UEFA Champions League
UEFA Champions’ League Group Stage Begins
As the group stage of the UEFA Champions League opens this Tuesday, there are records in the offing. Manchester United’s manager, Jose Mourinho will not just be delighted that the club is returning to top flight European football after a year of ‘sabbatical’ leave, he is aiming to be the first person to manage three different clubs to European glory should Manchester United emerge champions next year’s May.
In similar circumstances, defending champions, Real Madrid will be aiming to be the first club to achieve a three straight win since the feat of Germany’s Bayern Munich in the 1970s.
GROUP A (BENFICA, MANCHESTER UNITED, BASEL, CSKA MOSCOW)
In Group A where Manchester United squares up with the trio Portugal’s Benfica, Switzerland’s Basel and Russia’s CSKA Moscow, the English Premership side is expected to start as the group favourite having obtained 10 points out of possible 12 in the new English premiership season.
Manchester United will open its account facing Basel at Old Trafford at 7.45 pm. Basel is reportedly weakened by persistent sales of top players since eliminating United in the 2011 groups.
The club which has been without a win in eight European games, drawing three and losing five had in the 2011/12 season faced Manchester United in the group stage. Basel won and drew the other match.
Manchester United which is making its 21st group stage appearance will be without Phil Jones and Eric Bailly who are serving a match ban.
But Mourinho seems not missing the duo as he told Simon Hart, the UEFA reporter attached to the team that Victor Lindelöf will start alongside Chris Smalling,
“Even if Jones and Bailly were not suspended, probably I would still play Lindelöf and Samlling.
“For me, they are the same level. I think it’s easier for [Lindelöf] to play Champions League – it is more comparable to the style of football in the Portuguese league. There is no need to adapt to the Champions League but he needs a little bit of time to adapt to the Premier League.
“He’s an intelligent kid, very bright, very calm; he knows that step by step he is going to be there.”
Added to that is the possibility of playing without Marouane Fellaini who reportedly picked a calf injury whole on international assignment for Belgium last week.
“Fellaini didn’t train yesterday (Sunday) and let’s see if he can today (Monday)”, Mourinho told the UEFA reporter.
“It’s a very important day for me, much more important than you can imagine. I feel weaker without Fellaini in my squad. It doesn’t matter if it’s on the pitch or on the bench, if his condition improves, he will be selected because I need him”, remarked Mourinho.
In the other Group A match, Benfica is a consistent performer in the Europa League will host CSKA Moscow which finished last in its group in each of the last four seasons – including one that contained United in 2015. –
GROUP B (BAYERN MUNICH, PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN, ANDERLECHT, CELTIC)
Neymar made it his big goal to win the Champions League with Paris Saint-Germain after securing his world-record transfer from Barcelona for 222 million euros ($262 million) in July.
Advancing to the knockout stage should be a formality for his new team, which also includes teenage striker Kylian Mbappe in a new-look and exciting forward line.
Neymar’s first European campaign with PSG will take him to five-time champion Bayern, whose coach Carlo Ancelotti used to manage the French club. Celtic is never an easy team to visit, but the Scottish champions are likely to be fighting it out with Anderlecht for third place.
GROUP C (CHELSEA, ATLETICO MADRID, ROMA, QARABAG)
Qarabag is the first Azerbaijani team to reach this stage and its reward is one of the most competitive groups.
Atletico Madrid has reached the final twice in the past three years, losing both times to Real Madrid, while Chelsea – the 2012 European champion – is the current English champion and has recovered after an uncomfortable start to the Premier League.
Chelsea and Atletico could be in negotiations over the next few months regarding the sale of Diego Costa, the Chelsea striker who has been estranged in his native Brazil for much of the summer and wants to join former club Atletico.
GROUP D (JUVENTUS, BARCELONA, OLYMPIAKOS, SPORTING)
It will be a major surprise if Juventus and Barcelona, European champions a combined seven times, fail to qualify from the group.
They met in the 2015 final, with Barca’s prolific front three of Neymar, Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez inspiring a 3-1 win in Berlin. Neymar, of course, is no longer around for Barca, with new signing Ousmane Dembele replacing him.
Juventus lost last season’s final to Real Madrid and hasn’t won the Champions League since 1996. Olympiakos and Sporting are regular qualifiers but rarely advance, with Sporting weakened by the recent sale of midfielder Adrien Silva to Leicester.
GROUP E (SPARTAK MOSCOW, SEVILLA, LIVERPOOL, MARIBOR)
Five-time European champion Liverpool came through the playoffs and gets a chance to avenge its loss to Sevilla in the 2016 Europa League final, which denied the English team a place in last season’s Champions League.
Spartak, which won the Russian Premier League, is in the group stage for the first time since 2012-13, while Slovenian team Maribor is the big outsider in its third attempt to reach the knockout stage. This will likely be considered the weakest of the eight groups.
GROUP F (SHAKHTAR DONETSK, MANCHESTER CITY, NAPOLI, FEYENOORD)
Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City avoided tougher options by being drawn into top-seeded Shakhtar’s group.
The Ukrainian champion is always fighting against the disadvantage of not playing a real home game in three years due to the conflict involving pro-Russian separatists around its home city.
Still, Napoli was one of the more difficult opponents for City from the third-seeded teams and eased past Nice in the playoffs round. Feyenoord returns to the group stage after a 15-year absence and is likely to face a steep learning curve.
GROUP G (MONACO, PORTO, BESIKTAS, LEIPZIG)
Monaco, last season’s surprise semifinalist, is the top seed but has been hurt by the departure of key players like Kylian Mbappe, Bernardo Silva and Benjamin Mendy this summer.
The French team comes up against Porto in a rematch of the 2004 final won by the Portuguese team.
Leipzig didn’t even exist then – the club was created in 2009 – and is a newcomer at this level. But the Bundesliga runner-up was the team from the fourth seeds that most of the continent’s heavyweights wanted to avoid. Monaco won its group as a fourth-seeded team last season.
GROUP H (REAL MADRID, BORUSSIA DORTMUND, TOTTENHAM, APOEL)
Real Madrid has won the Champions League three times in the past four years, and is looking to become the first team since Bayern Munich (1974-76) to be European champion in three straight years.
Madrid’s path to the knockout stage may have been smoothed by its fierce rival Barcelona, which weakened Borussia Dortmund by signing Ousmane Dembele.
Tottenham will be hoping for better results at its temporary home of Wembley Stadium, where the English team lost two of its three group games last season and hasn’t won either of its Premier League games there this season. APOEL famously reached the quarterfinals in 2012 against the odds.
Paris St Germain midfielder Warren Zaire-Emery became the youngest player to win two Champions League finals after featuring in Saturday’s dramatic victory over Arsenal.
The France international, who came off the bench for extra time in PSG’s 4-3 penalty shootout triumph after a 1-1 draw against Arsenal at the Puskas Arena, lifted the trophy for the second straight season at the age of 20 years and two months.
Zaire-Emery had already featured briefly in last year’s crushing 5-0 victory over Inter Milan and now surpasses former Ajax Amsterdam midfielder Johan Neeskens, who was 20 years and eight months old when he won his second European Cup final in the 1970s.
-Reuters
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Paris St Germain held their nerve in a cagey Champions League final to retain the title by beating Arsenal 4-3 on penalties as Saturday’s nail-biting showdown ended 1-1 after extra time, cementing the French side’s status among Europe’s modern greats.
Arsenal defender Gabriel blasted his spot kick over Matvey Safonov’s crossbar at the Puskas Arena, his miss confirming PSG as the first club to retain the trophy since Real Madrid completed their three-year reign from 2016 to 2018.
Long dismissed as glamorous underachievers despite vast resources, the Ligue 1 champions have now forged a dynasty under Luis Enrique, marrying attacking brilliance with resilience to establish themselves as the dominant force in European football.
“It’s stronger than last year because we knew before the match just how difficult it would be to play against Arsenal,” said Luis Enrique, whose side had thrashed Inter Milan 5-0 to claim Europe’s elite trophy for the first time.
“As a club and a city, it’s incredible to win, and I think we deserved it over the course of the season. The final was a real battle,” added the Spanish coach.
The outcome left Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice devastated but proud as his side finished their European campaign without losing a match aside from the shootout defeat in the final.
“It’s gutting. It’s devastating to lose a Champions League final on penalties,” he said. “But we try to take a lot of perspective from how far we’ve come as a group.
“An incredible season. Given it absolutely everything up until this point. We took the game to penalties. It’s a lottery.”
EUROPE’S BIGGEST STAGE
Eleven days after celebrating their first Premier League title in 22 years, Arsenal looked set for a maiden triumph on Europe’s biggest stage after Kai Havertz’s sixth-minute opener and a first hour spent smothering PSG’s vaunted attack.
