to work with.
Arsenal keeper David Raya was not required to make a save before halftime as Real’s predilection for hopeful crosses into the area proved easy pickings for the visiting defence.
Real’s Mbappe barely had a sniff of a chance as Arsenal showed great control and Saka made up for his first-half miss with a clinical finish after being sent clear by Merino.
William Saliba gifted Real a lifeline when he was caught in possession on the edge of his area, allowing Vinicius to score, but there was never any sense of panic in the visiting ranks.
Martinelli put the icing on the cake in added time, again from a Merino assist, to send Arsenal’s fans into raptures.
-Reuters
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