Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho called it a game "for the world."
Highly touted matches often fall flat, but Chelsea's 2-2 draw at Arsenal on Sunday met the hype with great goals, a touch of controversy, and only a few yellow cards.
PHOTO: AP
Nearing the midway point of the season, it didn't seal the outcome of the English Premier League, but it showed league-leading Chelsea -- trying for its first league title since 1955 -- will be difficult to catch, even for defending champion Arsenal.
Asked if the best two teams in England had just met, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger replied: "At the moment yes, but this is December. There is a long way to go. Everton and Man United aren't far behind."
Mourinho said: "This was a game -- not just for England, but for the world. Everybody who loves football was looking at this game."
The best striker in England, Thierry Henry surprised Chelsea twice and gave the Gunners two leads to defend. But they failed each time, conceding set-piece goals.
The draw kept Chelsea five points ahead of Arsenal. But the Gunners slipped into third place, thanks to Everton beating Liverpool 1-0 on Saturday in the Merseyside Derby.
Chelsea leads the standings on 40 points with Everton (36) and Arsenal (35) chasing.
In Sunday's other game, Birmingham City defeated Aston Villa 2-1 to claim the second city derby, taking the match on first-half goals by Clinton Morrison and David Dunn. Gareth Barry scored late for Villa.
The victory at Villa Park moved City temporarily out of relegation danger, improving to 17 points. West Brom (10) holds down last place, topped by Southampton (13), Blackburn and Crystal Palace (14). Villa remained in sixth place with 25 points.
First-half goals from Chris Sutton and Stilian Petrov gave Celtic a 2-0 victory over Dunfermline and first place in the Premier League.
The victory improved Celtic to 44 points in 18 games with Rangers on 43. Third-place Hibernian has 30 with Motherwell on 29.
Sutton scored in the 16th and Petrov made it 2-0 in the 31st.
Dunfermline stayed in eighth place with 16 points.
Celtic manager Martin O'Neill said he was speaking to the agents of some of his top players like John Hartson, Bobo Balde, Jackie McNamara, Robert Douglas, Joos Valgaeren and Neil Lennon. The six have contracts nearing their end.
"I am meeting John's [Hartson] agent in the early part of this week and I hope to start discussions with some other people," O'Neill said. "I have a rough idea of what I want to do and I hope that's the same for the players and the agents."
A bomb threat forced the evacuation of the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium with two minutes left and Real Madrid and Real Sociedad drawn 1-1 in a Spanish league game on Sunday.
After talking to an official on the sideline, referee Lizondo Cortes halted the game in the 88th minute and pointed the teams toward the tunnel, as the stadium's loudspeakers appealed for an orderly evacuation by 70,000 fans.
The stadium was evacuated at 8:45pm local time, 15 minutes before a bomb at the stadium was set to explode, according to a threat phoned to the Basque newspaper Gara.
It took about 10 minutes to clear the entire stadium.
Two hours later, no bomb had been found, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior told AP.
Spanish soccer authorities met today to discuss a possible replay.
Real Madrid had started the match in attacking form, with Ronaldo chesting a pass by Michel Salgado and acrobatically netting a shoulder-high ball in the 42nd minute.
In the second period, Real Sociedad dug deep and began to penetrate Madrid's half, culminating in what looked like a Darko Kovacevic goal in the 69th, only for Cortes to cancel the goal for offside despite the linesman's flag staying down.
FC Balcelona leads the standings on 38 points, Espanyol was second on 29, one more than third-placed Valencia. Madrid was fourth on 26.
Wolfsburg crushed Arminia Bielefeld 5-0 and jumped to fourth place in Sunday's final Bundesliga round before the winter break.
Also on Sunday, Bayer Leverkusen drew 1-1 at Borussia Moenchengladbach.
Germany international striker Thomas Brdaric scored two goals to help Wolfsburg snap a three-match losing streak. Thomas Rytter, Diego Klimowicz and Martin Petrov, who converted a penalty, added the others in the one-sided match.
In Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen went ahead through Dimitar Berbatov after 57 minutes. But Vaclav Sverkos notched the equalizer in the 69th to prevent Gladbach from slipping to its third straight defeat.
On Saturday, Paolo Guerrero scored the equalizer and set up another goal to allow Bayern Munich to spend the winter break in first place with a 2-2 draw against Stuttgart.
Bayern and Schalke finished the first half of the season with 34 points, but Bayern has a superior goal difference. Stuttgart remained third at 31 and Wolfsburg has 30. The season resumes on Jan. 21.
