UEFA Champions League News
Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund booked their spots in the final at Wembley thanks to a pair of unlikely match winners
Two second legs that both reached a dramatic crescendo, one with late goals, the other with late misses, set up a Wembley final between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund.
Goalkeeper: Andriy Lunin, Real Madrid
Continue reading...Logical brilliance of attacker stood out as he played with startling sense of freedom to lead team back to another final
At what point, exactly, does the relentlessly unpredictable start to become oddly routine? As ever, this was an absolute nut‑show of a football match inside Real Madrid’s steamy Centre Court‑style megadrome.
Every ex-Stoke, Newcastle and Eintracht Frankfurt journeyman has his day. And this was the day of Joselu, Madrid’s 34‑year‑old own-brand Benzema, who scored with two of his first three touches in the final moments of a Champions League semi-final to turn 1-0 down into 2-1 up and another final for these irresistible power-meringues.
Continue reading...Alphonso Davies put Bayern in front but the hosts found another late fightback to book a Champions League final with Dortmund
2 min: Sane tries to bring down a long pass but Mendy hassles him from behind and the Bayern man loses control.
38 sec: Kroos, making his 150th Champions League appearance tonight, sends in an aimless corner. Bayern clear their lines easily.
Continue reading...Defender left Spurs having fallen out of favour but has become a mainstay for Tuchel and could still have England value
“Are you serious? Why? Just why? Now we know Bayern won’t be getting a trophy this season. Kane needs a friend. Thank you for taking him, love from north London.”
This was the kind of thing that Eric Dier would have seen on his Instagram page on 11 January – were he inclined to read the comments. The centre-half had posted for the first time as a Bayern Munich player, after his transfer from Tottenham, and it should be said that most of the messages were positive, Spurs fans thanking him for his nine and a half seasons with them, wishing him well for his next challenge.
Continue reading...Marco Reus’s Borussia Dortmund career is coming to an end and what better way to sign off at the club than with a return to Wembley for another shot at Champions League glory 11 years after he lost there in the final.
Dortmund beat Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 on Tuesday to complete a 2-0 aggregate win and reach the Champions League final for the first time since 2013, when they lost to Bayern Munich at Wembley at the start of Reus’s Dortmund career.
Continue reading...Mats Hummels secured a return to Wembley for Dortmund, as PSG hit the woodwork four times but couldn’t find a way through
5 min: More room for Hakimi on the right wing. He looks for Gonçalo Ramos in the middle, but shanks his cross towards Kobel at the near post. The keeper gathers. Some positive early moves by the hosts.
4 min: Some space for Hakimi down the right. A low cross is met by Gonçalo Ramos, who hands out a leg and steers a shot straight at Kobel. Not enough power to fox the keeper.
Continue reading...Paris Saint-Germain lost 1-0 to Borussia Dortmund in their Champions League semi-final first leg but that does not mean they will go all out to score twice in normal time on Tuesday, Luis Enrique has insisted.
The Ligue 1 champions overturned a one-goal deficit against Barcelona in the quarter-finals, winning 4-1 in the second leg, but PSG are prepared to take the game with Dortmund to extra time if required.
Continue reading...Although he was superb for Dortmund against PSG, this is not the time to start clamouring for a Euros place or United return for player who has had a tough two years
Perhaps the most telling Jadon Sancho clip to emerge from a wonderfully creative attacking performance during Borussia Dortmund’s Champions League semi-final first leg was the one that appeared after the match.
This was Sancho’s interview on CBS sports with a visibly buzzed-up Jamie Carragher, who had spent the evening pushing the broadcasting envelope by drinking eight pints of beer in the Yellow Wall end and was able afterwards to provide a real-time demonstration of just how hard it is to do the job of professional broadcaster while drunk. Belated respect for the scotch-sodden Ron Burgundy‑style anchor gods of yesteryear. It’s clearly not as easy as it looks.
Continue reading...Erik ten Hag has said he is happy for Jadon Sancho after the winger produced a display in Borussia Dortmund’s Champions League win over Paris Saint-Germain that showed he “represents a high value” for Manchester United.
