UEFA Champions League
Bayern take step in right direction says Kane after draw at Arsenal
Struggling Bayern Munich took a step in the right direction in Tuesday’s 2-2 draw at Arsenal in the opening leg of their Champions League quarter-final, according to striker Harry Kane.
The England captain, who joined the Bundesliga giants from Tottenham Hotspur last August in search of the trophies he craves, slotted home a penalty to put his side 2-1 ahead.
Incredibly it was his 39th goal for Bayern in all competitions this season but it was not enough to earn a victory as Arsenal substitute Leandro Trossard levelled for the hosts to leave the tie balanced on a knife edge.
Bayern, who have not gone beyond the quarter-finals since winning a sixth title in 2020, will be slight favourites for next Wednesday’s second leg when they will be roared on by their fans who were absent in north London as punishment for fireworks being let off in the previous round against Lazio.
The pressure will be on Thomas Tuchel’s team, however, as Europe is their only chance of redemption in a season that will soon see them dethroned as German champions by Bayer Leverkusen.
“You saw a real determined team today,” said Kane, who silenced the jeers by adding to the record 14 goals he scored for Spurs against Arsenal in north London derbies.
“We had to show togetherness and show fight. Today was a small step in the right direction.”
Bayern are 16 points behind Leverkusen, who could wrap up the title at the weekend, but the six-times European champions raised their game at the Emirates, disrupting Premier League leaders Arsenal who struggled to find their usual fluency.
Tuchel is leaving at the end of the season, but his side are clearly still playing for him.
“It’s a little bit strange if I am totally honest,” Kane said of the managerial situation. “All I can say is he has given everything in every training session.”
For Arsenal, eyeing a first English title for 20 years after 10 wins from their last 11 Premier League games, it was a disappointing display although they will head to Bavaria next week full of belief that they can reach the semi-finals.
Having taken the lead through Bukayo Saka, they were guilty of defensive errors as their former player Serge Gnabry levelled and Kane fired home a penalty after Leroy Sane’s surging run was ended by a clumsy tackle from William Saliba.
“In the Champions League you cannot give anything to the opponent, we have given two goals today,” manager Mikel Arteta told reporters. “When you have these situations they are going to punish you. That’s the biggest lesson.
“I think the team showed a lot of composure especially after 2-1. You can throw your toys away and generate a lot of spaces for the opponent and lose the tie in 20 minutes.
“We haven’t done that.”
While it was not the result Arsenal were hoping for, their away form in the Premier League has been superb with no goals conceded and 20 goals scored in their last five games.
“I have a lot of belief we can go there and beat them. We have to prepare really well,” Arteta said.
-Reuters
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
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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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