UEFA Champions League
Pupil beats master as Chelsea’s Tuchel gets the better of Guardiola
A self-confessed admirer of Pep Guardiola, Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel got the better of his mentor as the Blues kept Manchester City waiting for Champions League glory by winning Saturday’s (May 29) final 1-0.
Victory in Porto rounded off a rollercoaster five months for the German, who was sacked by Paris Saint-Germain on Christmas Eve and handed the chance to revive Chelsea’s fortunes less than a month later.
Chelsea were languishing ninth in the Premier League table at the time with owner Roman Abramovich seeing little return on his £220 million (S$400 million) outlay on new players last summer under Frank Lampard.
Kai Havertz was the most expensive purchase of that splurge after his £71 million move from Bayer Leverkusen.
Getting the best out of Havertz was one of Tuchel’s major tasks and the 21-year-old came good on the biggest stage of all with the only goal three minutes before half-time.
Unlike Guardiola, Tuchel did not have a glittering playing career. A series of knee injuries forced him to retire at 25 and take up a job as a waiter, while he began his coaching career in the youth ranks of Stuttgart.
From afar he watched and was inspired as Guardiola won 14 trophies in four years at Barcelona before joining him in Germany where they battled for Bundesliga supremacy in charge of Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich.
During Tuchel’s first meeting with Guardiola the two football obsessives talked long into the night using glasses and salt and pepper shakers to mimic formations.
“It’s easier to demonstrate a position or defending a position or building some gaps you can play through, and it’s easier to do this when you have some glasses and salt and pepper on the table,” Tuchel said this week.
“I was such a huge admirer of Pep when he was a player and then when he became a coach it was like learning on the job for me. I was an academy coach and then in the Bundesliga with Mainz, but I don’t think I missed a game because there was so much to learn.
“There was a lot of tactical talking and discussions and it was so interesting to hear his beliefs, his self-confidence and also the doubts in what he’s doing.”
The Catalan’s confidence will be shaken when he comes face-to-face with Tuchel again in the Premier League next season.
-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
Join the Sports Village Square channel on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Vaz7mEIGk1FxU8YIXb0H
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
Join the Sports Village Square channel on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Vaz7mEIGk1FxU8YIXb0H
Morocco 2025: Nigeria qualify for FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup
NFF ‘shocked and saddened’ by the demise of former NRA President, Otunba Tade Azeez
Heartbreak for Al Ahly as Sundowns edge to CAF Champions League final on away goals rule
- WOMEN'S FOOTBALL7 days ago
Naira rain falls on Nigeria’s Flamingos after a 4-0 defeat of Algeria
- OBITUARY4 days ago
NFF mourns the demise of former FIFA referee, Bosede Momoh
- Nigerian Football2 days ago
Financial rainfall awaits Nigeria’s Flamingos for every goal scored in Algeria
- U-17 AFCON7 days ago
Morocco crowned CAF U-17 AFCON champions after dramatic penalty shootout win over Mali
- U-20 FOOTBALL6 days ago
Nigeria begin CAF Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations title chase with Tunisian clash
- feature4 days ago
Ghana’s Cardinal, Appiah Turkson, listed as a possible Pope
- Nigerian Football6 days ago
Remo Stars maintain ‘7Up’ lead over Rivers United
- Nigerian Football2 days ago
Former WAFU President, Ogufere mourns Christian Chukwu