Tottenham and Slovakian champions Zilina qualified for the Champions League for the first time on Wednesday, while Auxerre, Ajax and FC Copenhagen also reached the group stage of Europe’s top club competition.
Peter Crouch scored a hat-trick as Tottenham thrashed Swiss side Young Boys 4-0 to overturn a 3-2 first-leg away deficit and reach the top flight in Europe for the first time since 1962.
“It’s fantastic, it’s been a long time since Tottenham played in the top European competition,” Spurs manager Harry Redknapp said. “To get in the main competition and the group stages ... when I came here that was the dream for me.”
PHOTO: REUTERS
Zilina beat Sparta Prague 1-0 to build on their 2-0 victory in the Czech Republic last week and Auxerre beat nine-man Zenit St Petersburg 2-0 to advance 2-1 on aggregate and reach the Champions League for the first time since 2002.
Ajax, four-time European champions, beat Dynamo Kiev 2-1 after being held 1-1 last week. Copenhagen qualified on away goals by beating Rosenborg 1-0 at home to secure a 2-2 aggregate result.
FC Braga, Werder Bremen, Hapoel Tel Aviv, FC Basel and Partizan Belgrade advanced to the group stage on Tuesday.
Tottenham’s victory ensures England was the only country with four teams yesterday’s draw, with Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United securing automatic qualification.
In the first leg in Berne, Young Boys scored three goals inside 30 minutes to nearly end Tottenham’s Champions League bid at the first hurdle, but after reducing the deficit by two goals last week, Spurs responded with an electric start of their own at White Hart Lane.
Crouch headed in Gareth Bale’s corner in the fifth minute, while Jermain Defoe scored a contentious second in the 32nd after controlling a through-ball from Bale with his left hand.
Bale provided again for Crouch as the England striker headed in a corner from the Wales midfielder in the 61st. Crouch completed his hat-trick from the penalty spot in the 78th after Bale was fouled by Senad Lulic, who received a second yellow card.
In Zilina, Momodou Ceesay scored in the 18th minute after latching onto Emil Rikle’s pass as Sparta Prague failed to qualify for the Champions League group stage for five straight seasons.
“We are extremely happy that we got there,” Zilina coach Pavel Hapal said.
Ajax are back among Europe’s elite for the first time since 2005.
Luis Suarez turned Jan Vertonghen’s free-kick past goalkeeper Maxim Koval just before halftime and Mounir El Hamdaoui added Ajax’s second in the 75th after receiving a pass from substitute Miralem Sulejmani.
Veteran striker Andriy Shevchenko scored a late penalty for Dynamo.
“This is really important for the club,” Suarez said. “It’s been a long time since we made it to this stage. I am really happy. With this group, we can win everything.”
In Copenhagen, Solvi Ottesen rose high in the penalty area to head in Claudemir’s long throw in the 33rd minute and settle the Scandinavian derby against Rosenborg of Norway.
In Auxerre, Zenit St Petersburg, who won the first leg 1-0, were 2-0 down by the time they had two players sent off in the second half.
Goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeev handled the ball outside the area in the 65th and was dismissed. Fourteen minutes later, defender Tomas Hubocan picked up a second yellow card for handling the ball.
Cedric Hengbart jumped higher than the Zenit defense to head home Benoit Pedretti’s corner in the ninth minute.
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