Manchester United completed a 3-0 aggregate win over AS Roma on Wednesday to join Liverpool and Chelsea in the Champions League semifinals as the three English teams repeated last season’s success. United will be joined by 2006 winners Barcelona, who beat German side Schalke 04 by a single goal at home to secure a 2-0 aggregate victory.
Rafael Benitez has identified his players’ self-belief and the passion of the Anfield faithful as the keys that opened the door for Liverpool to progress to their third Champions League semifinal with Chelsea in four seasons. The Liverpool boss watched his side come from behind to seal a memorable 4-2 victory over Arsenal.
Arsene Wenger bullishly insisted that Arsenal would take the next step towards a league and European Cup double by beating Liverpool in their Champions League quarterfinal second leg at Anfield on Tuesday. Wenger’s side arrive on Merseyside having failed to overcome Rafael Benitez’s side in the first leg.
Wayne Rooney scored an equaliser as Manchester United hit back for a 2-2 draw at Middlesbrough on Sunday, which left them three points clear in the Premier League. After second-place Chelsea’s 2-0 victory at Manchester City on Saturday, the Red Devils needed to win at the Riverside and took a 10th-minute lead through Cristiano Ronaldo.
Portsmouth reached the FA Cup final for the first time in 69 years on Saturday when a 54th-minute goal from Nwankwo Kanu gave them a 1-0 semifinal win over West Bromwich Albion at Wembley Stadium. Portsmouth will now play either Cardiff City or Barnsley, who meet in an all-Championship semifinal on Sunday, in the final at Wembley on May 17.
Opportunities to reach an FA Cup final do not come around often, especially for the likes of Portsmouth, West Bromwich Albion, Cardiff City and Barnsley, who will be battling out this weekend’s semifinals at Wembley. It is the first time since 1908 that only one team from the top flight have reached the semifinals.
Arsenal will be hoping the fear factor outweighs Liverpool’s vast European experience when the two sides cross swords in an all-English Champions League quarterfinal on Wednesday. Rafael Benitez has guided his side to two out of the last three finals of Europe’s elite competition, but he will also be aware that, on the domestic front, Arsenal have had the edge.
Kevin Keegan insists Premier League safety hasn’t yet been secured despite watching rampant Newcastle United dismantle Tottenham Hotspur 4-1. Keegan’s free-flowing side moved back into mid-table and nine points clear of trouble as they capitalised on a shambolic defensive display from the League Cup holders to run out emphatic winners.
After all the endless mediocre, soulless PSL games played in front of near-empty stadiums, Mamelodi Sundowns’ penalty shoot-out victory over rivals Kaizer Chiefs in the Nedbank Cup at King’s Park in Durban on Sunday evening provided high drama and exceptional entertainment.
Chelsea kept their Premier League title hopes alive with a 1-0 victory over Middlesbrough on Sunday but their performance would have caused few alarms for leaders Manchester United. Ricardo Carvalho’s well-placed header inside the opening six minutes at Stamford Bridge proved sufficient for Avram Grant’s side to close the gap to five points.
Manchester United beat old rivals Liverpool 3-0 at Old Trafford on Sunday as the reigning champions were left five points clear at the top of the Premier League table. But it was Chelsea who became United’s nearest challengers after a double from Didier Drogba saw them come from a goal behind to beat Arsenal 2-1.
Goals from Mark Viduka and Michael Owen ended Newcastle United’s wretched run of 13 English Premiership games without a win as they beat struggling Fulham 2-0 at St James’ Park on Saturday. At the other end of the table, Everton were left two points behind city rivals Liverpool.
Football folk make the kind of throwaway remarks that would be alarming coming from anyone else. ”Some people think football is a matter of life and death,” Bill Shankly, the late Liverpool coach, once said. ”I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.”
Cristiano Ronaldo scored a first-half double to send Manchester United clear at the top of the Premier League with a 2-0 win over struggling Bolton at Old Trafford on Wednesday. A strike from 12 yards and a long-range free-kick took Ronaldo’s goal tally for the season to 33 and left the champions three points clear of Arsenal.
Newcastle United drew a scrappy Premier League relegation clash 1-1 at Birmingham City on Monday leaving coach Kevin Keegan still without a win in eight league matches since returning to the club. James McFadden opened the scoring for the home side with a well taken goal after muscling Abdoulaye Faye out of his way.
Inter Milan’s ill discipline cost them again as Liverpool won 1-0 at the San Siro on Tuesday to progress to the Champions League quarterfinals 3-0 on aggregate. Nicolas Burdisso was sent off just five minutes into the second half of the second-round, second-leg tie to scupper the Italian champions’ hopes of reaching the next round.
