Goal Zone: February 2014

Friday, February 28, 2014

UEFA Europa League round of 32 second leg Round Up

UEFA Europa League round of 32 second leg Round Up ; Napoli sink Swansea,as FC Porto go through in dramatic fashion

Napoli ended Swansea City's adventure in the Europa League on Thursday with a decisive 3-1 win in the second leg of their round of 32 tie, while there were goals aplenty elsewhere.

Swansea travelled to southern Italy hoping that their failure to find a breakthrough in last week's goalless first leg would not ultimately cost them.

The Serie A side took the lead 17 minutes in at the San Paolo stadium when Lorenzo Insigne cutely lifted the ball over Michel Vorm in the away goal.

However, Garry Monk's men hit back to grab a crucial away goal on the half-hour mark, Jonathan De Guzman's low strike from the edge of the box beating Napoli 'keeper Pepe Reina.

For a long time it looked as if Swansea would progress on away goals, but Gonzalo Higuain took advantage of a lucky ricochet in the box to put the hosts back in front 12 minutes from time, and Gokhan Inler made sure of Napoli's progress in stoppage time.

Napoli will now face 2011 Europa League winners Porto in the round of 16, after the Portuguese club won a remarkable tie against Eintracht Frankfurt of the Bundesliga.

Following a 2-2 draw in last week's first leg, Eintracht looked to be going through thanks to goals from Stefan Aigner and Alexander Meier either side of the interval.

A double from Porto's France international defender Eliaquim Mangala silenced the crowd of close to 50,000 in the Commerzbank Arena, only for Meier to put the hosts back in front.

But Nabil Ghilas netted four minutes from time to make it 3-3 on the night and take Porto through on away goals, the result easing the pressure on coach Paulo Fonseca.

Sevilla, who are eighth in La Liga, beat Maribor of Slovenia 2-1 on the night to go through 4-3 on aggregate, while Betis, the Spanish top flight's bottom club, were impressive 2-0 winners away to Rubin Kazan in Russia, advancing 3-1 overall,to set up a mouth-watering prospect of a derby clash between city rivals Sevilla and Real Betis in the round of 16 .

The 2009 UEFA Cup winners Shakhtar Donetsk were eliminated by Viktoria Pilsen of the Czech Republic and will face Lyon in France,as Ajax fell by the wayside too, going down 6-1 on aggregate to Salzburg, who will next face Basel of Switzerland.

Tottenham Hotspur are through to the last 16 of the Europa League after a dramatic recovery saw them get the better of ten-man Dnipro at White Hart Lane on Thursday.

After losing 1-0 in the first leg of the round of 32 tie in Ukraine last week, Spurs looked to be heading out of the tournament when Roman Zozulya headed in a delivery from visiting captain Ruslan Rotan two minutes into the second half.

That left the Premier League club needing to score three unanswered goals to go through, but a Christian Eriksen free-kick reduced the deficit on 55 minutes before Zozulya was shown a straight red card by the French referee following a headbutt on Jan Vertonghen.

Spurs made the most of their man advantage as Emmanuel Adebayor struck twice in the space of four minutes to seal a 3-1 win on the night and go through 3-2 on aggregate.

The Togolese forward later told ITV that he was never worried about his team's situation, saying: "Not at all. I know we have quality up front.

"We just kept our focus very well and scored that good free-kick that put us on our way. I managed to get two goals for the team and we're very happy."

Tim Sherwood's side will now face last season's beaten finalists Benfica, who saw off PAOK of Greece, and they will do so as the only Premier League side left in the tournament after Swansea City went down 3-1 to Napoli in Italy.

Elsewhere, there will be a mouth-watering all-Italian tie between Juventus and Fiorentina after they eased past Trabzonspor and Esbjerg respectively.The Bianconeri, looking to reach the final at their very own stadium, made light work of Trabzonspor AŞ while their Serie A counterparts saw off Esbjerg fB.