However, the final became chaotic once PSG’s Ousmane Dembele equalised with a penalty in the 65th minute, the pace turning frantic before exhaustion took the match to a shootout.
Under Luis Enrique, PSG have won the six shootouts they have contested. The 56-year-old has now won 12 of the 13 one-off club finals he has overseen as a coach.
After brushing aside Premier League opposition on their way to the final by eliminating Chelsea and Liverpool, PSG were facing a much sterner test against an Arsenal team playing their second Champions League final after losing to Barcelona in 2006.
Mikel Arteta’s side took the lead when Marquinhos’ clearance bounced off Arsenal’s Leandro Trossard into the path of Havertz, who raced into the box and fired into the roof of the net.
He is the fourth player to score in two different European Cup or Champions League finals with two different clubs.
It was the nightmare scenario for PSG – trailing so early against the best defence in the competition.
Arsenal lived up to their reputation as the best team without the ball and looked perfectly content with the script, doubling up on Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and suffocating the usual danger brought by the Georgian magician on the left flank.
PSG’s Fabian Ruiz was unable to impose his usual rhythm in midfield and, despite monopolising possession for long spells, Luis Enrique’s side struggled to carve out clear-cut chances.
By halftime, PSG had attacked 32 times, Arsenal three times.
Arsenal, however, were flirting with the boundaries with their challenges, and Cristhian Mosquera brought down Kvaratskhelia in the area, with Dembele converting the penalty to equalise with his eighth goal in the competition.
MOMENTUM SHIFTS
The momentum had shifted.
Jurrien Timber and Viktor Gyokeres replaced Mosquera, and Martin Odegaard and Arsenal had a more attacking mindset but were exposed to PSG’s counterattacks, and at the end of one of them, Kvaratskhelia sped into the box, only for his left-footed effort to crash onto the outside of David Raya’s post.
After controlling the tempo in the first half, Arsenal played into PSG’s hands as the pace increased significantly, giving too much space to Kvaratskhelia or Bradley Barcola, who replaced the Georgian winger with seven minutes left.
In the 89th minute, PSG came close to giving the final an abrupt end as Vitinha’s shot grazed the top of the net. Barcola also shot over the bar after a counterattack with what would have been the last kick of the game.
With both teams having run out of steam, extra time was a cautious affair, and when referee Daniel Siebert blew his whistle, Arsenal had only managed one shot on target.
Arsenal’s Eberechi Eze missed his penalty before Raya saved Nuno Mendes’ attempt. Gabriel had to score to keep the Gunners’ hopes alive, but, facing PSG’s end, he fired over.
The French side were left to celebrate being European champions once again, with extra-time substitute Lucas Beraldo’s goal in the shootout proving to be the winner.
-Reuters
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Paris Saint-Germain manager Luis Enrique hailed his side’s resilience and consistency after the French champions retained the UEFA Champions League title with a dramatic penalty shootout victory over Arsenal following a 1-1 draw in Saturday’s final.
The Spaniard said PSG’s performances throughout the season justified their status as European champions despite being pushed to the limit by an impressive Arsenal side.
“Maybe today both teams deserved to win, but the way we played the whole season, I think we deserve to win the Champions League,” Enrique said after the match. “We are very happy and trying to be there next year – why not?”
PSG found themselves behind early after Arsenal struck first, forcing the holders to chase the game for much of the contest.
“The match started in the best way for them,” Enrique noted. “After that, they know how to defend. It was very tough. They are strong physically and very tough.”
The victory secured a second consecutive Champions League crown for PSG, a feat that delighted the coach.
“We are still champions, two in a row, it’s amazing,” he said. “Congratulations to Arsenal. It was very tough. They played great.”
Despite adding another major title to his growing collection, Enrique brushed aside suggestions that he was cementing a legendary status.
“Legend? I’m not interested in that,” he said.
PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi described the achievement as even more special than the club’s maiden Champions League triumph.
“The first one was special, but winning back-to-back titles is very special for us,” he said. “We want to win again. We don’t want to stop there.”
Midfielder Joao Neves echoed those sentiments, calling his move to Paris “the best decision” of his career.
“We’ve made history at PSG, we’re all delighted,” the Portuguese international said.
Young star Desire Doue also celebrated the historic achievement, insisting the team remains hungry for further success.
“We wanted more than anything to win a second title and make history once again,” he said. “We have to stay humble. We’re going to enjoy first, and after we’re going to work again because we want more.”
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