UEFA Champions League
Chelsea blow bid for first place as Zenit snatch dramatic Champions League draw
Chelsea blew their chance to finish top of Champions League Group H as Magomed Ozdoev’s stoppage-time equaliser forced the holders to settle for a dramatic 3-3 draw at Zenit Saint Petersburg on Wednesday (Dec 8).
Thomas Tuchel’s side had already qualified for the last 16 and were hoping to take first place to theoretically secure an easier draw in the knockout stages.
They were just seconds away from achieving their aim when Ozdoev fired home to leave Chelsea two points behind group winners Juventus.
Werner had put Chelsea ahead after 84 seconds with his club’s fastest ever Champions League goal.
Claudinho equalised and Sardar Azmoun handed Zenit the lead before half-time.
Romelu Lukaku, making his first start since suffering an ankle injury against Malmo in October, equalised with his first goal in 11 club games since the Chelsea striker netted against Zenit in September.
Werner looked to have won it with five minutes left, but Ozdoev’s last-gasp goal added to Tuchel’s mounting problems.
After Chelsea’s damaging 3-2 defeat at West Ham knocked them off the top of the Premier League on Saturday, this was another setback for the Blues.
A long flight and temperatures well below zero made it a gruelling trip for a team already running on fumes and a return trip to Saint Petersburg for the Champions League final in May must seem a long way off for Tuchel’s spluttering team at present.
Chelsea will face one of Ajax, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or the winner of the Lille, Salzburg, Sevilla and Wolfsburg group in the last 16.
With N’Golo Kante still absent due to a knee injury, Jorginho unavailable because of a nagging back problem and Mateo Kovacic testing positive for the coronavirus this week, Chelsea’s midfield was in tatters.
Tuchel made eight changes from the West Ham game, with Edouard Mendy replaced by Kepa Arrizabalaga after the Chelsea keeper’s costly mistake against West Ham.
Sting in the tale
Reece James, in superb form at right wing-back this season, was deployed in central midfield as Tuchel looked for a solution to his problems in that area, but the defender was a fish out of water for much of the game.
Saul Niguez has endured a difficult start following his loan switch from Atletico Madrid, but the Chelsea midfielder finally provided a positive contribution in the second minute.
Making a lung-bursting run from his unfamiliar left wing-back role, Saul’s shot was pushed away for a corner by Zenit keeper Mikhail Kerzhakov.
From Ross Barkley’s resulting set-piece, Andreas Christensen flicked on to Werner and he had the simple task of poking home from virtually on the goal-line.
So often this season, Chelsea have taken the lead without killing the game off and once again they were caught out in the 38th minute.
After Chelsea failed to clear their lines, Douglas Santos’s cross found the visitors’ defence flat-footed and Claudinho took full advantage with a glancing header past Kepa.
There was worse to come for Chelsea three minutes later.
Barkley surrendered possession too easily in midfield and Malcom’s pass split the Chelsea defence, with Azmoun beating the flimsy offside trap and rounding Kepa before slotting into the empty net.
Chelsea were in disarray at the back and it took good saves from Kepa to repel Azmoun’s strike and then Malcom, who threatened with a curler in the second half.
Largely anonymous for the first hour, Lukaku grabbed Chelsea’s equaliser in the 62nd minute.
Werner ran onto Barkley’s pass and Lukaku was just onside as he converted the German’s pass from close range.
Chelsea kept plugging away and looked to have won it in the 85th minute when Werner took Christian Pulisic’s pass and drilled a low finish past Kerzhakov from 12 yards.
But there was a sting in the tale as Ozdoev lashed home from the edge of the area four minutes into stoppage time.
-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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