FC Anji Makhachkala, also advanced after defeating KRC Genk. They now face AZ Alkmaar

Quickest out of the blocks were SS Lazio, who went in front at PFC Ludogorets Razgrad through Keita Baldé's strike after just 16.88 seconds – the second-fastest goal in this competition's history. Ludogorets bounced back, however, and will next come up against Valencia CF

UEFA Europa League - Round of 32 Second leg results

Rubin Kazan 0 - 2 Real Betis (Agg 1-3)

Basel 3 - 0 Maccabi Tel Aviv (Agg 3-0)

Frankfurt 3 - 3 a* FC Porto (Agg 5-5)

PFC Ludogorets Razgrad 3 - 3 Lazio (Agg 4-3)

SSC Napoli 3 - 1Swansea City (Agg 3-1)

Salzburg 3 - 1Ajax (Agg 6-1)

Sevilla 2 - 1 Maribor (Agg 4-3)

Shakhtar Donetsk 1 - 2 Viktoria Plzen (Agg 2-3)

AZ Alkmaar 1 - 1 Liberec (Agg 2-1)

Benfica 3 - 0 PAOK Thessaloniki FC (Agg 4-0)

Fiorentina 1 - 1 Esbjerg fB (Agg 4-2)

Genk 0 - 2 Anzhi Makhachkala (Agg 0-2)

Lyon 1 - 0 Chornomorets O. (Agg 1-0)

Tottenham Hotspur 3 - 1 Dnipro (Agg 3-2)

Trabzonspor 0 - 2 Juventus (Agg4-0)

Valencia 0 - 0 Dynamo Kyiv (Agg 2-0)

UEFA Europa League Round of 16 draw (13 & 20 March)

AZ Alkmaar (NED) v FC Anji Makhachkala (RUS)

PFC Ludogorets Razgrad (BUL) v Valencia CF (ESP)

FC Porto (POR) v SSC Napoli (ITA)

Olympique Lyonnais (FRA) v FC Viktoria Plzeň (CZE)

Sevilla FC (ESP) v Real Betis Balompié (ESP)

Tottenham Hotspur FC (ENG) v SL Benfica (POR)

FC Basel 1893 (SUI) v FC Salzburg (AUT)

Juventus (ITA) v ACF Fiorentina (ITA)

Road to Turin 2014

Quarter-finals: Draw 21 March, matches 3 & 10 April

Semi-finals: Draw 11 April, matches 24 April & 1 May

Final: Wednesday 14 May, Juventus Stadium

SCHALKE 04 1-6 REAL MADRID ; Ronaldo,Bale and Benzema get 2 each,as Real destroy Schalke in Germany

Gareth Bale put in his best performance for Real Madrid, said manager Carlo Ancelotti.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema scored twice each as rampant Real Madrid ripped Schalke apart in the first leg of the last-16 Champions League tie.

Benzema and Bale quickly put Real in control as the La Liga side raced into a 2-0 lead at the Stadion Gelsenkirchen and Ronaldo also hit the post before the break.

Ronaldo increased the lead with his 10th goal of the competition before setting up Benzema for the fourth with a delightful flick five minutes later.

Bale added the fifth and Ronaldo rounded off the rout before Klaas-Jan Huntelaar pulled one back in stoppage time as Schalke slumped to their heaviest defeat in European competition.

"We made too many simple mistakes," the Schalke coach, Jens Keller, said, his tie undone and his hair flopping to one side. "We should have equalised but it was just mistake after mistake.

"We were brave for the first 12 minutes, then they scored and then they got a second goal after a huge mistake by us. I have a young team who wanted to go forward but we should have been tighter."

Schalke, backed by a fervent crowd, began brightly and nearly went ahead went Benedikt Höwedes headed wide from 12 metres in the first minute.

Real quickly showed their class as Benzema fired home after Ronaldo's attempted backheel slipped through Felipe Santana's legs.

Gareth Bale celebrates after scoring. Photograph: Dennis Grombkowski/Bongarts/Getty Images

Schalke's Julian Draxler was denied at point blank-range by Iker Casillas but the Bundesliga team's hopes were effectively killed off after another Santana mishap set up Bale, who squeezed between two defenders to score the second.

Ronaldo hit the inside of the post and saw another shot blocked by Ralf Fährmann before the break as Schalke lost their shape. The Portuguese, clearly frustrated by those misses, got on the scoresheet when he slipped past Joël Matip on the outside and fired past Fährmann.

Schalke were by now in tatters and offered little resistance as Benzema combined with Ronaldo to add the fourth and Sergio Ramos sent Bale clear for the fifth.

An utterly embarrassing evening for the hosts was completed with Ronaldo's second, when he ran on to Benzema's through-ball and rounded the keeper to score as Real equalled their best away result in the Champions League.

Huntelaar's consolation goal hardly makes the task facing Schalke just to save face at the Bernabéu any easier.

"I'm satisfied with everything because that was the perfect game," said the Real Madrid manager, Carlo Ancelotti. "My players played with togetherness and they played well. Everything came off for us."

GALATASARAY 1-1 CHELSEA ; Mourinho's men break English jinx in Turkey

This tie lacks the dread that will accompany the other three English clubs going into their respective return legs and Chelsea have retained a sense of authority with Stamford Bridge to come. But events in Istanbul probably exposed their challenge for what it is. José Mourinho publicly considers his team outsiders to win this competition and, in failing to kill off Galatasaray at the first attempt, his players probably proved him right.

Profligacy, not for the first time this season, cost them on the banks of the Bosphorus and a tie that should have been settled early remains on edge. Aurelien Chedjou's equaliser just after the hour, bundled in at a corner as Chelsea's defence momentarily froze in the face of the first real hint of concerted home pressure, has offered the Turks unlikely hope.

Chelsea may have departed with a draw, the like of which Manchester City, Arsenal and Manchester United could only dream of, but this still seemed like a missed opportunity.

The worry is that it also had a familiar ring. The wastefulness conjured up memories of The Hawthorns earlier this month or the Britannia stadium in December. West Bromwich Albion and Stoke City had rallied to recover points from those games and Chelsea have had near-misses in other games where dominance did not yield a healthy advantage. Gala should have been buried in the opening exchanges, so open and vulnerable were they as the visitors poured through their ranks on the break, but they were able to revive themselves once the Chelsea boot had been removed from their throat. John Obi Mikel and Samuel Eto'o even had to be summoned from the bench in the latter stages to help Chelsea cling on to what they had.

Chedjou's volley from close-range had whipped the locals into a frenzy, the centre-half untracked at a corner with Gary Cahill distracted by Didier Drogba and indecision gripping John Terry and, for once, Petr Cech. Seconds earlier Chelsea had creaked just as alarmingly when Drogba was allowed to nod down and across goal, where Selciuk Inan darted in at the far post and prodded on to the woodwork from a yard out.

In that respect Chelsea could be grateful for a draw, with Cech denying Emmanuel Eboué and Alex Telles before the end, and the rather frenzied finale suggested that the momentum was all Turkish. "After our second half, the players probably understand we can go through," said Roberto Mancini. "It will be difficult but that second half was really important for us."

Galatasaray's late injection of hope was deceptive, however. Chelsea need only remind themselves of how comfortable they had been for the first hour to give themselves heart. A certain trepidation had prompted Hakan Balta and Chedjou to push far too high up the pitch early on, leaving tantalisingly wide open spaces at their back. With Eboué and Telles also too eager to gallop upfield, almost blindly at times, Chelsea could nick possession deep and spring at will. Headed clearances by their centre-halves suddenly became penetrative through-balls, and the visiting trio of creative midfielders relished the regular opportunities to burst into space on the counter.

Mourinho's selection had made that possible, the decision to pick Fernando Torres for a first start since 11 January justified by his slippery running where Eto'o might not have prospered so readily. André Schürrle, too, appeared fresh and eager on only his second start since New Year's Day. Eboué had been hopelessly out of position when the German collected from César Azpilicueta nine minutes in and, having glided into the Turkish half, liberated the marauding full-back inside his marker. The Spaniard charged towards the byline and drew out Fernando Muslera before pulling back for Torres to convert first-time into a gaping net. It was his sixth goal in his last five Champions League starts and a reminder that this team do have striking options.

It still felt like a novelty given the scoreless performances endured by the other English clubs in their respective first leg defeats. Indeed, it was the first goal scored by a Premier League club in any European competition since 12 December, when Roberto Soldado scored against Anzhi Makhachkala. But Chelsea should have had others. Willian might have capitalised on Muslera's scuffed clearance but saw his lob deflected over the bar by the goalkeeper's leap and header. Ramires, too, should have scored but lifted a shot from Schürrle's pull-back high and wide. Then an Eden Hazard pass sent Torres beyond Chedjou and the substitute Semih Kaya but his low shot was turned aside by Muslera.

