Liverpool and Chelsea underlined the strength of the English Premiership on Tuesday, booking Champions League quarter-final berths after sending Real Madrid and Juventus packing.
Liverpool went through in a canter, thoroughbreds Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres both on target — the England skipper netting a brace on his 100th European appearance — while Andrea Dossena added the coup de grace as nine-time champions Real were humbled 4-0 at Anfield.
The Merseysiders, five-time winners, were wrapping up a 5-0 aggregate win following their opening gambit of a 1-0 win at the Bernabeu.
PHOTO: AFP
Torres, reveling as a former Atletico star in tormenting his old rivals from the other side of the Spanish capital, bagged the opener on 16 minutes and from then on the hosts toyed with a poor Real side on the latter’s first visit to Anfield.
Gerrard then netted from the spot and added a fine half-volley for good measure after the restart before Dossena bagged a late fourth.
“The first 30 minutes we were awesome,” Gerrard said.
“It was a fantastic team performance,” he told ITV television.
Torres was delighted to put one over Real.
“Today was a massive game for us. It was very important to play tonight, it doesn’t matter the pain,” he said in allusion to his recent injury woes.
Liverpool’s Spanish keeper Jose Reina told Spanish television that “it’s not easy to come to Anfield — the result was not Real Madrid being poor but Liverpool winning deservedly.”
Chelsea had to dig a little deeper into their reserves of resilience in drawing 2-2 away to Juventus, where Guus Hiddink’s Londoners twice came from behind on the night, having edged the first game 1-0 at Stamford Bridge.
Michael Essien and Didier Drogba found the target to steady the ship after Vincenzo Jaquinta had opened the scoring for the Italians on 19 minutes, David Trezeguet flipping a perfectly weighted high pass into his stride.
Chelsea roared back and, after Guanluigi Buffon in the Juve goal had somehow clawed a Didier Drogba freekick off the line, Essien bundled in the crucial away goal equaliser on 43 minutes after Buffon had parried a deflected Frank Lampard shot.
In a frantic finale, Juve had Giorgio Chiellini dismissed to leave them a man down and chasing two goals to advance.
No sooner had the Londoners gained a numerical advantage than substitute Julien Belletti handled an Alessandro Del Piero freekick and Del Piero himself rolled a nonchalant penalty past Petr Cech.
However, Belletti made amends in style eight minutes from the end in taking a pass from Michael Ballack and threading the ball in for the lurking Drogba to fire home from close range.
The loss meant Juve manager Claudio Ranieri’s bid to pull one over on his former club was thwarted.
Also on Tuesday, Bayern Munich humiliated Sporting Lisbon by winning 7-1 in Bavaria for a 12-1 aggregate triumph — the first time a side has netted a round dozen over two legs as the Germans bettered Lyon’s old mark of 10-2 against Werder Bremen in the 2004/2005 season.
Germany striker Lukas Podolski struck twice as the hosts more than made up for the absence of Luca Toni and Franck Ribery, who had both netted twice in Portugal.
“We wanted to show from the first second who was the boss,” said delighted Bayern coach Jurgen Klinsmann.
In Tuesday’s other match, Spain’s Villarreal edged out Greek side Panathinaikos 2-1 away to advance 3-2 on aggregate, Argentine midfielder Ariel Ibagaza scoring one goal and then turning provider for Joseba Llorente’s winner for the “yellow submarine.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier