UEFA Champions League
PSG BEAT BAYERN ON AWAY GOALS TO REACH CHAMPIONS LEAGUE SEMI-FINALS
Paris Saint-Germain knocked holders Bayern Munich out of the Champions League on Tuesday (April 13) despite Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting scoring against his old club, as a 1-0 defeat in the second leg at the Parc des Princes could not prevent the French giants from winning a tremendous quarter-final tie on away goals.
Neymar twice hit the woodwork for PSG in the first half and Choupo-Moting then put Bayern in front five minutes before the break.
But the reigning European champions could not get the second goal they needed after losing 3-2 at home in the first leg last week.
PSG have revenge following their 1-0 defeat in last season’s final in Lisbon, and the dream of winning a first European Cup remains alive for the Qatar-owned club.
Mauricio Pochettino’s team, who had already eliminated Barcelona in the last 16, can now look forward to a semi-final against Manchester City or Borussia Dortmund.
“I am delighted, despite the defeat. We were facing a great team, the European champions, but we are going back to the semi-finals,” Neymar told broadcaster RMC Sport.
“We are a real team. The most important thing is that we are through. Now we can aim for something even bigger.”
Bayern will have to console themselves with trying to win a ninth consecutive Bundesliga title, and will wonder what might have been had the prolific Robert Lewandowski, or Serge Gnabry, been available for the two legs of this tie.
The future of coach Hansi Flick will come back into focus, too, given his frosty relationship with the club’s sporting director, Hasan Salihamidzic.
“It is not because of tonight that we are eliminated,” said captain Manuel Neuer.
“We deserved our win here, but the result in Munich was not good enough.
“It is not all negative. We won the Club World Cup, we have a good chance to win the Bundesliga too, so in the end it will be a positive season.”
Bayern certainly played their part in an epic tie that will live long in the memory and deserved to be played before a full house both in Munich and here.
For all their injuries, their starting line-up was still impressive, and with Thomas Mueller leading from the front and co-ordinating their suffocating press, Bayern took the game to their hosts.
That suited PSG, who have produced their best performances this season away from home and could look to hit the Germans on the break with the devastating pace of Kylian Mbappe.
The Parisians, to be fair, were without two huge players of their own in captain Marquinhos and playmaker Marco Verratti, but they did have Mbappe and Neymar.
Neymar’s frustrating night
The Brazilian was left frustrated by a combination of Neuer and the frame of the goal in the first half.
Twice the Bayern goalkeeper saved from Neymar before the world’s most expensive player hit a superb shot off the angle of bar and far post in the 37th minute.
On 39 minutes another breakaway finished with Mbappe squaring to Neymar, who this time saw his effort strike the base of the post.
Bayern could have been dead and buried, but within a minute of that they were in front on the night.
Mueller set up David Alaba for a first-time shot that Keylor Navas saved. The ball looped up to Choupo-Moting and he headed in.
The Cameroon forward, who scored once in 10 Champions League appearances across two seasons at PSG, now had his second goal against his old club in this tie.
Bayern could have scored again before the break as a thunderous strike by Alaba was stopped by Navas, keeping PSG ahead on away goals.
A goal for the home side would have calmed the nerves as they looked to avoid another dramatic exit from the Champions League like so many before over the last decade.
Neymar stretched but just could not connect with Di Maria’s ball across goal at the start of the second half.
PSG lost left-back Abdou Diallo to injury and Bayern continued to push them back, looking for a crucial second goal.
Mbappe had an effort disallowed for offside, while another Bayern goal never arrived, and the final whistle was met with roars of delight from the home bench.
-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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