Pavel Nedved scored on a late disputed free kick and Juventus beat Bologna 1-0 to preserve a four-point lead over AC Milan in Serie A ahead of their showdown in Turin next weekend.
After the referee granted Juventus a questionable free kick and sparked strong protests by the home side, Nedved curled his shot in in the 87th minute at Dall'Ara stadium.
The Czech midfielder's goal salvaged La Juve in a night of dull play by the Serie A leader, which is still marching at an impressive pace with a record of 12-2-1 and 38 points. Six of the wins have been on the road.
Bologna, which was unhappy with several referee decisions, was left struggling in the relegation zone, with 13 points.
At San Siro, Andriy Shevchenko and Clarence Seedorf each scored two goals as defending champion AC Milan thrashed Fiorentina 6-0.
The home win lifted the Milan powerhouse to 34 points.
Ten-man Siena held Inter Milan to a 2-2 draw -- the 12th of the season at the expense of lost ground to the title contenders in the standings.
Inter is tied in fifth place on 21 points with underdog teams such as Palermo, Lecce and Sampdoria.
AS Roma won 1-0 at Brescia on an injury-time penalty converted by Brazilian Mancini, and Reggina stunned fourth-place Cagliari 3-2 on a late goal by defender Gaetano De Rosa.
Minnow Belenenses stunned Benfica 4-1.
Benfica, lying two points behind league leader Boavista, had a chance to take the lead in the standings, but succumbed quickly and was three goals down by halftime.
Belenenses striker Antchouet Arnaud scored first in the 24th minute, then fellow striker Lourenco Silva converted a penalty. Midfielder Jose Pedro scored twice in the 34th and 73rd minutes, while Benfica could only get on the scoreboard through Tomo Sokota in the second half.
Benfica was dealt another blow when defender Panagiotis Fyssas was hurt, the 10th injured Benfica player.
The 14th round concludes today when Maritimo meets FC Porto.
Feyenoord cut PSV Eindhoven's lead atop the Premiership to three points as Bart Goor equalized two minutes into injury time for a 3-3 draw with the leaders.
Feyenoord stayed in fourth on 31, three behind Ajax.
PSV took a 1-0 lead on Phillip Cocu's free header in the sixth-minute, beating hapless Feyenoord 'keeper Patrick Lodewijks.
PSV left-back Lee Young-pyo floated in pass for Peruvian Jefferson Farfan, who headed in the second in the 24th minute to make it 2-0.
DaMarcus Beasley of the US looked like he'd won the game 20 minutes from time when he turned in an Andre Ooijer cross to make it 3-1 after Feyenoord's South Korean defender on Chong-gug missed a clearance. But Feyenoord's final onslaught twice pierced the center of the PSV defense.
Kalou's adept flick helped Shinji Ono sneak through to make a game of it and, after buildup work from Kalou and Romeo Castelen, Goor earned Feyenoord a point.
Portuguese striker Pauleta scored two first-half goals and beleaguered Paris Saint-Germain beat Sochaux 2-1 in the league's first division.
The win moved PSG up to 11th place after 18 rounds, while Sochaux stayed in seventh.
Three-time defending champion Lyon tops the table with 38 points, three points ahead of Lille, and six ahead of Monaco.
Werder Bremen captain Frank Baumann and Bayern Munich midfielder Torsten Frings will miss Germany's upcoming tour of Asia because of injuries, the German soccer federation said Sunday.
Coach Juergen Klinsmann has called up Kaiserslautern rookie Marco Engelhardt as a replacement.
Frings is nursing a rib injury, while Baumann has hurt his knee.
The German team leaves Monday for games in Japan on Dec. 16, South Korea on Dec. 19 and Thailand on Dec. 21.
"The trip is very important for our team building," Klinsmann said Sunday. "We won't train very much at the end of year, but we'll be taking the games very seriously. The Asian teams are looking forward to these games. It's important for us to leave a good impression."
In four games under Klinsmann, Germany has beaten Austria, Iran and Cameroon and draw 1-1 with World Cup champion Brazil.
Four-time NBA all-star DeMarcus Cousins arrived in Taiwan with his family early yesterday to finish his renewed contract with the Taiwan Beer Leopards in the T1 League. Cousins initially played a four-game contract with the Leopards in January. On March 18, the Taoyuan-based team announced that Cousins had renewed his contract. “Hi what’s up Leopard fans, I’m back. I’m excited to be back and can’t wait to join the team,” Cousins said in a video posted on the Leopard’s Facebook page. “Most of all, can’t wait to see you guys, the fans, next weekend. So make sure you come out and support the Beer
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