EUROPA League
LIKE NOW, 10 YEARS AGO, FOOTBALL FACED CRISIS
Though the current COVID-19 shutdown is unprecedented, football has had to contend with peculiar circumstances before, including 10 years ago when European air travel shut down in the aftermath of an Icelandic volcano.
Ten years ago, on April 14, Eyjafjallajokull erupted and propelled ash several miles into the atmosphere, making it dangerous to fly in case the debris got into aircraft engines.
Being a globalised game with plenty of international travel at the top level, football was forced to amend quickly, and its repercussions were significant.
By the time the dust had settled, metaphorically as well as literally, West Ham had completed an ownership change, Jose Mourinho had taken advantage of Barcelona’s two-day coach journey to Milan and Sam Allardyce was cursing his luck for missing out on Robert Lewandowski.
Match of the Day host Gary Lineker travelled more than a thousand miles over land and sea to present the programme having been in Madrid the night before.
‘It reminded me of my football days – once you’ve got a target and put your mind to it, nothing stands in your way,’ he said on his bleary-eyed arrival to the BBC studios.
Of course, the volcano had serious repercussions. Though some restrictions on flights were lifted within a fortnight, air travel wasn’t completely back to normal in England until the middle of May. Until then, the old-fashioned team coach returned to fashion to replace the charter plane.
The most prestigious fixtures to be affected were the first legs of the Champions League semi-finals. The holders Barcelona, at their peak under Pep Guardiola, had to travel 625 miles by coach to Milan to face Jose Mourinho’s Inter, the journey broke up by an overnight stay in Cannes.
Inter won 3-1 with Lionel Messi and Xavi subdued and understandably leggy after 14 hours on a bus. ‘Something should have been done not to give this advantage to the home team,’ complained Barca’s sporting director Txiki Begiristain, who now occupies the same position at Manchester City.
Inter went on to reach the final 3-2 on aggregate and in the other semi, Lyon also went out having had to travel 450 miles by road for their first leg against Bayern Munich.
In the Europa League, Liverpool had a 24-hour trip to Madrid for their semi-final against Atletico, travelling by rail to Bordeaux before being allowed to fly the rest of the way. They lost the tie on away goals though Fulham were able to reach the final despite a 570-mile road trip to Hamburg.
The most eye-catching sacrifice was made in another sport. Eventing rider Oliver Townend took a £1,600 taxi ride to Madrid in order to fly to America and compete in an event in Kentucky.
Though life returned to normal for most sports people relatively quickly – certainly compared to today’s crisis – there were some longer-term repercussions.
For West Ham’s Icelandic owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson – and his bald-headed consortium partner Eggert Magnusson – already reeling from the banking crisis in his country the previous year, the volcano was the final straw. He surrendered majority control of the club to David Sullivan and David Gold in May, having seen them buy 50 per cent of the club in January. After the ash cloud, Magnusson and Co disappeared like dust.
Up at Blackburn, Allardyce was foiled by flight cancellations. It scuppered his chance to meet Lewandowski, and up-and-coming striker with Lech Poznan.
‘I had watched him play, but didn’t get the chance to meet him. His agent said he couldn’t come over because of the ash cloud,’ said Allardyce. The centre-forward later moved to Borussia Dortmund and the rest is history.
More than 100,000 flights were cancelled in total by the eruption. Across the world, events were either cancelled – like the Japanese Moto GP – or disrupted, with several star runners unable to compete in the London Marathon.
Although European flights were affected worst, it had global knock-on effects with large swathes of European air space dangerous to use.
It was Newcastle United’s misfortune that, at the height of the problems on April 19, they were slated for the longest trip in domestic football, an away match at Plymouth.
Instead of flying as normal, Newcastle had to make the 916-mile round trip by road but won 2-0 to clinch the Championship title with goals from Andy Carroll and Wayne Routledge.
In this current climate, it’s a tiny reminder that better times can be around the corner.
-Daily Mail
Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim defended under-fire goalkeeper Andre Onana following the Cameroonian’s costly mistakes in his side’s 2-2 draw at Olympique Lyonnais in their Europa League quarter-final first leg on Thursday.
Onana allowed Thiago Almada’s free kick to squirm past him in the Groupama Stadium and was also at fault for Rayan Cherki’s last-gasp equaliser that denied United victory.
Since the start of last season, no Premier League club’s goalkeeper has made more errors leading to goals being conceded in all competitions than Onana.
