UEFA Champions League
Amorim signs off in style to leave Sporting and Man Utd fans smiling
As Ruben Amorim was being hoisted into the air by his Sporting players after an outstanding 4-1 victory over Manchester City in the Champions League on Tuesday, fans of Manchester United would have had double reason to be smiling broadly.
Any City defeat these days acts as a crumb of comfort for the Old Trafford faithful whose club have fallen from grace since the departure of serial trophy winner Alex Ferguson in 2013.
But the fact that Sporting’s victory was masterminded by Amorim, the coach who will begin his Manchester United reign next week after agreeing to become Erik ten Hag’s replacement, will have made it extra special.
Amorim’s Sporting side were outplayed for the opening 35 minutes by City but showed great resolve, flair and intelligence to hit back from a goal down to sweep to victory and move into second place in the Champions League group phase.
It was a magical way for the 39-year-old to mark his final home game in charge and he will bid a final farewell at the weekend away to Braga as Sporting try to make it 11 wins from 11 in the Portuguese top flight.
“Looking at the game, it was written on the wall,” Amorim, who has won two Portuguese titles in four years at Sporting, told reporters. “The opponent missing a penalty. There are days when things have to happen in a certain way.
“I couldn’t ask for a better farewell. I’m very happy for this moment. It will still be better if we win in Braga, but I don’t think I could ask for better.
“The result helped with the farewell. Everyone deserved this moment. We were very happy here in the (Jose) Alvalade (Stadium). We’ve been through difficult times and to finish like this is special.”
Tuesday’s win would have already earned him some kudos among the Manchester United fans but he faces a huge test of his credentials with the club languishing in 13th place in the Premier League table after 10 games.
His first game in charge will be against Ipswich Town after the international break and he will be up against Pep Guardiola and Manchester City again in December. He knows the challenge will be a bigger one to that in Lisbon where he says he has enjoyed the “best phase of his life”.
“When I’m at the next club, the approach will have to be different. Not much is taken from here because we will have to play differently in the future,” he said.
“Both are historic clubs. It will certainly be a different game.”
Amorim has jokingly been referred to as the next Ferguson and if he turns out even half as good as the Scot then United’s long-suffering fans will be ecstatic.
He said he is not interested in comparisons though and vowed not to read the newspapers once he arrives in England.
“I’m certainly not going to read anything for six months. I did the same at Sporting. I’m not going to read anything or have access to anything. It’s the only way to do my job.” he said.
And on the future for Sporting, he said his replacement will inherit a strong foundation.
“The coach who comes will have a good legacy. Above all, there will be a structured club, which has won in recent years, and an intelligent audience that will realise that it will be necessary to give the next coach time to fine-tune some things.”
-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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