Souleymane Camara scored in the 90th minute to earn 10-man Montpellier Herault a 2-2 draw at Schalke 04 in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday.
Although a man down, Montpellier had several dangerous attacks late in the match and Camara finally fired a curling volley past Lars Unnerstall from the edge of the penalty area.
“It really hurts, but what can you do?” Schalke captain Benedikt Hoewedes said.
Photo: AFP
Montpellier had taken an early lead, but Schalke went ahead through a penalty by Klaas-Jan Huntelaar in the 53rd minute.
Julian Draxler scored the equalizer for Schalke and earned the penalty when he fell awkwardly after being downed by Garry Bocaly, who was sent off. Draxler was carried off on a stretcher with a suspected broken left wrist.
Karim Ait-Fana had put Montpellier ahead in the 13th minute as they earned their first point in Group B, while Schalke have one win and one draw.
Ait-Fana struck a perfect volley right on the edge of the box into the top corner to beat Unnerstall.
Draxler collected a perfectly timed through ball, rounded goalkeeper Geoffrey Jourdren and slotted home to tie the match in the 26th minute.
Draxler made a spectacular solo effort past four Montpellier defenders before being brought down by Bocaly. While Draxler was being taken off the field, Huntelaar made no mistake from the spot.
In Lisbon, Colombian James Rodriguez hit a swerving left-footed winner with only five minutes to go to hand Porto a 1-0 victory over Paris Saint-Germain and give the Portuguese champions maximum points in UEFA Champions League Group A after two rounds.
Porto bossed PSG from the start, pressed high and controlled most of possession, relegating the Ligue 1 runners-up to occasional counterattacks.
Although Rodriguez’s goal came late, there were plenty of chances for both sides.
Porto could have gone ahead earlier through busy midfielder Joao Moutinho and Rodriguez, who both missed several chances.
PSG’s pricey striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who turned 31 on Wednesday, also had two excellent chances of his own, which he wasted.
In Anderlecht, Belgium, Eliseu scored two great goals to lead Malaga past RSC Anderlecht 3-0 and give the Spanish club the lead in Group C of the UEFA Champions League.
On the stroke of halftime, the Portuguese international unleashed a long-range left-foot volley to break open the game and after Joaquin had scored a 57th-minute penalty, Eliseu put the game beyond doubt with a looping lob out of reach of Anderlecht goalkeeper Silvio Proto.
The victory extended Malaga’s good start to the season after financial worries over the summer looked set to weaken the club.
In Kiev, Oleg Blokhin made a winning start in his first UEFA Champions League match as Dynamo Kiev coach, the Ukrainians beating Dinamo Zagreb 2-0.
Dynamo Kiev midfielder Oleg Gusev found the net in the third minute and Dinamo Zagreb defender Josip Pivaric scored an own-goal in the 33rd from Taye Taiwo’s cross into a crowded box.
Blokhin signed a four-year contract at Kiev last month and will shortly relinquish his duties as Ukraine national team coach.
Kiev have three points from two games in Group A, while Zagreb remain without a point.
Shohei Ohtani and his wife arrived in South Korea with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates yesterday ahead of their season-opening games with the San Diego Padres next week. Ohtani, wearing a black training suit and a cap backwards, was the first Dodgers player who showed up at the arrival gate of Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. His wife, Mamiko Tanaka, walked several steps behind him. As a crowd of fans, many wearing Dodgers jerseys, shouted his name and cheered slogans, Ohtani briefly waved his hand, but did not say anything before he entered a limousine bus with his wife. Fans held placards
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EYEING TOP SPOT: A victory in today’s final against Storm Hunter and Katerina Siniakova would return 38-year-old Hsieh Su-wei to the world No. 1 ranking Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens on Thursday secured a spot in the women’s doubles finals at the BNP Paribas Open after dispatching Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) at Indian Wells. Hsieh and her Belgian partner Mertens, who won the Australian Open in late January, coasted through the first set after breaking their opponents’ serve twice, but found the going tougher in the second. Both pairs could only muster one break point over 12 games, neither of which were converted, leaving the set to be decided by a tiebreaker. Hsieh and Mertens took a 6-3 lead,
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