“It can happen, if you play football, you play a lot of games, you can make mistakes,” Amorim said. “If you look at the season, I make more mistakes than them during these last games and these last months.
“The other thing is we have one more game to change everything and that should be our focus.
“The best thing is to look at the goals, all the actions that Andre had in the game, this is the best way to help any player, it’s to focus on the game, what happened, what we need to improve.”
United nonetheless remain unbeaten in this season’s Europa League — the only side to do so this term — after goals from Leny Yoro and Joshua Zirkzee put them on course for a potential victory.
The team, who are 13th in the English Premier League standings, still go into next week’s second leg in Manchester as favourites to book a spot in the last four.
“It was an entertaining game,” Amorim added. “We had some difficulty in the first half trying to press, because Lyon played in a different way. Then, in the middle of the first half and especially the second, we controlled the game.
“The second leg will be a different game. At home, our fans want us to press all the time.”
-Reuters
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Manchester United will be without defender Harry Maguire and midfielder Manuel Ugarte for Thursday’s Europa League last-16 clash with Real Sociedad, coach Ruben Amorim said, as he seeks to salvage an otherwise dire season.
The pair were left out of an already depleted squad after picking up injuries in last weekend’s penalty shootout defeat to Fulham that dumped them out of the FA Cup to compound the misery of lying 14th in the Premier League.
“We are being careful with them because at the moment we cannot afford to lose any more players for a long time,” Amorim told a press conference on Wednesday before the Europa League first leg game in Spain.
“We are taking care of them at Carrington (training ground) and they cannot play this game because it will be a greater risk.”
The coach, who joined United in November, stressed the importance of balancing youth development with the needs of the squad during a worsening injury crisis.
“I’m trying to cope with everything. When I do my squad, I’m trying to think about every aspect, of the formation of the (new) kids, of the squad and not if it will look really well with the fans and the media,” Amorim said.
Altay Bayindir, Tom Heaton, Jonny Evans, Kobbie Mainoo, Luke Shaw and Mason Mount remain on individual rehabilitation programmes.
Lisandro Martinez, who tore his anterior cruciate ligament, and Amad Diallo, who suffered an ankle ligament injury in training, are also sidelined.
-Reuters
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Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes scored a last-gasp winner to secure a 2-1 victory over Rangers in the Europa League group stage on Thursday and Tottenham Hotspur captain Son Heung-min struck twice in his team’s 3-2 win at Hoffenheim.
United climbed to fourth in the standings on 15 points going into the last round of matches, in a strong position to reach the knockout phase along with Spurs who are sixth with 14 points.
The English side broke the deadlock early in the second half when Rangers goalkeeper Jack Butland misjudged a Christian Eriksen corner, sending the ball into his own net.
Rangers fought back with an equaliser from substitute Cyril Dessers two minutes from time before Fernandes struck in added time to give United all three points.
In Germany, James Maddison opened the scoring for Spurs in the third minute and Son doubled the lead in a first half the visitors dominated.
Hoffenheim pulled one back in the 68th minute through Anton Stach’s counter-attack goal. Son restored Spurs’ two-goal lead in the 77th minute before the hosts’ David Mokwa scored to give his side late hope but the game ended in a narrow win for the English side.
Lazio stayed top of the standings with a commanding 3-1 home victory over Real Sociedad to become the first team to qualify for the round of 16.
Mario Gila struck after five minutes and when Sociedad’s Aihen Munoz was shown a second yellow card on the half-hour mark, Lazio immediately seized the advantage.
Mattia Zaccagni quickly doubled the lead and Taty Castellanos effectively ended the match with a third for the hosts. Ander Barrenetxea scored a late consolation goal for Sociedad.
Eintracht Frankfurt moved closer to securing a top-eight spot with a 2-0 home win over Hungarian side Ferencvaros thanks to second-half goals from Can Uzun and Hugo Ekitike. They are second in the standings with 16 points, three ahead of ninth-placed Galatasaray.
A late goal from Troy Parrott gave AZ Alkmaar a 1-0 home win over AS Roma and Olympiacos earned a 1-0 victory at Porto thanks to a late goal from Ayoub El Kaabi.
Dutch side Alkmaar can still reach the top eight with 11 points sitting in 14th place while Roma’s nine points place them 21st, close to the bottom of the playoff section.
Fenerbahce and Olympique Lyonnais played out an intense goalless draw in Istanbul, leaving the French side in a strong position to progress to fifth place in the group on 14 points.
-Reuters
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