Arsene Wenger backed Arsenal to stay on course for the Premier League title after struggling Wigan held the league leaders to a 0-0 draw at the JJB Stadium on Sunday. Having eliminated holders AC Milan from the Champions League in midweek, Arsenal failed to negotiate an awful playing surface at Wigan that is surely the worst in England’s top division.
SuperSport United continued their rampant run in the Absa Premiership with a convincing 2-0 win over Platinum Stars at Olympia Park in Rustenburg on Sunday. SuperSport have won five and drawn two of their seven games since the second round of fixtures got under way in February, and now trail log leaders Ajax Cape Town by a single point.
Cardiff extended the run of FA Cup upsets on Sunday with a 2-0 win over Middlesbrough, putting the Welsh team in the semifinals of the English competition for the first time since it won in 1927. Peter Whittingham and Roger Johnson scored at Riverside Stadium for Cardiff, the only team from outside England to have won the trophy.
The FA Cup will boast one Premier League side in the last four after Cardiff City continued a weekend of shocks by beating Middlesbrough 2-0 on Sunday. First-half goals from Peter Whittingham and Roger Johnson handed the Championship (second division) side a deserved win at the Riverside.
The FA Cup will boast just one Premier League side in the last four after Cardiff City continued a weekend of shocks by beating Middlesbrough 2-0 on Sunday. First-half goals from Peter Whittingham and Roger Johnson handed the Championship (second division) side a deserved win at the Riverside Stadium and a place in the semifinals alongside Barnsley and Portsmouth.
Rafa Benitez hailed a ”perfect” victory over Newcastle, which sees Liverpool travel to Inter Milan in the Champions League highly confident of finishing the job they started at Anfield three weeks ago. Another inspirational Fernando Torres performance propelled Benitez’s side to a comfortable 3-0 win over relegation-threatened Newcastle at Anfield on Saturday.
English football’s big guns were shot down in flames on Saturday as Chelsea and Manchester United crashed out of the FA Cup quarterfinals in two of the famous old competition’s most remarkable upsets. Between them Chelsea and United have won four of the last five Premier League titles and boast some of the world’s finest players.
Harry Redknapp pulled off a unique FA Cup hat-trick against Manchester United as Sulley Muntari’s second-half penalty sealed a 1-0 victory that sent Portsmouth through to the semifinals for the first time since 1992. Redknapp, who had previously guided Bournemouth and West Ham to FA Cup wins against United, saw his team win at Old Trafford for the first time in 51 years.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter believes that players guilty of deliberately dangerous tackles should be banned from football, the Times reported on Friday. Blatter made the comments in an interview before Saturday’s meeting at Gleneagles, Scotland of the International Football Board.
Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez hailed Fernando Torres as ”on fire” after the Spanish striker hit his second successive Anfield hat-trick to lift his club into fourth spot on the Premier League table on Wednesday. Torres sentenced West Ham to their second 4-0 defeat in four days after a sizzling performance by Benitez’s side.
The Birds left it late — then swooped to a scintillating 3-1 Absa Premiership win over Bloemfontein Celtic with three goals in the last ten minutes of play. After Malawian defender Patrick Mabedi had equalised for Moroka Swallows, with a superbly timed header in the 79th minute, the team completed their scoring spree with late goals from substitutes Sandile Ndlovu and Alfred Phiri.
Arsenal left it late to stay top of the Premier League as second-placed champions Manchester United closed to within a point on Saturday. The Gunners were seconds away from being knocked off top spot at the Emirates Stadium when Nicklas Bendtner cancelled out an early Philippe Senderos own-goal to secure a 1-1 home draw against Aston Villa.
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/ 29 February 2008
It was probably not meant for public consumption, but SuperSport United coach Gavin Hunt was overheard suggesting during the goalless Absa Premiership draw against Wits University at Bidvest Stadium on Friday night that ”the people watching the game should get their money back”.
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/ 20 February 2008
The row over Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez’s squad rotation system continued to rumble on Wednesday as former Anfield goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar said lack of continuity was at the root of the Premier League club’s ills. One day after current striker Fernando Torres had supported his boss’s policy of switching the first team around, Grobbelaar hit out at the controversial method.
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/ 19 February 2008
Chiefs are thirteen points behind log leaders Ajax Cape Town and are occupying 12th position in the Premier League log. Now, with a bitter attack from chairperson Kaizer Motaung on the tactics of coach Muhsin Ertugral, can things get any worse for the tottering PSL giants?
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/ 18 February 2008
The bookmakers may well have shut up shop and refused to take bets on a goalless draw for the Premier League game between bottom-of-the-log Jomo Cosmos and struggling Kaizer Chiefs at Orkney’s Oppenheimer Stadium on Sunday afternoon.