UEFA Champions League
GIROUD FIRES CHELSEA INTO CHAMPIONS LEAGUE LAST 16
Chelsea reached the last 16 of the Champions League on Tuesday (Nov 24) with two matches to spare after a late Olivier Giroud strike gave the Blues a 2-1 win over Rennes.
The France forward’s powerful header in stoppage time snatched the points for Frank Lampard’s side after Serhou Guirassy had levelled Callum Hudson-Odoi’s first-half opener.
Chelsea were joined in the next round by Group E rivals Sevilla after the Spanish side won 2-1 at Krasnodar.
Both sides are on 10 points, nine ahead of third-placed Krasnodar and will now do battle for first place come the end of the group stage.
Chelsea can concentrate on domestic duties, with Premier League leaders Tottenham Hotspur visiting Stamford Bridge at the weekend, thanks to out-of-favour Giroud, who has been tipped to leave in January as he seeks more regular football ahead of next summer’s European Championship.
“I have a problem because we have Tammy who’s playing well… I have two players in a similar position fighting for a place. That’s a good problem,” Lampard told British broadcaster BT Sport.
“Olly (Giroud) will get his minutes because we have a busy schedule, we’re playing every few days.” Chelsea started strongly and should have been ahead as early as the seventh minute, when Timo Werner flashed Hudson-Odoi’s low cross over the bar with the goal at his mercy.
Their early dominance was rewarded in the 22nd minute following superb play from Mason Mount, who won the ball near his own area before spotting the marauding Hudson-Odoi on the right.
Mount picked out his fellow Chelsea academy graduate with a long pass. The winger took two touches before slotting past Alfred Gomis.
England international Mount was unlucky not to double the away side’s lead eight minutes later when Gomis pulled off a superb save to keep out his close-range effort following a Ben Chilwell pull-back.
Goalkeeper Edouard Mendy had a quiet start to his return to the club from whom Chelsea signed him in the summer, but the hosts got a foothold in the contest after a rocky opening period.
James Lea Siliki shot over in the 32nd minute after the ball rebounded to him off Kurt Zouma. Rennes then began to cause Chelsea some problems.
Mendy showed the difference he has made to Chelsea with solid saves from Guirassy and Damien Da Silva towards the end of the opening period.
Chelsea thought they had added a second shortly after the break but Werner’s header was ruled offside and Rennes continued to pose them problems.
Mendy made the save of the night in the 73rd minute when he got his body in the way of a powerful Gerzino Nyamsi header, and then pounced to stop a goal on the rebound.
Rennes thought they had punished Chelsea with five minutes remaining when an unmarked Guirassy thumped a header past Mendy.
But Giroud pounced less than a minute into stoppage time after Gomis’ save from another Werner miss bounced up, allowing the Frenchman to head Chelsea into the last 16.
-AFP
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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