Sancho was among Dortmund’s best performers in Wednesday’s 1-0 victory in the semi-final first leg. The 24-year-old joined the German club in January on loan having not played for United since August after a disagreement with Ten Hag regarding why the manager left him out of the squad for the 3-1 loss at Arsenal in early September.
Continue reading...The semi-finals kicked off with standout performances from a trio of Premier League loanees and two old hands rolling back the clock
Goalkeeper: Gregor Kobel, Borussia Dortmund
From a small pool of goalkeepers, only Dortmund’s Kobel kept a clean sheet. And if he could thank the post and bar for that on a couple of occasions – a Kylian Mbappé special rattled the woodwork at one point – he gave a solid performance in the Westfalenstadion. PSG rained 14 shots on Kobel’s goal, but none squeezed past. Kobel is the first Swiss keeper to play at this stage of the competition, and also showed off his skills with the ball at his feet. His reputation as one of the continent’s best is growing.
Continue reading...Borussia Dortmund’s win at home to Paris Saint-Germain has confirmed that the Bundesliga, not the Premier League, will get an extra spot in next season’s Champions League.
England’s slim hopes of overhauling Germany in the Uefa coefficient rankings have been extinguished and the Bundesliga’s top five finishers are guaranteed to play in the Champions League. Only the top four clubs in the Premier League will participate.
Continue reading...5 min: Dortmund see plenty of the ball. Sancho popping up all over the place as well, already looking far more confident and assured when compared to his Manchester United self.
3 min: Ryerson makes a glorious nuisance of himself down the right. Dribbling hard. Pressing hard, too, upon losing control. He wins a throw deep in PSG territory. It’s flung in long, but the ball’s cleared easily enough. A high-octane start by both teams.
Continue reading...Tuchel is leaving and Rangnick likely to come in, with several Red Bull alumni already in place amid disquiet among fans
There is always something now. There is always something later. Even as the sweat was drying on Bayern Munich’s 2-2 draw against Real Madrid on Tuesday night, thoughts were beginning to turn, with alarming speed, to new plans and new eras. While the outgoing Thomas Tuchel dissected the performances of Kim Min-jae and Leroy Sané in the broadcast zone, the top brass were a few yards away discussing his likely successor: Bayern’s present, and future, and soon-to-be past, all gauchely colliding against each other in one big hot mess.
The deal with Ralf Rangnick is not quite done at the time of writing, but by all accounts imminent. Rangnick is said to be keen, a three-year contract is waiting to be signed, and a seven-figure compensation deal with the Austrian Football Association, where Rangnick is contracted as national team coach, should be a formality. “We all know that Ralf Rangnick is a good coach and has achieved a lot in his career,” the sporting director, Christoph Freund, said. “If everything fits, then it will be done.”
Continue reading...The irreplaceable German midfielder refused to allow Bayern to escape with the game – and his control kept Madrid in the tie
Thomas Tuchel had warned that you don’t see Real Madrid’s goals coming, so Toni Kroos helpfully pointed it out, but still Bayern Munich couldn’t stop it. There are times, the German coach had said on the eve of this most classic of European confrontations, when you watch their games, analysing them closely, and everything seems to be under control, when the 14-times winners appear outnumbered and there’s nothing going on, no danger, nothing to fear, and so, feeling safe, you press play again. And then, bang, five, 10 seconds pass and the ball is in your net.
Which is when you rewind and try to work out where it all began. Here, control in hand, he could actually pinpoint the exact second his defence ripped in half. It began, Madrid began, in the mind and at the feet of Kroos: right there in the centre of the screen, strolling across the midfield, seemingly going nowhere, looking left and hoping that everyone else except Vinícius Júnior would look there too, following his eyes not his fingers. Suddenly he stuck out an arm, signalled to the vast pathway that had opened and the Brazilian set off into it. A gentle turn of the foot and the ball followed; Vinícius was through beyond Kim Min-jae.
Continue reading...Vinícius Júnior scored twice while Harry Kane notched his 43rd goal of the season as European royalty traded blows in Munich
4 min: Bellingham tries to switch play from right to left with a first-time speculative hoof. Rodrygo can’t latch onto the ball and Kimmich tidies up. A nice open start to this semi-final.
2 min: Real reply to that early concern with a period of nerve-settling possession. They ping it around and eventually Bellingham is caught offside.
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