That save seemed to increase in significance, given that it would have been hard to envisage Galatasaray coming back from two goals down. A draw, therefore, was frustrating and Mourinho wore that seen-it-all-before expression through his post-match duties. He warned that an awkward second leg awaits next month, yet Chelsea remain the most likely of the English contingent still in this competition to progress into the last eight. Whether they can progress much further while still letting opponents off the hook remains to be seen.,

GALATASARAY VS CHELSEA PREVIEW ; Blues look to avoid England jinx in turkey

'Welcome to Hell', read the infamous banner that greeted Manchester United on their arrival at Galatasaray's Ali Sami Yen stadium in 1993. 21 years have passed, and the Turkish giants have since moved stadiums, but on the week that Chelsea make the trip to Istanbul, Galatasaray fans showed that their British opposition could well face a hell of their own.

Seven kilometres north of their old home lies the Turk Telekom Arena, a shiny 21 century stadium built for the modern game. Long gone are the days of fire and fury, of the fans in yellow and red breathing down the necks of the players on the field in front of them. Although the stadium is less conducive to the element of fear, the fans have changed very little.

Chelsea travel to the Turkish capital off the back of a fairly routine win against Everton. They left it late, but there was nothing particularly memorable about the day. Galatasaray, on the other hand, were embroiled in a frightening battle both on and off the field, with their local rivals Beskitas. Supporters clashed before the game, with fans throwing chairs and punches in equal measure on the streets of Istanbul, before Galatasaray eventually came through unscathed and with three hard-fought points.

That is not to say Chelsea fans will be subjected to the same treatment off-the-field on Wednesday night – the Galatasaray - Besiktas rivalry is a fierce one that goes back to the 1920s – but on it Jose Mourinho's men face stiff competition, in part from an old friend.

Didier Drogba scored 100 goals for Chelsea in an extremely successful eight years in West London. Now though, he will be facing his former club for the first time, and has already scored eight times this season for Galatasaray. They sit second in the Turkish Süper Lig, but have finished champions in their first two seasons at the TT Arena. They have reached the knock-out stages of the Champions League for a second year running too – another unprecedented achievement, as Roberto Mancini stamps his mark on Turkish football.

Chelsea are back under the stewardship of Jose Mourinho, who will want to complete his collection with a Champions League trophy at Stamford Bridge. He has won the rest – Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup, Community Shield – but the Champions League still eludes Mourinho's grasp. He has achieved it at both Porto and Inter Milan, but not yet in West London. Chelsea are also sitting pretty at the top of the Premier League, without a loss since December 7, so will be high in confidence.

In the previous round of competition, Chelsea came through in much simpler circumstances than that of their Turkish counterparts. Qualification to the knock-out stages was completed with a game to spare for the English side, whereas Galatasaray had to fight past Juventus in their final match – an 85 minute Wesley Sneijder goal knocked out their opposition and sent them through.

PAST MEETINGS ;

Galatasaray 0 Chelsea 5 (Flo 2, Zola, Wise, Ambrosetti), Champions League, October 1999

Chelsea 1 (Petrescu) Galatasaray 0, Champions League, September 1999

STATS ;

Neither team has relied on one player to score their Champions League goals this season. Galatasaray's top scorer Umut Bulut has three goals, and Chelsea's Samuel Eto'o has two.

Chelsea were the last British team to beat Galatasaray in Istanbul, a 0-5 win in 1999. Since then, the Turkish side have won three, and drawn one against English sides.

Didier Drogba's final kick for Chelsea secured them the Champions League title in May 2012. He will be facing them for the first time on Wednesday night.

Jose Mourinho masterminded Chelsea's only round of 16 defeat between 2006/07 and 2011/12, as coach of Inter Milan in 2009/10.

KICK-OFF ; WEDNESDAY, 20:45HRS

Eto'o furious with Mourinho over comments

Samuel Eto'o furious with Jose Mourinho,after Chelsea manager's comments about his age

Samuel Eto'o has reacted angrily to Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho dismissing him as a striker and questioning his age.

The 32-year-old spoke to former Cameroon coach Claude Le Roy after the row over Mourinho's Canal+ comments flared and made it clear he had not been placated.

"I had him on the phone just before I came on screen, and he's very annoyed," Le Roy, who has coached Cameroon twice during a long coaching career in Africa, told the Canal+ show Talents d'Afrique.

"Actually, Mourinho went to see him before he saw the pictures and told him to not believe everything that was going to be said. And that he had said nothing about him. But I can tell you that Samuel didn't like it."

Mourinho was filmed in conversation saying that his team lack a striker, despite having Eto'o, Fernando Torres and Demba Ba at his disposal. He was also heard to say of the Cameroon striker: "He is 32 years old, maybe 35, who knows?"

The manager has been on the back foot ever since, trying to reassure Eto'o that his comments were only meant jokingly and made in a private conversation.

But Mourinho's attempt to shift the blame on to Canal+, insisting the broadcaster should be ashamed of airing footage of a private conversation on its website, has also brought an angry response.

"These are not stolen images," a spokeman for the French TV station said. "The camera wasn't 10 metres away, it's not on zoom.

"You could see the red light and he was clearly aware he was being filmed, especially as he's someone who comes across cameras so often and who is used to the media.

"Mourinho perhaps did not want to fully assume what he had said. He could have come and seen the journalist and asked us not to use the images. He did not make any special request."

ZENIT ST PETERSBURG 2-4 BORUSSIA DORTMUND ; Lewandowski fire BVB past Russian test

Robert Lewandowski scored twice as Borussia Dortmund took a big step towards the Champions League quarter-finals with a commanding victory at Zenit St Petersburg on Tuesday.

Dortmund, losing finalists to Bayern Munich at Wembley last year, made a blistering start with Henrikh Mkhitaryan scoring in the fourth minute and Marco Reus doubling the lead a minute later.

Zenit, who had not played a competitive game since 11 December due to the Russian winter break, looked suitably rusty, but they pulled one back through Oleg Shatov in the 57th minute.

Lewandowski replied four minutes later after playing a pleasing one-two with his Poland team-mate Lukasz Piszczek. Then Piszczek conceded a penalty and Hulk scored emphatically from the spot after 69 minutes.

Again Lewandowski responded, this time scoring his side's fourth away goal two minutes later to leave Dortmund firmly in control for the second-leg of the round-of-16 tie on 19 March.

"We were close to optimal this evening," said the Dortmund coach Jürgen Klopp. "It was a great game, no question."

After more than two months without competitive football, the home side buckled early on under Dortmund's pressure and struggled to keep up with their quick passing game.

The pressing tactics quickly paid off for the visiting side when Reus ran at the Zenit defence, staying on his feet when he might have been awarded a penalty, before Mkhitaryan swept the loose ball past Yuri Lodygin.

The visiting fans were still celebrating when Kevin Grosskreutz knocked Mkhitaryan's cross back for Reus to volley inside the right-hand post.

"We stayed compact. We wanted to pressure them to win back the ball. That was very important," said the Dortmund captain Sebastian Kehl. "We brought the game in the right direction and made Zenit uncertain."

Zenit's attacking midfielder Andrey Arshavin went off with what looked like a hamstring injury in the 15th minute, and although last-gasp defending from their captain Nicolas Lombaerts helped prevent Lewandowski from running amok on several occasions, Zenit were generally let down by nervous defending throughout the game. And Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, who came on for Arshavin, was often guilty of giving the ball away cheaply in dangerous areas of the field.

Luciano Spalletti, Zenit's coach, said the tie is not yet decided and that his side still have a chance of going through. "In football there's always a chance of coming back," the Italian said.

"Everything depends on what kind of performance you deliver. It all depends on what you put into it and how much you're prepared to run. It all depends on your effort."

The first leg was played with the section normally occupied by Zenit's ultra fans closed as punishment for a mixture of racist behaviour, throwing of fireworks and crowd disturbances during a group stage loss at Austria Vienna in December. As a result the attendance was only 16,000.

There was also tight security in place around all areas of the Petrovsky Stadium to prevent any further trouble on the night.

OLYMPIAKOS 2-0 MANCHESTER UNITED ; Slumpy Red Devils dis-United in Athens

In a season of lows this is surely a nadir from which Manchester United now have to recover. To lose away to Olympiakos, the Greek champions of a league some way below the standard of England's top flight, in the easiest of last-16 draws, will cause the most serious postmortem yet.

What is alarming for David Moyes is that United never looked close to scoring. Even towards the end, when Chris Smalling put Robin van Persie in for a clear sight of goal, the usually lethal Dutchman fired over.

Moyes continues to grasp for answers to the big question of why a team that won the title by 11 points last season is so far off the pace this year. While the goals from Alejandro Domínguez and Joel Campbell have not yet knocked United out of the Champions League, whether the manager can get the response of winning by three goals in the second leg at Old Trafford on 19 March has to be in serious doubt.

The players had walked out to the deafening sound of a sold-out Karaiskakis Stadium for an occasion the excited locals were billing as their match of the year. Moyes took a belt-and-braces approach to selection.

With Juan Mata ineligible, he eschewed the more creative talents of Adnan Januzaj, who was not in the match-day squad despite starting in the win at Crystal Palace last weekend, and Shinji Kagawa – named on the bench – for the steadier Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young, either side of Wayne Rooney.

Moyes did retain Rio Ferdinand alongside Nemanja Vidic at centre-back and with Patrice Evra and Smalling also selected, United had the same back four from that visit to Selhurst Park.

As might have been expected, Olympiakos had the early play. Evra was booked for deliberate handball when challenging Campbell, the forward loaned to Olympiakos by Arsenal. While the resulting free-kick amounted to nothing, moments later Vidic's intervention was required to clear lines after successive mistakes from Smalling and Ferdinand.

It was the captain who also made a fine last-ditch tackle on Domínguez after the Argentinian playmaker ran at a visiting defence that parted too easily – an event that was repeated throughout.

All of this indicated how Moyes's team were finding it hard to settle. Indeed, the first half was nearly 20 minutes old before United managed to string a few passes together, though when space was finally fashioned for Valencia the winger's delivery was nowhere near the waiting Rooney.

Most of the play was coming at the other end, with Domínguez finding gaps through which the No10 delighted in slipping through. From one such opening he drove Olympiakos forward and when the ball came to Hernán Pérez he cut inside Smalling and let fly with an effort that missed narrowly. Once more the faultline in United's play was proving to be an inability to control midfield and therefore the contest.

The manner in which Young gave away the ball when a simple pass forward was on midway through the period was illustrative of a problem that has plagued this side all season. It meant Van Persie and Rooney were starved of service, which forced the latter back to pick up play to try to do the job of his midfield.

If the sight of the striker passing straight out of touch was dismal, what happened on 38 minutes was crushing for United. When Giannis Maniatis, the home captain, took aim from 25 yards, it looked speculative. But the dire luck Moyes has attracted all campaign continued as the shot went into a crowd of players in the area and Domínguez fashioned a neat flick to wrong-foot David de Gea and that was 1-0.

The closest United came to an equaliser before the interval derived from a Rooney free-kick. When it was swung in Kostas Manolas's header nearly beat Roberto, the home goalkeeper, but the ball sailed over.

Domínguez's finish meant this was the 16th time in Moyes's inaugural season as manager United had conceded the opening goal. It was also yet another occasion where, at half-time, the Scot had to convince his players they could turn a match their way.

After nine minutes of the second half the task became even harder. Campbell collected the ball about 10 yards outside United's area, evaded Michael Carrick's challenge, then swung a sweet left-foot shot through the ball that beat De Gea to the Spaniard's right.

The roar this brought from the home faithful split the air and added to the shock that swept across the stunned United's players. On the hour Moyes introduced Kagawa for Cleverley and Welbeck for Valencia. But, again, it was Olympiakos who threatened when Olaitan, the lone striker in Míchel's 4-2-3-1, aimed an attempt that came close to beating De Gea and all but consigning United to the most humiliating of exits from the competition.

As it is, Moyes faces questions regarding his selection and how, precisely, he can motivate players who ended this game with belief drained.

United now face an uphill task reversing a 2-0 deficit,when Olympiakos visits Old Trafford on 19th March,as David Moyes takes a last 90-minute swing at a chance to save United's season from total disaster