French playmaker Franck Ribery ensured Bayern Munich exited the Champions League with at least some dignity as the German giants held Barcelona 1-1 in Tuesday’s quarter-final second-leg.
Having come to Munich with a virtually unassailable 4-0 advantage from the first-leg at the Camp Nou, Barcelona go through 5-1 on aggregate to book their semi-final show-down against Chelsea.
“We are pleased to be in the semi-finals, we still have a lot of games to get through before we can think of Chelsea,” said Barcelona coach Josep Guardiola.
PHOTO: AP
“They are a good side, but we need to go and look at the Bayern game first and look at how we played, there are areas to improve,” he said.
No side in the competition’s history had ever over-turned a four goal deficit and Bayern were always going to need a miracle to reach the last four.
Bayern coach Jurgen Klinsmann was booed by his own fans before kick-off, but this result, on the back of the weekend’s 4-0 win over Frankfurt in the German league, will have taken some of the pressure off the ex-Germany coach.
“We wanted an early goal, then anything could have been possible, but we have lacked the little bit of luck,” Klinsmann said. “The team gave a good account of themselves against one of the teams who are favorite to take the Champions League title.”
And the Bayern players could at least hold their heads high having matched the Catalans.
“We were much better in the personal duels, things were a bit more normal, and we played the way you need to against such a good team,” said Germany defender Philipp Lahm. “But unfortunately we have still lost the tie.”
Bayern Munich president Franz Beckenbauer — who was scathing after the first-leg debacle — said the Germans had gone some way to redemption.
“I think the team has rehabilitated itself, although Barcelona’s equalizing goal was needlessly conceded,” Beckenbauer said.
After going close in the first-half, Ribery finally unpicked the Barcelona defense on 47 minutes before Seydou Keita equalized for the Spanish with less than 20 minutes left.
No Spanish side has ever won the treble of league, Kings Cup and Champions League, but Barcelona are on course to take all three.
A fever removed one of Bayern’s chief tormentors from the second leg here as striker Thierry Henry succumbed to a high temperature, but Guardiola retained a three-prong attack with Andres Iniesta pushed further upfield.
Germany strikers Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose were both ruled out with calf and ankle injuries respectively leaving Italian World Cup winner Luca Toni as the lone forward with Ribery playing just behind him.
Gloria Gaynor’s hit I Will Survive echoed around Munich’s Allianz Arena before kick-off, but Bayern went one better than survival as they matched a Barcelona side who looked to believe the tie was already won.
Lionel Messi and Samuel Eto’o had both scored early goals in the first-leg to leave Bayern 2-0 down after 12 minutes, but it was the Germans who started brighter in Munich.
Both Ribery and Toni went close in the first-half, but both blasted their shots over the bar as it stayed 0-0 at the interval.
Immediately after the break a great pass from Ze Roberto split the Barca’s defense and Ribery skipped inside the penalty area before rifling his shot past goalkeeper Victor Valdes on 47 minutes.
It looked as though Bayern were heading for a win before Barcelona awoke from their slumber and showed their true class.
Iniesta and Eto’o combined in the Bayern penalty area and midfielder Xavi Hernandez pulled a pass back to Keita whose shot gave Butt no chance as it ended honors even.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS