UEFA Champions League
Man United can turn attention to improving in Premier League, Ten Hag says
While Manchester United’s involvement in European competition came to a crashing end on Tuesday with their 1-0 loss to Bayern Munich, embattled manager Erik ten Hag said his team can now focus on improving their disappointing Premier League position.
The three-time European champions needed both to beat Bayern in their Champions League group stage finale and have Copenhagen’s game against visiting Galatasaray end in a draw to advance to the last-16. Neither happened and United finished with four points from six games.
Their fourth-place finish meant they did not even have the consolation of qualifying for the Europa League.
“There are still many things to play for and now we can focus, of course, on the Premier League and this is the level we want to play, Champions League, so we have to give every effort to be in the top four and next year be back in Champions League,” Ten Hag told reporters.
“And then of course, we have the FA Cup, so there are so many things to play for.”
Kingsley Coman’s 70th-minute goal lifted Bayern to victory against a United side that, even with nothing to lose, failed to create chances with just one shot on target.
“The big concern is that (Rasmus) Hojlund didn’t have a chance. They’re not creating anything,” former United midfielder Paul Scholes said on TNT Sports. “It’s been a really poor campaign.”
Hojlund was United’s top scorer in their Champions League campaign with five goals.
“Bottom and rotten, in truth. They’re just not very good,” former Premier League striker Chris Sutton said on BBC Sport.
Ten Hag defended the single shot on target saying: “The game was like this for both sides: less chances.
“We did quite well, if not to say very well. We had our moments but just didn’t take them.”
Bayern manager Thomas Tuchel, whose team went unbeaten to finish top of Group A with 16 points, was asked if he felt for Ten Hag’s predicament.
“Almost always I feel sympathy for the other coach but we try everything to win matches, but of course I have sympathy, he has a lot of key players injured for a decisive match,” Tuchel said. “It is not an easy time but I am pretty sure he knows what to do next and he does not need my advice or clapping on the shoulders, he is experienced enough to go through it.
“I had not a nice moment last Saturday (a 5-1 league loss to Eintracht Frankfurt) and sometimes you feel pretty lonely as a coach,” he added.
It was only the sixth time in United’s history they have gone out in the group stage, and only the second time they have finished bottom in their group.
Tuchel said he was surprised by their group-stage performance.
“Yeah this is a huge club and not what you expect,” the manager said. “In the group you expect also Manchester United challenging for the win of the group and a place in the round of 16 but in my experience I can tell you we had a difficult group.
“The matches were tight, the results were narrow so you could see everything was possible until today for Manchester United. In some of the matches games changed in a blink of an eye.”
The schedule does not get any easier for United, who play at league-leading Liverpool on Sunday. United are sixth in the Premier League after 16 games, six points adrift of fourth place. Liverpool top the table on 37 points.
-Reuters
UEFA Champions League
LaLiga to have five teams in 2025-26 Champions League

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
UEFA Champions League
No complaints from Ancelotti, as Real humbled by Arsenal

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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UEFA Champions League
Arsenal cruise past lacklustre Real Madrid to reach semis

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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